Shutdown means no new beer from craft brewers

The federal government shutdown could leave America's craft brewers with a serious hangover.

Stores will still offer plenty of suds. But the shutdown has closed an obscure agency that quietly approves new breweries, recipes and labels, which could create huge delays throughout the rapidly growing craft industry, whose customers expect a constant supply of inventive and seasonal beers.

Mike Brenner is trying to open a craft brewery in Milwaukee by December. His application to include a tasting room is now on hold, as are his plans to file paperwork for four labels over the next few weeks. He expects to lose about $8,000 for every month his opening is delayed.

"My dream, this is six years in the making, is to open this brewery," Brenner said. "I've been working so hard, and I find all these great investors. And now I can't get started because people are fighting over this or that in Washington. ... This is something people don't mess around with. Even in a bad economy, people drink beer."

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB, is a little-known arm of the Treasury Department. The agency will continue to process taxes from existing permit holders, but applications for anything new are in limbo.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Shutdown-means-no-new-beer-from-craft-brewers-4880428.php

It's last call, for now, at famous Cliff House

Rosemary Hubbard, her husband and their son drove up from their San Mateo home Tuesday evening to watch the sunset at Cliff House while they slurped down bowls of clam chowder.

As of Wednesday, they won't be able to do that anymore - at least for the foreseeable future.

In an unexpected turn of events, the famous San Francisco Cliff House restaurant was ordered to close after dinner service ended around midnight on Tuesday.

The restaurant and bar, a popular destination for tourists and locals alike with its fine cuisine and stunning views of the ocean, are concessionaires of the federal Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And like so many businesses on park land across the country, they are required to close during the partial federal shutdown.

The 150-year-old San Francisco icon was closed for a bit last week, but stubbornly reopened on Monday and Tuesday. Then the National Park Service caught wind of the defiance and ordered it closed again.

http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/It-s-last-call-for-now-at-famous-Cliff-House-4880359.php

Rights Advocates Suing U.N. Over the Spread of Cholera in Haiti

Source: NYTimes

Advocates for Haitian victims of the deadly cholera epidemic that first afflicted their country three years ago said they were taking the extraordinary step on Wednesday of suing the United Nations, asserting that the organization’s peacekeeping force in Haiti was responsible for introducing the disease through sewage contamination from its barracks.

The lawsuit, which the advocates said they would file in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, will be the strongest action they have taken in pressing the United Nations to acknowledge at least some culpability for the outbreak of cholera, a highly contagious scourge spread through human feces that had been largely absent from Haiti for 100 years.

Cholera has killed more than 8,300 Haitians and sickened more than 650,000 in the earthquake-ravaged country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, since it first reappeared in October 2010. While the worst of the epidemic has eased, it still kills about 1,000 Haitians a year.

United Nations officials have said they are committed to eradicating the cholera, but they have not conceded that the organization was inadvertently responsible for causing it. They also have asserted diplomatic immunity from any negligence claims, a position that has deeply angered many Haitians who consider it a betrayal of United Nations principles.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/world/americas/rights-advocates-suing-un-over-the-spread-of-cholera-in-haiti.html?hp&_r=0

Covered California shares usage stats week after launch

Staffers for California’s new health care exchange pushed back on Tuesday against reports of glitches in the first week of open enrollment and instead claimed the system was exceeding expectations.

Californians completed more than 16,000 household applications for health plans through Covered California between Oct. 1 and Oct. 5, the first week of enrollment under the Affordable Care Act. The exchange’s call center also received roughly 59,000 phone calls, according to figures released Tuesday by the exchange, and more than 400 businesses have signed up for the Small Business Health Options Program.

Peter Lee, executive director of the exchange, said he was releasing the info to “silence doubters and prevent misinformation” a week after news outlets had reported Covered California’s website crashed for several hours on the first day of open enrollment last week.

Average wait times for phone calls exceeded 30 minutes, although they eventually dropped down to four minutes by end of the week.

The exchange also appeared to fumble when a Covered California board member claimed more than five million people had visited the web site on the first day. That number was later shown to be closer to 650,000. “Has it been perfect? Absolutely not,” said Lee. “Is it pretty darn good? Yes.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/10/08/covered-california-shares-usage-stats.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2013-10-08

California Health insurance shoppers suffer sticker shock

Shelly Ross of San Francisco was looking forward to the opening of the new health insurance marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act because she was hoping to get a better deal.

But now that she's seen her options, Ross is disappointed. Turns out she earns slightly too much money to qualify for federal financial aid to help her buy coverage in the state's exchange, called Covered California. And because policies have to be upgraded to comply with the new law, her rates are going up nearly 10 percent.

"Every plan is going to cost more than what I pay now. And what I pay now is ridiculous," said Ross, 47, who owns a cat-sitting business called Tales of the Kitty and pays more than $400 a month for her insurance. "It's a great thing for some people, but it's certainly not helping me."

Ross is among the millions of Americans who buy coverage on their own, but must find new coverage because the health law has rendered their current policies outdated. But Ross, like many others, is not finding the plans sold through the Affordable Care Act to be particularly affordable.

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Health-insurance-shoppers-suffer-sticker-shock-4872701.php

As more go solar, grid users forced to pay up

Solar power's surging popularity in California is forcing non-solar homeowners to pay a larger share of maintaining the electricity grid, according to a long-awaited state study released Thursday.

That additional cost could range from $75 million to $254 million per year, depending on how it's calculated. By 2020, it could range from $359 million to $1.1 billion per year, according to the study from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The study analyzes a question at the heart of an ongoing fight between utility companies and the solar industry. And it could help reshape the way solar homeowners get paid for the excess electricity they send to the grid.

Businesses and homeowners who install solar panels not only slash their monthly utility bills, they also receive compensation for any extra electricity they place on the grid under a system known as "net energy metering."

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/As-more-go-solar-grid-users-forced-to-pay-up-4847318.php

Washington Post blames Richmond, CA for keeping Wall Street up at night

The Washington Post took a closer look at Richmond and the California city's efforts to use eminent domain to fight foreclosure blight.

The newspaper described Richmond's use of eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages, often sliced and diced and locked up in mortgage-backed securities, as the "nuclear option."

The Washington Post accurately notes that as Richmond goes, so goes the nation. Or at least its hardest-hit communities such as those in North Las Vegas, San Bernardino and Chicago. We can be certain the floodgates will open if Richmond is successful in fighting foreclosure blight by requiring investors to recognize the losses they've incurred on mortgages by forcing their sale, at today's valuations, through eminent domain.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and Deustche Bank, in their roles as bond trustees, have sued the city of Richmond over its attempt to use eminent domain in this fashion. Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin was locked out of the bank's San Francisco headquarters in August when she attempted to meet with Wells Chairman and CEO John Stumpf.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/10/foreclosures-richmond-eminent-domain.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2013-10-07&page=all

Richmond’s rules: Why one California town is keeping Wall Street up at night

Very early on a Wednesday morning in September, the city council of Richmond, Calif., did something that no American city had yet managed: It voted for a plan to wrest underwater mortgages from the hands of Wall Street, depriving investors of tens of millions of dollars in order to save borrowers from foreclosure.

For communities across the land -- North Las Vegas, San Bernardino County, Calif., Chicago -- where too many are stuck with house payments beyond what they can afford, this was the nuclear option. While those cities backed away, Richmond hit the button.

The mechanism? Eminent domain, the power of the government to seize private property for public use, which has not typically been used to help poor neighborhoods. After five years of the federal government gently nudging banks to forgive homeowners debt they took on in better days, cities have found a legal weapon the financial industry truly fears.

The stability of those housing markets, and the banks that profit from it, could depend on the fallout.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/05/richmonds-rules-why-one-california-town-is-keeping-wall-street-up-at-night/

Why the Intelligence Community Seeks to Understand Online Communication Tools & Technologies

Recently published news articles discuss the Intelligence Community’s interest in tools used to facilitate anonymous online communication. The articles accurately point out that the Intelligence Community seeks to understand how these tools work and the kind of information being concealed.

However, the articles fail to make clear that the Intelligence Community’s interest in online anonymity services and other online communication and networking tools is based on the undeniable fact that these are the tools our adversaries use to communicate and coordinate attacks against the United States and our allies.

The articles fail to mention that the Intelligence Community is only interested in communication related to valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and that we operate within a strict legal framework that prohibits accessing information related to the innocent online activities of US citizens.

Within our lawful mission to collect foreign intelligence to protect the United States, we use every intelligence tool available to understand the intent of our foreign adversaries so that we can disrupt their plans and prevent them from bringing harm to innocent Americans.

In the modern telecommunications era, our adversaries have the ability to hide their messages and discussions among those of innocent people around the world. They use the very same social networking sites, encryption tools and other security features that protect our daily online activities.

Americans depend on the Intelligence Community to know who and what the threats are, and where they come from. They want us to provide policy makers with the information necessary to keep our nation safe, and they rightfully want us to do this without compromising respect for the civil liberties and privacy of our citizens.

Many of the recent articles based on leaked classified documents have painted an inaccurate and misleading picture of the Intelligence Community. The reality is that the men and women at the National Security Agency and across the Intelligence Community are abiding by the law, respecting the rights of citizens and doing everything they can to help keep our nation safe.

James R. Clapper
Director of National Intelligence

http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/63103784923/dni-statement-why-the-intelligence-community

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Shooting near U.S. Capitol - Alhurra TV #capitolshooting

Cycling in the US from a Dutch perspective