October 30, 2016

FBI Director Begins Briefing Congressional Leaders on Email Review

Source: ABC

FBI Director James Comey has reached out to top Republicans and Democrats in Congress to brief them on the agency's review of newly discovered emails in connection to the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, congressional sources tell ABC News.

Comey spoke Saturday with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican of Virginia, and the panel's ranking Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan.

Others leaders in Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Adam Schiff, both of California, have requested briefings.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/fbi-director-james-comey-begins-briefing-congressional-leaders/story%3fid=43173237

October 25, 2016

Current Florida Vote Totals

Not sure if this has been posted but here is a good website for the vote totals in Florida.

https://countyballotfiles.elections.myflorida.com/FVRSCountyBallotReports/AbsenteeEarlyVotingReports/PublicStats

October 7, 2016

Comcast gets closer to nationwide data caps with expansion in 18 states

Source: Arstechnica



Comcast is bringing data caps to a bunch of new cities beginning November 1, roughly doubling the number of markets where it imposes data limits and overage fees. As before, customers will be allowed to use 1TB of data per month before being hit with overage charges of $10 for each additional 50GB. For an extra $50 per month, customers can purchase unlimited data.

Prior to the expansion, Comcast said it was enforcing data caps in 14 percent of the markets in its 39-state territory. Instead of immediately imposing caps nationwide, Comcast has been steadily rolling them out to new markets since 2012, usually adding a few at a time and gauging customer feedback before expanding to more. The caps were originally 300GB a month, but as more customers started exceeding them, they were boosted to 1TB (downloads and uploads combined) this year. Comcast says more than 99 percent of its customers use less than a terabyte of data.

Here are the newly capped areas, according to a Comcast FAQ: Alabama (Dothan); California; Colorado; Florida (North Florida, Southwest Florida and West Palm); Southeastern Georgia; Idaho; Indiana (Indianapolis and Central Indiana, Fort Wayne and Eastern Indiana); Kansas; Michigan (Grand Rapids/Lansing, Detroit, and Eastern Michigan); Minnesota; Missouri; New Mexico; Western Ohio; Oregon; Texas (Houston); Utah; Washington; and Wisconsin.

Comcast's data caps already existed in these markets: Alabama (excluding Dothan); Arizona; Arkansas; Florida (Fort Lauderdale, the Keys, and Miami); Georgia (excluding Southeastern Georgia); Illinois; Northern Indiana; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Southwestern Michigan; Mississippi; Tennessee; Eastern Texas; South Carolina; and Southwest Virginia.

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/comcast-gets-closer-to-nationwide-data-caps-with-expansion-in-18-states/

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This is a direct move to counter the cord cutters.

October 4, 2016

Solar panels surpass coal-fired electricity in previously ‘unthinkable’ feat

Source: Independent

Solar panels generated more electricity than coal in the past six months in a historic year for getting energy from the sun in the UK, according to a new analysis.

Research by the Carbon Brief website found that solar generated nearly 7,000 gigawatt hours of electricity between April and September, about 10 per cent more than the 6,300GwH produced by coal during the same period.

The figures represent a dramatic turnaround in the UK’s electricity supplies.

The first ever day when solar produced more than coal was only on 9 April – when there was no coal-fired electricity for the first time since 1882. But then May became the first ever month when this happened.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/solar-panels-electricity-coal-power-stations-uk-sun-a7344326.html

October 3, 2016

HSV-2 Swift Destroyed Off Yemeni Coast By Anti-Ship Missile

Source: The Drive



The futuristic looking HSV-2 Swift, an ex-U.S. Navy experimental high-speed logistics catamaran now being utilized by the UAE government, was struck by a missile on the evening of October 1, according to multiple reports. The ship was operating near the Yemeni port of Mokha located on the northeastern edge of the Mandeb Strait, a narrow and strategic body of water that connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Iranian-backed Houthi rebel fighters have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Destabilizing the Mandeb Strait could be part of a larger Iranian-backed regional strategy, one that has the potential to inflict significant economic pain on Saudi Arabia and the west. And this isn't the first time a Sunni Arab coalition vessel has been attacked by the Shiite anti-Yemeni government group; a year ago, two coalition ships were supposedly sunk by Iranian-supplied anti-ship missiles. A third ship was struck just months before that.

The video below supposedly shows the attack. The missile launch does appear to be that of an anti-ship missile, and the ship on fire does appear to be an HSV-2. A massive explosion is shown when the supposed missile impacts the ship; it likely detonated the fuel onboard, plus any flammable or explosive cargo. The ship's aluminum hull and commercial ship design standards offer little resilience to an anti-ship missile attack, and the HSV-2 is not equipped with a close-in weapon system (CIWS) capable of fending off such attacks.

This attack is another reminder of the growing danger that anti-ship missiles represent—especially those that are more frequently being obtained by unpredictable non-state actors. This strike in particular is reminiscent of the 2006 attack on an Israeli Sa'ar 5 class corvette by another Iranian-backed group, Hezbollah, that had been supplied with a similar anti-ship missile system. Although in that case, the targeted ship was armed with a CIWS, albeit one that was not fully activated at the time.




Read more: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5404/hsv-2-swift-destroyed-off-yemeni-coast-by-anti-ship-missile

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Nobody is talking about Yemen.