State Cuts Philosophical Objections from Vaccine Exemptions
By Dr. Mercola
The ethical principle of informed consent means that you have the human right to be fully informed about the benefits and risks of a medical intervention and be free to make a voluntary choice about whether or not to take the risk. The right to make an informed, voluntary vaccination choice for yourself (or your minor child) is an inalienable human right because vaccination, like any medical intervention, involves taking a risk that could cause harm or even death.
There is no guarantee that receiving a vaccine (or any other drug) will not cause a complication and lead to serious injury – or that it will protect you from the disease it is supposed to prevent.
But across the United States, people are fighting for their right to choose not to be injected with vaccines against their will because vaccine exemptions have come under constant attack.
SUMMARY:
State health officials in New Mexico changed the vaccine exemption form so that philosophical objections are no longer an option. The New Mexico Department of Health simply said they changed the form because the prior one allowed for “misinterpretation of the law.” From now on, parents will be required to state their religious beliefs in order to qualify for a non-medical vaccine exemption for their children to attend school.
California, Washington and Vermont also recently made it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinations.
Those who promote forced vaccination often cite incorrect data as “support,” such as the false statement that recent pertussis outbreaks could be traced back to unvaccinated populations.
The right to make an informed, voluntary vaccination choice for yourself (or your minor child) is an inalienable human right because vaccination, like any medical intervention, involves a risk that could cause harm or even death.
For the rest of the story, go to: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/23/vaccine-exemption-requirements.aspx?e_cid=20121023_DNL_art_2
Last updated on October 22, 2012 at 12:06 am EDT by in5d Alternative News
In the past 24 hours, mass UFO sighting videos were uploaded to YouTube. The first one was uploaded on October 20, 2012 and occurred in Mansfield, UK while the second video was uploaded on October 21, 2012 and was recorded the previous day from a car near downtown, Dallas, Texas.
There were no additional comments from the person who video recorded the Mansfield UFO, but the person who recorded the Texas UFO stated the following. When asked where the video was recorded, the YouTube user by the name of Raul_Molinar stated, “Downtown 30 y 35 como a las 7pm. I was traveling west on I 30.” When asked who recorded the video, Raul stated, “I did yesterday COMO VAN A SER AVIONES?? Veanlo bien.” “How could they be airplanes? I saw them clearly.”)
Rubble from a collapse house covered a car after the 2009 l’Aquila earthquake in Italy. Image: Alessandro Giangiulio / Flickr.
By this time, many of you have seen the verdict for the people on trial over the 2009 l’Aquila earthquake. Judge Marco Billi sentenced the seven scientists, engineers and officials to 6 years in prison – 2 years more than the prosecution suggested – over the manslaughter charges stemming from the earthquake that killed over 300 people. The trial has been a flashpoint for geoscientists as many have seen it as a trial over the idea that geologists should be able to “predict” earthquakes. This is somewhat misleading as the prosecution was actually claiming the seven on trial were accused of “having carried out a superficial analysis of seismic risk and of having provided false reassurances to the public.” This doesn’t mean they got a “prediction” wrong, but rather that they didn’t fully understand the risk for l’Aquila, thus put people’s lives in danger. However, this whole trial, in its misguided attempt to find someone to blame for a blameless geologic event, sends the wrong message about how to deal with hazard assessment and mitigation.
Now, I’m not going to rehash the whole trial – you can see some excellent summaries in Nature News and The New York Times. However, let’s get this straight. Say what you will about whether the seven adequately did their job in mitigating against the disaster, but convicting them of manslaughter? That is what makes this case so egregious. If you look up a definition of manslaughter (and it varies from country to country), this likely falls under the criminally negligent variety, where “a defendant intentionally puts himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable.” This suggests that the seven on trial caused the 308 deaths from the l’Aquila earthquake by ignoring the facts presented. People who survived the earthquake and the prosecution claim that the scientists should have known a large earthquake was coming because there had been many small earthquakes that preceded it (so-called “foreshocks“, which have not been proven to be predictive of a larger earthquake). However, the scientists and officials instead said that the earthquakes were releasing energy on local faults, reducing the threat of an earthquake. Chris Rowan does a great job explaining why both of these positions are wrong. It all boils down to the idea of what could actually be deduced from the facts in hand. Should government officials and scientists have proclaimed that an earthquake would occur in days when no data existed that confirmed this? (And no, saying that the earthquake did occur is not evidence – that is hindsight.)
So, we’re back in the same quandry we often find ourselves when it comes to geologic hazard mitigation – prediction versus probability. Indeed, the city of l’Aquila does lie in a region of high seismic hazard for Italy. This was not a fact that was hidden from the public by government officials – in fact, most people who live in Italy should know that earthquakes are not uncommon across the country. However, even with swarms of small earthquakes, there is no way that any seismologist could say that yes, a large earthquake will happen within a week*. That is the realm of prediction. Alternatively, they should not rule out the possibility that a large earthquake could occur in a region of high seismic hazard. So, the answer is, yes, at some point, a large earthquake will occur here. It isn’t satisfying, but it is what the data will bear. However, that isn’t what people want to hear. They want to know “should I leave my house tomorrow? Tuesday?” Without such an imposed deadline, many times the perceived threat just fades into the background of everyday life, like car accidents or fires.
Why did this trial occur if the science really says there wasn’t anything that could be done? I think it is clearly so that people can have someone to blame. The 7 on trial did say something that can be perceived as reassuring mere days before the tragedy, so clearly, they are the reason those 308 people died. Have a big, flashy show trial and charge them with something frightful. Now, that’ll get people’s attention and solve this problem … forever! Of course it won’t – in fact, it might make proper hazard assessment and discussion even more difficult in Italy because people will be afraid that if they get it wrong, they too will go to prison. It might lead to more “false positives” that erode the public’s confidence in the ability to judge the hazard risk in areas around the country. You’ve create a situation where hazard geoscientists are caught between a literal rock and a hard place – don’t emphasize enough and something happens, you go to prison; overemphasize and cause panic, you lose the public’s trust. I hope this doesn’t lead to a culture of “geologic malpractice”, where any discussion of hazards and mitigation are scrutinized after the fact so that lawyers can go after whomever they want to place the blame. Even more startling, there are threats that the Italian government will cut the positions of many scientists in the INGV who are monitoring active volcanoes and other hazards, leaving the country even more vulnerable. It is a perfect recipe for an epic tragedy to occur.
If you do live in a region of high geologic hazard, then you should be prepared for such eventualities, and if you can’t make the preparations, then you should be making sure your government does. By that I mean infrastructure improvements, emergency planning and response, evacuation plans – all the things that you, personally, can’t tackle. You can prepare your home and family as much as you can, but there has to be buy-in across all levels. However, when it comes down to it, a lot of the responsibility falls on the public to be better educated about the hazards they face. Some of that needs to come from the officials and scientists in charge – better outreach, clearer statements, more research – but some of this needs to come from the grassroots where children learn science and hazards. I do know one thing: Witch hunts to find someone to blame for a tragedy have never brought anyone back.
* It is sad that this case also involves the charlatans who claim to be able to “predict” earthquakes. If Giampaolo Giuliani hadn’t bandied about his unsubstantiated claims about radon being used to predict the earthquake – which caused undue panic and uncertainty that the government tried to quell – would these seven be potentially headed to jail?
MAGNETIC FROTH: Sunspot AR1598 has quieted down since unleashing an X1-class solar flare on Oct. 23rd. It might be the calm before the storm. The sunspot is still large and apparently potent, as shown in this image captured by amateur astronomer Sergio Castillo of Inglewood,California:
Castillo used a telescope capped with a “Calcium K” filter tuned to the light of ionized calcium atoms in the sun’s lower atmosphere. Calcium K filters highlight the bright magnetic froth that sometimes forms around a sunspot’s dark core. AR1598 is very frothy indeed.
Magnetic froth does not necessarily herald an explosion, but it does guarantee a photogenic sunspot
Last update: October 24, 2012 at 4:39 pm by By Ashish Khanal
Very strong earthquake in Costa Rica
A magnitude 6.6 earthquake at a depth of 35km (USGS) struck the same area where the M7.6 hit a month ago. The values given by USGS differs a lot from the ones that gives Ovsicori, the geological survey from Costa Rica, saying it was a magnitude 5.8 at a depth of 6km. We’ll wait to see if they change their values.
There are reports of fallen objects and broken windows in the zone of La Cruz, Guanacaste and Sámara but, luckily, there’s no heavy damage or injured people. Update- USGS lowered the magnitude from 6.6 to 6.5 but at a more dangerous depth of 20km.
Update- Some areas in San Ramon in Alajuela and Guanacaste were without electricity.
CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class solar flares and a 20% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. The most likely source is active sunspot AR1598
Hurricane warnings are flying for Jamaica and Eastern Cuba, as an intensifying Hurricane Sandy plows north-northeast at 13 mph towards landfall. The Hurricane Hunters are in the storm, and measured surface winds of hurricane strength–75 to 80 mph–in the storm’s northeast quadrant near 9:25 am EDT. Sandy’s pressure at the time of the 9:28 am center fix was 973 mb, and the temperature in the eye had warmed 2°C since the 7:48 am fix, a sign of strengthening. Intermittent rain squalls from Sandy have been affecting Jamaica since Monday night, and Kingston, Jamaica has picked up 2.12″ of rain from Sandy as of 9 am EDT. Winds in Jamaica have been below 20 mph as of 10 am EDT, but will start to rise quickly in the next few hours. The Hurricane Hunters found a large 55 mile-diameter eye that was open to the WNW this morning, and it is likely that Kingston will receive high winds of 55 – 65 mph from the western eyewall, which will cause considerable damage to Jamaica’s capital. The eastern tip of Jamaica will likely see the eye pass overhead, and will receive the strongest winds. The eye is beginning to appear on visible satellite loops, and Sandy is showing an increasing degree of organization as it closes in on Jamaica. Sandy is the tenth hurricane of the 2012 hurricane season, which is now tied for eighth place for most hurricanes in a year since record keeping began in 1851.
Figure 1. Morning microwave satellite image of Tropical Storm Sandy taken at 8:45 am EDT. The large 55-mile diameter eye was just south of Jamaica. Image credit: Navy Research Lab, Monterey.
Near-term forecast for Sandy
Wind shear is forecast to be in the moderate range and ocean temperatures will be a warm 28°C through Thursday morning, which will favor intensification. However, Sandy doesn’t have much time left over water before it encounters the high mountains of Jamaica this afternoon, which should interrupt the intensification process. The strongest Sandy is likely to be at landfall in Jamaica is a 90 mph Category 1 hurricanes. After encountering Jamaica, Sandy won’t have time to re-organize much before making landfall in Eastern Cuba near 10 pm EDT tonight, and the strongest the storm is likely to be then is a 90 mph Category 1. Passage over the rugged terrain of Cuba should weaken Sandy’s winds by 20 – 30 mph, and it will be difficult for the storm to regain all of that lost strength in the face of the high wind shear of 20 – 30 knots it will encounter Thursday and Friday. I expect that Sandy will be a 60 – 70 mph tropical storm as it traverses the Bahamas.
Figure 2. MODIS satellite image of Tropical Storm Sandy taken at 11:45 am EDT Tuesday, October 23, 2012. At the time, Sandy had top winds of 50 mph. Image credit: NASA.
Sandy: a potential billion-dollar storm for the mid-Atlantic and New England
On Friday, a very complicated meteorological situation unfolds, as Sandy interacts with a trough of low pressure approaching the U.S. East Coast and trough of low pressure over the Central Atlantic. The Central Atlantic trough may be strong enough to pull Sandy northeastwards, out to sea, as predicted by the official NHC forecast, and the 06Z GFS, 00Z UKMET, 00Z Canadian, and 06Z HWRF models (00Z is 8 pm EDT, and 06Z is 2 am EDT.) However, an alternative solution, shown by the 00Z ECMWF, 06Z GFDL, and 06Z NOGAPS models, is for Sandy to get caught up by the trough approaching the Eastern U.S., which will inject a large amount of energy into Sandy, converting it to a powerful subtropical storm that hits the mid-Atlantic or New England early next week with a central pressure below 960 mb and sustained winds of 60 – 70 mph. Such a storm would likely cause massive power outages and over a billion dollars in damage, as trees still in leaf take out power grids, and heavy rains and coastal storm surges create damaging flooding. The full moon is on Monday, which means astronomical tides will be at their peak for the month, increasing potential storm surge flooding. A similar meteorological situation occurred in October 1991, when Hurricane Grace became absorbed by a Nor’easter, becoming the so-called “Perfect Storm” that killed 13 people and did over $200 million in damage in the Northeast U.S.
Figure 3. The Wednesday morning 06Z (2 am EDT) run of the GFS model was done 20 times at lower resolution with slightly varying initial conditions of temperature, pressure, and moisture to generate an ensemble of forecast tracks for Sandy (pink lines). These forecasts show substantial uncertainty in Sandy’s path after Friday, with a minority of the forecasts taking Sandy to the northeast, out to sea, and the majority now predicting a landfall in the Northeast or mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. The white line shows the official GFS forecast, run at higher resolution.
When might Sandy arrive in the mid-Atlantic and New England?
The models vary significantly in their predictions of when Sandy might arrive along the U.S. coast. The 06Z NOGAPS model predicts Sandy’s heavy rains will arrive on North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Saturday, then spread into the mid-Atlantic and New England on Sunday. The 00Z ECMWF model predicts that Sandy’s rains won’t affect North Carolina until Sunday, with the storm making landfall in New Jersey on Monday night. The GFDL model is in-between these extremes, taking Sandy ashore in Delaware on Monday morning. The trough of low pressure that Sandy will be interacting with just moved ashore over the Western U.S. this morning, and got sampled by the 12Z (8 am EDT) set of land-based balloon-borne radiosondes for the first time. One of the reasons the models have been in such poor agreement on the long-term fate of Sandy is that the strength of this trough has not been very well known, since it has been over the ocean where we have limited data. Now that the trough is over land, it will be better sampled, and the next set of 12Z model runs, due out this afternoon between 2 pm – 4pm EDT, will hopefully begin to converge on a common solution. I’ll have an update this afternoon once the 12Z model runs are in.
Figure 4. Morning satellite image of Tropical Storm Tony.
Tropical Storm Tony forms in the middle Atlantic Tropical Storm Tony formed Tuesday night in the middle Atlantic, becoming the nineteenth named storm of this very busy 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. Tony has a modest area of heavy thunderstorms, as seen on visible satellite images, but is battling dry air , wind shear, and ocean temperatures that have fallen below 26°C. Tony will not threaten any land areas, and will likely be dead by Thursday night.
Tony’s place in history
Tony is the Nineteenth named storm of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, tying this year with 1887, 1995, 2010, and 2011 for third busiest Atlantic season since the HURDAT historical data base began in 1851. With five more weeks left before the November 30 end of hurricane season, 2012 is likely to move into second place for most named storms before the year is out, as all six prior Atlantic hurricane seasons with nineteen or more named storms have had at least one named storm form after October 24. Here, then, is a list of the seven busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record:
2005 (28 named storms) 1933 (20 named storms, according to a new re-analysis) 2012 (19 named storms) 1887 (19 named storms) 2010 (19 named storms) 2011 (19 named storms) 1995 (19 named storms)
It’s pretty remarkable that we’ve now had three straight years with nineteen named storms in the Atlantic. But how many of these storms might not have been counted in the pre-satellite era (before 1960)? Here’s a list of weak and short-lived storms from 2010 – 2012 that stayed far out sea, and would likely have gone unnoticed in the pre-satellite era:
Even if we correct for the possible over-count of approximately two named storms per year during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 hurricane seasons, compared to the pre-satellite era, there is nothing in the HURDAT data base that compares to the type of activity we’ve seen the past three years. One likely contributor to the unusual string of active years is the fact hurricane season has gotten longer, perhaps due to warming ocean temperatures. I discussed in a 2008 blog post that Dr. Jim Kossin of the University of Wisconsin published a 2008 paper in Geophysical Research Letters titled, “Is the North Atlantic hurricane season getting longer?” He concluded that yes, there is a “apparent tendency toward more common early- and late-season storms that correlates with warming Sea Surface Temperature but the uncertainty in these relationships is high”.
Jeff Mastersfrom: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
A tropical wave embedded in a large trough of low pressure (Invest 99L) covers a large portion of the Central Caribbean between Hispaniola and the northern coast of South America. This storm has the potential to be a dangerous rainfall threat for Haiti, Jamaica, and eastern Cuba. The disturbance is headed west at less than 5 mph, is over very warm waters of 29°C, and is in a moist environment. 99L has a large area of heavy thunderstorms that have a good degree of spin. These thunderstorms are beginning to organize into spiral bands, as seen on visible satellite loops. However, the amount of heavy thunderstorm activity is about the same as yesterday, and there are no signs of a surface circulation. An Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate 99L this afternoon, but I expect this flight will be rescheduled for later.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of Invest 99L.
Forecast for 99L Wind shear is a low 5 – 10 knots, and is forecast to be in the low to moderate range, 5 – 20 knots, through Tuesday. This should allow for some steady development of 99L, and there has been a good deal of model support for 99L becoming a tropical depression by Wednesday. Steering currents favor a continued slow westward movement for 99L through Tuesday. On Wednesday, a strong trough of low pressure to the north of 99L is expected to turn the storm to the north or north-northeast, which should put 99L in the vicinity of Jamaica on Wednesday and Eastern Cuba on Thursday. By Friday, 99L should be in the Central or Eastern Bahamas. It is unclear at this point whether or not the trough pulling 99L to the north will be strong enough to pull the storm all the way out to sea to the northeast; a narrow ridge of high pressure has the potential to build in over 99L late this week and force the storm west-northwest, with a potential threat to the western Bahamas and U.S. East Coast by next weekend. In their 8 am EDT tropical weather outlook, NHC gave 99L a 70% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone by Tuesday morning. 99L will be capable of bringing heavy rains of 5 – 10 inches, with isolated amounts of up to 15 inches in mountainous areas, to Jamaica and Haiti, Monday through Wednesday. Heavy rains will begin on Tuesday in Eastern Cuba, and spread northwards into the Central and Eastern Bahamas by Wednesday.
Invest 90L in the middle Atlantic
A tropical wave (Invest 90L) about 830 miles east-northeast of the northernmost Lesser Antilles Islands is headed west-northwest at about 10 mph. The disturbance has a small amount of heavy thunderstorms, as seen on visible satellite images, and has gotten tangled up with an upper-level low pressure system. This upper-level low is providing 90L the spin it needs to become a tropical cyclone, but is also pumping cool, dry air into the disturbance, which will keep any development slow over the next few days. Wind shear is a moderate 10 – 20 knots, and is forecast to remain in the moderate range until Tuesday. This may allow for some slow development of 90L before it encounters high wind shear of 20 – 30 knots on Tuesday night through Thursday. None of the reliable computer models develop 90L into a tropical cyclone, and it’s unlikely that 90L will affect any land areas. In their 8 am EDT tropical weather outlook, NHC gave 90L a 30% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone by Tuesday morning.
The next name on the list of Atlantic tropical storms for 2012 is Sandy.
Earthquake overview : 5 minutes to midnight a strong shallow earthquake struck at close distance from King City, California. The earthquake was felt in a wide area.
Update 15:46 UTC : So far the area has been hit by 5 aftershoks ranging from M2.5 to M3.5
Update 15:30 UTC : Until now, good news, as we have heard nothing about damages or injuries.
Update : – The population in this region resides in structures that are highly resistant to earthquake shaking, though some vulnerable structures exist.
– Recent earthquakes in this area have caused secondary hazards such as landslides and liquefaction that might have contributed to losses
Update : The people living in King City and Greenfield are expected to have felt a moderate shaking or MMI V
29000 people will have felt a moderate shaking
194000 people a light MMI IV shaking
1.73 million people a weak to very weak shaking
Update : There are NO reports of damage
Update : The epicenter has been set at 26 km from King City, the closest significant community. The area is mainly a wilderness area.
Update : Epicenter below a wilderness area near State route 198. Closest community King City (based on preliminary data)
The earthquake occurred at 11:55 local time.
Shaking map courtesy USGS
A rather strong earthquake just occurred 60 km east of Monterey, California
Closest cities Soledad and Coalinga. In a broader view in between Monterey and Fresno, California
The preliminary Magnitude of M5.5 has been weakened to M5.1. Normally a M5.3 in California at a depth of 9.4 km may only lead to minor damage like fallen objects, cracks in walls, etc.
This is the strongest earthquake in many months in this part of California.
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : M5.3
UTC Time : 2012-10-21 06:55:09 UTC
Local time at epicenter : 2012-10-20 23:55:09 UTC-07:00 at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 9.4 km
Geo-location(s) :
26km (16mi) ENE of King City, California
34km (21mi) E of Greenfield, California
48km (30mi) WNW of Coalinga, California
Last updated on October 20, 2012 at 3:40 am EDT by in5d Alternative News
In a Twitter tweet, Billionaire Donald Trump stated, ‘I’ll be making a major announcement on President Obama next week–stay tuned!’
Trump has been on the record for exposing President Barack Obama’s alleged birth certificate fraud, so speculation would infer that his tweet has something to do with this issue.
The timing of Trump’s tweet coincides with the current presidential debate sessions between Democrat Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.
Donald Trump is a registered Republican in the State of New York.
In this writer’s opinion, this “announcement” is “smoke and mirrors” to keep the general public distracted from what is really going on behind the scenes, which may involve some sort of false flag perhaps involving the Federal Reserve as their 100 year charter expires at the end of the year or some kind of false flag in the Middle East.
The following video might be a possible false flag scenario that’s being covered up by the smoke and mirrors of Trumps latest tweet:
by Gregg Prescott, M.S.
