Dead geese drop out of the sky in Denmark during lightning storm

Thursday night a farmer in southern Denmark had an unusual experience, though these events in recent years are happening on a frequent basis. During a storm he suddenly saw something come through the air as reported by Jyllandsposten:

© Brian Rostgaard Andersen

Farm manager Frank Berndt (left) og farmer Peter Rostgaard Andersen with some of the dead geese, that yesterday rained down on the farm

The second after a big crash, followed by several more crashing sounds. After a few sesonds he had counted 10 crashing noises.

"I thought it was roof tiles, that had blown off during the storm, but when it cleared up and we went outside, we saw that it was barnacle geese. Dead barnacle geese," says Brian Rostgaard Andersen.

The farmer and his manager Frank Berndt, found within a diameter of 150 to 200 meter 24 dead barnacle geese. Some of them were lying on the roof of the farm and some of them had penetrated the roof tiles.

The farmer contacted senior climatologist John Cappelen, who had following explanation:

"I imagine that the geese have flown in formation, possibly on their way south, and have flown into an electrical field. They have perhaps had a bit of electrical current go through them, but probably not much, as they are visibly burnt. Or they can have been knocked unconscious by the chok effect that happens by a lightning strike explains John Cappelen who adds that it doesn't take much current to knock the heart of a geese out.

Here is a link to a video of the farmer explaining the event and showing the damage to the roof of his barns. For an understanding of the likely cosmic reasons for this type of event and why it is happening a lot these years, read the book by Pierre Lescaudron called Earth changes and the human-cosmic connection.

Aeneas Georg

I'm a train manager and ticket inspector on international train routes in Europe. I've been reading SOTT since 2003 and first joined the editorial team in 2007 after realizing I had to do something about the deteriorating state of our world. I'm particularly interested in 'following the money' to track the machinations of the deceptive ones in high places. I suppose you could say I've taken my chosen profession to a new level, and now with SOTT I'm "inspecting the flows" of people and money in more ways than one.

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Useful idiots for the Empire: How Greenpeace wrecked one of the most sacred places in the Americas

Greenpeace can get a little aggressive with its tactics. That doesn't mean that it's not fighting for a good cause! But after the organization marched through the sacred Nazca Lines etched into the Peruvian desert for a climate protest, capturing it all on camera with a drone, you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking. Greenpeace isn't the best at thinking things through, though.

In fact, this is far from the first time Greenpeace has screwed up, though this latest episode of Greenpeace Being Reckless is particularly atrocious. The environmental group has a long, long history of insensitive or poorly-staged actions, ranging from big - like helping to destroy a GMO crop designed to prevent blindness - to small - like papering a small town with posters the day after a community cleanup.

In case you missed io9's post about the outrage, here's a recap: The environmental activists wanted to send a message to government officials from around with world who are attending a climate change conference in Lima this week. So they headed to the Nazca Desert, one of the most famous and archaeologically significant sites in Peru, to lay down a bunch of yellow banners that spelled out: "TIME FOR CHANGE! THE FUTURE IS RENEWABLE! GREENPEACE."

The message is practically on top of the hummingbird geoglyph, which is now surrounded by their footprints. And the irony is thick. The future may be renewable, but these fragile, ancient drawings are not.

"This has been done without any respect for our laws," Peru's deputy minister for culture Luis Jaime Castillo told the press, calling Greenpeace's actions "thoughtless, insensitive, illegal, irresponsible and absolutely pre-meditated." He explained further: "It was done in the middle of the night. They went ahead and stepped on our hummingbird, and looking at the pictures we can see there's very severe damage. Nobody can go on these lines without permission - not even the president of Peru!"

Castillo, unfortunately, isn't exaggerating when he says the damage was severe. This is what the hummingbird drawing looked like before Greenpeace stormed in:

This is what the hummingbird drawing looks like now - the area outlined in red is the damage caused by Greenpeace:

Aside from the blatant insensitivity at play, the reason Greenpeace's actions were so atrocious has everything to do with how fragile the drawings and surrounding ecosystem are. The Nazca drawings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, date back to between 400 and 650 AD, when the area was inhabited by the ancient Nazca culture. The Nazca people created them by digging long, shallow trenches that became figures - spiders, monkeys, fish, birds, etc. - when viewed from above. They stand out from the rest of the landscape because the gravel on top of the soil is dark, but when the rocks are removed, light-colored clay is exposed.

Greenpeace activists stomping around the drawings is kind of like walking on a Mondrian painting while it was still wet. While most of the hummingbird form itself appears to be intact, the footprints uncovered the light soil underneath, wrecking the once pristine archaeological site. Greenpeace did trod on one of the lines.

As Patricio Murillo points out in a blog post about the tragic destruction, folks like researchers wear special shoes to avoid leaving traces. And as you can see above, the Greenpeace activists just wore regular old sneakers. Because why bother researching how to treat a sacred site when you want to dump your organization's advertisement on top of it and take drone selfies.

"[The drawings] are absolutely fragile. They are black rocks on a white background. You walk there and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years," Castillo said. "And the line that they have destroyed is the most visible and most recognized of all."

Greenpeace is sorry. Nevertheless, Peru is opening a criminal investigation and trying to keep the activists from leaving the country. The country says it will press charges of "attacking archaeological monuments" that are punishable by up to six years in prison. Greenpeace is really sorry.

This is far from the first time Greenpeace has gotten in trouble for doing something dumb. The organization actually does this kind of thing not infrequently. Back in 2006, Greenpeace caused a big stink about how electronics were polluting the environment, but then it turned out that their report on which companies was the worst distorted the facts significantly. This is around the same time that they also took flak for being a bunch of luddites, crowing about how technology was ruining the world. And then there was the time they tried to tell the native people of Greenland what they should eat.

This isn't the first time the lines have been damaged. It might be the most absurd, though. You'd think that an organization as huge and famous as Greenpeace, a group of activists dedicated to saving the planet, would think twice before stomping around one of the most sacred spots in the Americas. You'd think someone would speak up and question the sensibility of such a plan. But hey, Greenpeace got the headlines - just not the headlines it wanted. [io9]

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Did a 1 ton meteorite hit on December 1st? Explorer says one-tonne meteorite is lying on bottom of lake in Russia's Karelia

© wikipedia

Did a one ton meteorite hit lake Vygozero on December 1st 2014?

A meteorite weighing about one tonne is lying buried deep in sand on the bottom of Lake Vygozero in Russia's northwestern republic of Karelia, Vadim Chernobrov, the leader of a team of researchers, said on Friday.

"A celestial body flew from the easterly direction, from a low population area at about 08:00 a.m. Moscow time on December 1. This meteorite was making practically no noise while falling and the most loud sound it produced was the sound of it hitting the ice," Chernobrov, who heads the Kosmopoisk (Space Research) association, told journalists, adding that this was the reason that so few people had witnessed its fall when it was still dark. "Divers managed to sense the object under sand on the lake's bottom."

Magnetic field distortion has been registered over the meteorite crater. Divers failed to lift the heavy object from the bottom because of thin ice. "All observable factors - the flight direction, whop, specific crater testifying to the velocity of the fall - all indicate that it was a meteorite," he said. "It is a unique case having no precedents in the history."

A probable meteorite fall in Lake Vygozero was reported on December 2, when two fishermen called to the local emergencies services to say they had seen a trace along the coastline as though something had plowed up the soil. The trace ended in a clearing in the lake's ice. They said one of them had come closer to the clearing to see a crater but he could not tell exactly what was down there - the bottom was sandy and covered with silt. When rescuers reached the scene, they also saw the trace and a 12-metre bank caving and a clearing in the lake. An amateur diver said he had seen a four-metre crated on the bottom, but no objects in the vicinity.

Meteorite attacks hit the headlines after the notorious meteorite fall near Russia's Urals city of Chelyabinsk on February 15, 2013. A 10,000-tonne meteorite with a diameter of about 17 meters entered the Earth atmosphere and broke into numerous fragments, the bulk of which fell down in Russia's Urals Chelyabinsk region. A shock wave that followed the fall of the meteorite broke windows in more than 4,700 houses in Chelyabinsk. Astronomers said the Chelyabinsk meteorite was the biggest celestial object to hit the Earth since the Tunguska event in 1908, when a huge meteorite exploded over Russia's Siberia. In 2013, the meteorite shower was observed in five Russian regions - the Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions, and in the republic of Bashkortostan.

Eyewitnesses said they had first seen a bright flash in the sky and had heard the sound of explosion. More than 1,500 people, including more than 300 children, sought medical help after the incident, and as many as 69 people, including 13 children, were hospitalized.

Several fragments of the meteorite have already been found. The biggest one measuring 12 centimetres in diameter was lifted from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul. These fragments are now being studied by scientists.

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Rare Tornado Rips Through Los Angeles

A rare tornado ripped through South Los Angeles on Friday, causing damage over nearly 20 blocks.

Roofs were torn off an apartment complex and two homes, according to the National Weather Service, which verified the tornado was a category EF0.

"We looked outside and everything was flying down the sidewalk," one resident said. "It was really wild."

[embedded content]

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Berkeley protests: Undercover police officer pulls gun after being caught infiltrating group and instigating looting and violence

© Michael Short/

One of last nights undercovers pointing his gun directly at freelance photographer Michael Short

An undercover California highway patrol officer who had infiltrated protests against police violence in Oakland pulled a gun on demonstrators after his and his partner's cover was blown.

According to accounts in the and the , a few dozen protesters remaining from larger demonstrations yelled that two men in plainclothes were police.

"Just as we turned up 27th Street, the crowd started yelling at these two guys, saying they were undercover cops," the freelance photographer Michael Short told the newspaper on Thursday.

UNDERCOVER COPS in march just exposed - they were instigators of looting. Pulled gun on protestors when discovered. #berkeleyprotests

- Morpheus Ravenna (@MorpheusRavenna) December 11, 2014

© Noah Berger/Reuters

A plainclothes California highway patrol detective, who had been marching with anti-police demonstrators, aims his gun at protesters on Wednesday night

The Berkeley Daily Planet reported that the two men tried to walk away, but the couple of dozen remaining protesters "persisted, screaming at the two undercover cops". The Planet said that an officer "pushed a protester aside". The demonstrator allegedly pushed back and was tackled and handcuffed.

"Somebody snatched a hat off the shorter guy's head and he was fumbling around for it. A guy ran up behind him, knocked him down on the ground. That guy jumped backed up and chased after him and tackled him and the crowd began surging on them," Short said.

He told the that the officer pulled a small baton out, then a gun, after the crowd started "surging" them. The reported that more officers quickly moved in to disperse demonstrators.

In a stunning admission, the patrol's Golden Gate Division told the San Francisco Chronicle that officers had been dressing like and walking with protesters since the first demonstration on 24 November, attempting to gather intelligence to stop highway shutdowns.

Protesters have flooded the streets of the San Francisco Bay area for weeks, since grand juries in New York and Missouri refused to indict police officers for shooting unarmed black men. Many protests have shut down highways, and some in Berkeley have turned violent, resulting in fires and looting.

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Facts on estrogen dominance

Estrogen is not a single hormone. It is a class of hormones and hormone like compounds that have estrogenic properties.

There are human estrogens, animal estrogens, synthetic estrogens, phytoestrogens, and xenoestrogens.

The three human estrogens are estradiol, estrone, and estriol, and belong to the steroid hormone family.

"Estrogen dominance" is a term coined by Harvard physician John R. Lee M.D. It describes a condition where a woman can have deficient, normal, or excessive estrogen but the body has little or no progesterone to balance its effects. Signs and symptoms of estrogen dominance include:

• Speeds up the aging process


• Weight gain around middle


• Allergies


• Autoimmune disorders


• Breast cancer


• Breast tenderness


• Cold hands and feet as a symptom of thyroid dysfunction


• Decreased sex drive


• Muscle and joint pain


• Depression


• Dry eyes


• Early onset of menstruation


• Uterine cancer


• Fat gain in abdomen, hips, and thighs


• Fatigue


• Fibrocystic breasts


• Foggy thinking


• Hair loss


• Headaches


• Hypoglycemia


• Increased blood clotting


• Infertility


• Irregular menstrual periods


• Insomnia


• Memory loss


• Mood swings


• PMS


• Ovarian cysts


• Pre-menopausal bone loss


• Sluggish metabolism


• Thyroid dysfunction


• Uterine cancer


• Uterine fibroids


• Water retention and bloating

Causes of estrogen dominance syndrome

Besides the natural hormonal fluctuations of menopause, certain lifestyle choices and conditions can also contribute to estrogen dominance syndrome, especially a low-fiber diet, overloading the liver with internal toxins, and absorbing toxins from the environment.

Overloading the liver

The liver is a filter of sorts. It detoxifies our body, protecting us from the harmful effects of chemicals, elements in food, environmental toxins, and even natural products of our metabolism, including excess estrogen.

Anything that impairs liver function or ties up the detoxifying function will result in excess estrogen levels, whether it has a physical basis, as in liver disease, or an external cause, as with exposure to environmental toxins, drugs, or dietary substances.

Estrogen is produced not only internally but also produced in reaction to chemicals and other substances in our food. When it is not broken down adequately, higher levels of estrogen build up.

In like manner, the estrogen dominance syndrome can be evoked in women by too much alcohol, drugs, or environmental toxins, all of which limit the liver's capacity to cleanse the blood of estrogen.

Environment

We live in an estrogenic or feminizing environment. Certain chemicals in the environment and our foods, one of which is DDT, cause estrogenic effects. Although banned in 1972, DDT, like its breakdown product DDE, is an estrogen-like substance and is still present in the environment.

Chlorine and hormone residues in meats and dairy products can also have estrogenic effects.

In men, the estrogenic environment may result in declining quality of sperm or fertility rates.

In women, it may lead to an epidemic of female diseases, all traceable to excess estrogen/deficient progesterone.

In industrialized countries such as the United States, diets rich in animal fats, sugar, refined starches, and processed foods can lead to estrogen levels in women twice that of women of third-world countries.

We are constantly exposed to xenobiotics (petrochemicals), xenohormone-laden meats and dairy products, forms of pollution, and prescriptions for synthetic hormones (such as the 'The Pill' and Premarin).

It isn't too surprising that estrogen dominance has become an epidemic in industrialized countries. Over exposure to these potentially dangerous substances has significant consequences, one of which is passing on reproductive abnormalities to offspring.

Estrogen "deficiency" that is quite often used as an explanation of menopausal symptoms or health problems is not supported by sound research. When a woman's menstrual cycle is functioning normally, estrogen is the dominant hormone for the first two weeks and is balanced by progesterone, which is the dominant hormone for the latter two weeks.

After menopause, estrogen is still present and continues to be manufactured in fat cells. Most menopausal women have too little estrogen to support pregnancy, but sufficient amounts for other normal body functions. Few women are truly deficient in estrogen; most become progesterone deficient.

If estrogen becomes the dominant hormone and progesterone is deficient, excess estrogen becomes toxic to the body. Progesterone has a balancing effect on estrogen.

Supplemental estrogen, even in the slightest amounts, in a woman who doesn't need it, or who has no progesterone to balance it, can lead to many serious side effects.

When a woman complains of even the slightest menopausal type symptoms, conventional medical doctors will recommend a prescription of estrogen.

It is irresponsible and dangerous for doctors to be routinely prescribing estrogen for any type of pre-menopausal or menopausal symptom, and this practice can have tragic consequences.

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Shooting reported at Portland, Oregon high school

© Google Maps

A shooting at a Portland, Oregon high school on Friday has left at least three people injured, according to the Associated Press.

Portland's KPTV-News reported on Friday afternoon that at least two people were shot by a gunman or gunmen outside the city's Rosemary Anderson High School. A third victim was also taken to an area hospital, the Fox affiliate reported, citing a Portland fire official. It's not clear if he was shot as well.

Despite initial reports, police say the shooting did not take place inside of the school, but rather just outside on Killingsworth Court, according to KOIN 6. Police also believe the shooting may be gang-related.

All three victims were breathing and conscious when they were transported to the hospital. Although these three were injured, they were able to run into the school while emergency teams arrived at the scene.

According to , a 17-year-old was shot in from the back and a female student was shot in the chest. Their condition is not immediately known.

Details on potential suspects have not yet been released, but the AP reported that an individual sought in connection with the shooting reportedly fled the school. The shooter did not enter the school at all, officials said.

"This doesn't appear to be an active shooter running around shooting people," said police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson to the .

Rosemary Anderson, a community-based alternative high school, has an annual enrollment of roughly 190 students, according to its website. The site for the Portland Public School District says the city's "most at-risk and disadvantaged youth" are educated at the facility, through "positive reinforcement and creating an academic atmosphere founded upon a nurturing yet challenging classroom environment."

Two other schools - Jefferson High School and PCC Cascade - were on lockdown following news of the shooting, KPTV reported. In June, a freshman student died following a shooting at Reynolds High School in the Portland area.

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