FURTHERMORE. . .

Raw Story - Insurgents in Afghanistan are using heroin as a tactical weapon against US forces, hoping to emulate the drug problems that plagued US troops in Vietnam and Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, says a new investigative report. At the Daily Beast, author Gerald Posner cites "an internal US intelligence report" that "concluded [insurgents] are targeting American troops in an effort to undermine their effectiveness, while raising cash to pay for new recruits and weaponry." The report brings up inevitable comparisons to the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s and the Soviet war in Afghanistan that ended two decades ago. It also raises the possibility that the conflict in Afghanistan will spill over into the streets of America as returning troops bring their addictions home with them. . . "In Vietnam we ended up with a nearly 20 percent addiction rate to China White," Posner said. (A 1971 report on drug addiction among US soldiers in Vietnam pegged the number closer to 15 percent.) "Soviet soldiers came back from Afghanistan with addictions," Posner continued, noting that Russia is now the world's largest per-capita user of heroin "as a result of those returning Soviet fighters."

Reuters - Japan's swimmers could face lifetime bans if they dye their hair, wear an earring or have brightly decorated fingernails. Japanese officials have launched a strict policy to prevent athletes turning up for competitions looking more like rock stars than swimmers. Male and female swimmers caught sneaking into each others rooms at Japanese training camp, where the sexes have separate sleeping quarters, will also find themselves in hot water. . . Rule-breakers face being booted out of the team and sent home in disgrace, a suspension of up to five years or even a lifetime ban.

Pam Martens, Counterpunch - The financial tsunami unleashed by Wall Street's esurient alchemy of spinning toxic home mortgages into triple-A bonds, a process known as securitization, has set off its second round of financial tremors. . . Three plain talking judges, in state courts in Massachusetts and Kansas, and a Federal Court in Ohio, have drilled down to the "straw man" aspect of securitization. The judges' decisions have raised serious questions as to the legality of hundreds of thousands of foreclosures that have transpired as well as the legal standing of the subsequent purchasers of those homes, who are more and more frequently the Wall Street banks themselves. Adding to the chaos, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has made rule changes that will force hundreds of billions of dollars of these securitizations back onto the Wall Street banks balance sheets, necessitating the need to raise capital just as the unseemly courtroom dramas are playing out.

Denver Channel - Rocky Mountain Health Plans said it will no longer consider obesity a "pre-existing condition" barring coverage for hefty infants. The change comes after the insurer turned down a Grand Junction 4-month-old who weighs about 17 pounds. . . The company attributed the boy's rejection for health coverage to a "flaw in our underwriting system."

Note to DC readers - Your editor will be among those featured in a WETA-TV documentary on Washington in the 1960s that airs November 2 at 9 pm. Gives a real sense of the town in that era.