Link: http://www.wmur.com/news/24854535/detail.html

CONCORD, N.H. -- Army officials said 750 soldiers from the New Hampshire Army National Guard will be heading to Kuwait as part of Operation New Dawn. Maj. Gen. William N. Reddel III announced the deployment Thursday morning. It is the largest deployment of National Guard forces from New Hampshire since World War II.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/no-safe-harbor-on-gulf-co_b_698338.html

Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water -- they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/02-6

My apologies to T. S. Eliot, but September, not April, is the cruelest month. Before 9/11/2001, there was 9/11/1973, when Gen. Pinochet toppled the Allende government in Chile and ushered in a 17-year reign of terror. More recently, on 9/15/2008, Lehman Brothers went bust and torpedoed the global economy, turning what had been a Wall Street crisis into a near-death experience for the global financial system.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/02-8

A nationwide series of rallies kicked off in Texas this week urging Congress to block legislation proposed in the wake of the BP oil disaster that would regulate the oil and gas industry more strictly and eliminate tax breaks. The organizer of the Rally for Jobs events? The American Petroleum Institute (API), with help from other industry groups including the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association and the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Link: http://www.truth-out.org/epa-results-show-contaminated-water-wyoming-fracking-zone62912

Government scientists have found that private water walls in Pavillion, Wyo. are polluted with toxic chemicals used in the controversial gas drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — and residents have been told not to drink from them.

Link: http://205.186.133.84/rs/2010/0902/bp-ultimatum-drill-funds-dry/

Oil giant BP is telling lawmakers that if it isn't allowed to get new offshore drilling permits in the Gulf, it will not be able to afford to pay for the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the New York Times reported in its Friday edition. The Times reports the UK-based oil giant is on the warpath against a drilling reform bill passed by the House earlier this summer that would effectively bar BP from getting new drilling permits in the US.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/economy/148061/less_work%2C_more_life/

We need to come up with a different approach to work. A few years ago, after finding-my way through an incredible jumble of bicycles outside her building, I met with a University of Amsterdam professor who studies work-life balance. She recounted a conversation she'd just had with the manager of the Dutch division of an American company who had come to Holland from the United States two years earlier:

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26287.htm

There once was the “American Dream.” To be sure, first this dream was American in the true sense of the word, pertaining to the entire continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Before long, however, the adjective “American” was hijacked and applied with appalling single-mindedness to the US exclusively. This operation has been so successful that today to most people in the world, “American” is synonymous with “US”.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26289.htm

President Barack Obama’s nationally televised speech from the White House Oval Office Tuesday night was an exercise in cowardice and deceit. It was deceitful to the people of the United States and the entire world in its characterization of the criminal war against Iraq. And it was cowardly in its groveling before the American military.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/154477/its-better-over-there

In Germany, a strong social safety net keeps people from plunging into the abyss. Why are we so averse to having that security in the United States?

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m69431&hd=&size=1&l=e

around 150 to 175 Israeli settlers, many armed, constructed an illegal outpost at a new location in the Baqa’a valley, east of Hebron, and attempted to harass a Palestinian family. A large group of settlers constructing an illegal near Road 60 The Israeli army did not attempt to disperse the settler gathering but later did partially raze the area on which the makeshift outpost buildings had been built – near the illegal Israeli settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina, on the opposite side of Route 60, the road where four settlers were killed the previous night...

Link: http://www.truth-out.org/us-venezuela-links-teeter-brink-dragging-a-prudent-foreign-policy-with-it62914

Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, Caracas has maintained a testy relationship with the United States, a nation which Chávez views as the primary threat to his dream of reproducing the Bolivarian Revolution. Although the U.S. and Venezuela experienced a very brief honeymoon once President Barack Obama assumed office, the two countries’ relationship has quickly begun to sour. Responding in kind, Chávez has vamped up his anti-imperialist rhetoric in recent months, repeatedly taking stabs at the U.S. government for meddling in Latin American affairs.

Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/029639_organic_produce_health.html

Mainstream nutritionists often claim that conventional produce is no different than organic produce. But a new study recently published in the online, peer-reviewed journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) One proves otherwise, revealing that organic fruits and vegetables pack a greater nutritional punch and produce better, healthier soil than their conventional counterparts.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/09/02/us/AP-US-Gulf-Rig-Explosion.html?_r=2&emc=na

An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP's undersea well spilled after a rig explosion.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7976594/Stephen-Hawking-God-was-not-needed-to-create-the-Universe.html

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

Link: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/09/02/1152936/spokane-deputy-in-fatal-shooting.html

The Spokane County sheriff's deputy who killed the 74-year-old owner of a Spokane Valley nursery last week hasn't been questioned about the shooting because he went on vacation...

Link: http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/09/jeff-gates-when-will-we-see-the-next-mass-murder/

Here’s a news flash for Tel Aviv: it’s not a sign of respect when the bulk of humanity views you as psychopathic. The concerns of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are misplaced. The legitimacy of Israel is no longer threatened. It’s already lost. Long gone. Kaput.