Required reading for anybody in mining at this link:  the full text and supporting exhibits of the ”The Report on the August 6, 2007 Disaster at Crandall Canyon Mine.”    The Salt Lake Tribune does a good job of summarizing.  The key difference between Democrats and Republicans is once again in stark view.  Two quotes that establish this:

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Mining-made money news from South Africa, just to prove it is not all power failures.  From the Globe & Mail (I quote and shorten):

Three South African names appear on this year’s Forbes World Billionaireslist: Nicky Oppenheimer, Anton Rupert and mining magnate Patrice Motsepe — this country’s first black billionaire.  Born in Soweto and then trained as a lawyer, Motsepe became the first black partner at Johannesburg’s Bowman Gilfillan law firm before starting a low-level contracting business doing mine work, Forbes.  Motsepe bought low-producing gold-mine shafts in 1994 and turned them profitable “using lean, mean management style”.  Since then he has built $875-million mining conglomerate African Rainbow Minerals, with interests in a wide swathe of minerals: precious metals (platinum and its cousins), nickel, chrome, iron, manganese and coal.

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