Twitter This Commentary In The News: Thanks this morning to ChrisM, my MP3Angel, for supplying the news and commentary audio files. Over the weekend there was a rescue breakthrough at the Chilean Gold and Copper mine with 33 miners trapped for two months. It will only take a couple of days o extricate them now and sunglasses are going to be suppled to prevent eye damage due to the extensive period of time these people spent underground. Studies on their survival under isolated conditions are sure to follow In Pakistan, the roads into the Khyber Pass 'reopen' but there were over 100 fuel trucks burned in the last two weeks... thirty of which were burned on the Southern route, far away from the scene of protest. The re-opening of roads for NATO's usage is apparently going to be subject to some restrictions... See "Pakistan Opens Khyber Crossing To NATO Supply Trucks But Issues Threats Over Hot Pursuit" by Juan Cole at Informed Comment for more on this. A video report from Newsy.com

Pakistan has decided to reopen the NATO supply line to Afghanistan it closed in response to a cross-border attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers.

That video report is below the fold... in the "Notes:" In Afghanistan, 'president' Hamid Karzai has confirmed talks with the Taliban. One of the government's selected negotiators is the former Afghan president removed from office on the advent of the Western invasion, and may be Talib affiliated. Which COULD be a good thing. Meanwhile, in America, anti-war protests increase, and achieve a certain "Focus" on who the REAL enemies are:

Veterans Shut Down Military Recruitment Station On Ninth Anniversary Of Afghanistan War October 8, 2010 On Oct. 6, March Forward! veterans led a dramatic shut-down of a military recruiting station to mark the ninth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan. The recruiting station is located in Hollywood, Calif. on the busy “Walk of Fame,” and is home to Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps recruiting offices. Over 100 people joined the veterans at the entrance, including students and military families chanting “Money for jobs and education—not for war and occupation,” and “Hell no, we won’t go, we won’t die for Texaco!” The protest forced the recruiting station to shut its doors for the day. . . . “We know that the majority of people who walk through these doors do so because they need a job, a college education, a home and health care,” said Mike Prysner, Iraq war veteran and March Forward! co-founder. “But veterans know first hand that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are not our enemies. Our enemies are those responsible for the rising unemployment rate and the rising tuition costs; those responsible for slashing social services; and those who evict us from our homes—that’s who we should be fighting.” In Full @ The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition

President Obama will meet with a conference of Mayors today to discuss an overhaul of the national transportation system in the U.S. and will be campaigning for Democratic candidates as well The Hungarian government will take control of the Aluminum plant that spilled massive amounts of toxic material partially because the plant employs thousands of people and the government is going to see to it's timely re-opening, and also because more of the dike that was damaged and gave way flooding the Danube Valley with toxic liquid is beginning to give way, which will potentially release material even more toxic. One More Thing.... From Firedoglake, on Mortgages, And Sausage Making:

The Foreclosure Crisis Explained – as Sausage Making

Then it went further, because you see these other groups had been buying all this previously tasty sausage, would eat it, and then repackage what came out the other end (derivatives, securities, funds, you name it). Yes, by this time they were selling shit. Not just any shit, but after the meat became toxic — e-coli poisoned shit. And because the original meat (aka ‘mortgage’) paperwork was long gone, nobody could figure out where the original meat came from or who it belonged to. Hell, by this point, they were losing track of where the sausage itself had come from. The only thing anybody knew is an ever increasing percentage of the sausage was becoming ever more toxic, and the resulting shit even more so. The sausage makers didn’t want to stop making money, so they just kept on making poisonous sausage. Meanwhile, they cast about for a way to deal with the problem. Giving up sausage making was unthinkable to them, so instead they decided to go after all the farmers.

Let’s pretend mortgages are meat. No, no — bear with me, this will make sense in a moment. In the olden days (circa 1990s), banks and other financial institutions would write mortgages, which were backed by the asset — known as the house and/or property. A single piece of meat — say a porterhouse steak. Sometimes that steak would be sold to another entity, and along with it all the paperwork showing where that steak came from, who was responsible for it, and so on. If there was a problem with the steak, you’d just go back to the farm where it came from, deal with it there. If the product was no good, the farm would go out of business (be foreclosed), but otherwise it was a nice situation, and although not hugely profitable, it still made money. Simple, huh? Then the banks and financial behemoths got a bright idea: Let’s turn all this meat into tasty sausage. We’ll just chuck it into the grinder, mix it all up, and let people buy pieces (shares) of the sausage. On average, it’ll be even better than meat because we can average everything — and we can throw in the nasty bits (the lousy properties, the poor risks), spice it up (give it AAA+ ratings) and it’ll all be the same. As long as our supply of meat is plentiful and keeps getting better and better, we’ll get filthy stinking rich. Suddenly there was huge demand for more and more meat — and the sausage makers were so eager to get more, they stopped asking where it came from or whether it was any good... In Full @ Firedoglake

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