President bush lifts ban on offshore drilling

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said today he's lifting a presidential ban on drilling for oil and natural gas on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, setting up a showdown with Congress over a separate ban it put in place in the 1980s.

``Today I've taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration of the OCS,'' Bush said in a statement at the White House. ``This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action by the U.S. Congress.''

Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress rejected the president's call, saying the move to end the moratorium would have no effect on prices and better options are available.

Pressure to permit drilling off the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean coastlines and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico has been building as oil and gasoline prices have surged to records.

Congress has barred drilling since 1983 through an annual Interior Department spending bill. That ban could be lifted if Bush refused to sign the department's fiscal 2009 appropriations measure that is now being debated in the House and Senate. The president's father, George H.W. Bush, imposed the existing executive moratorium.

Kevin Book, senior analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group in Arlington, Virginia, said Bush's announcement probably won't lead to new drilling. Congress can restore the moratorium, and governors, many of whom oppose drilling, would have the final word, he said in a research report.

``While this will put pressure on national lawmakers and local governments, it is not by itself sufficient to conquer a complex web of competing incentives,'' Book said.

Florida, California

Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist said last month he supports offshore drilling. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's Republican governor, opposes it, as do many East Coast governors.

``This is no short-term answer,'' New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat, told reporters in a conference call today. ``It would be stopped by most of the states on the east and west coasts.''

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, today reiterated his support for allowing more drilling, although he said the states should decide whether to open coastal areas. His Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, opposes it.

``If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks. But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither,'' Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement today.

Available Supply

About 17.8 billion barrels and 76 trillion cubic feet of gas are off-limits to drilling as a result of congressional and presidential moratoria, according to the Minerals Management Service, an agency of the U.S. Interior Department.

The oil available would amount to just over two years of U.S. consumption. Bush today said the potential reserve from the restricted areas would last almost 10 years.

Democrats have blocked congressional efforts to lift the ban, arguing that Republican estimates of available energy resources are overstated and doing so would have no short-term effect. Democrats in both chambers are pushing legislation to force oil companies to start drilling on 68 million acres where they already hold leases.

``We've given the oil companies ample opportunities to increase supply but they have failed to deliver,'' Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a press conference today.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, in a statement, called the Bush plan ``a hoax'' that will ``neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence.''

`Positive for Consumers'

``The prospect of considerable supply, even though it may take some time to bring on line, changes decisions of energy buyers, hedgers and investors,'' said William Whitsitt, president of the American Exploration and Production Council, which represents oil and gas companies. ``There is no doubt in my mind that this can have a positive effect for consumers.''

Jim Presswood, an energy advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he isn't sure Bush will veto a spending bill that includes the moratorium because of the effect on other programs. Blocking government spending presents ``a much deeper political problem,'' Presswood said.

Crude oil for August delivery rose 10 cents to settle at $145.18 a barrel at 2:45 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures reached a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11 and have risen 96 percent in the past year.

Suprise Suprise: oil price at new record high

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's only July, but it might be time to start loading up on blankets and sweaters. Oil spiked to a new trading record as hostilities rise between the West and Iran -- raising the likelihood that this winter's heating bills will be the priciest yet.

Crude oil's brief jump past $147 a barrel Friday arrived not only as the United States and Israel view Iran as a growing threat, but also as the U.S. dollar fell and worries erupted over possible supply disruptions in two other major oil-producing nations: Nigeria and Brazil.

Those factors contributed to new all-time trading highs in crude, gasoline and heating oil. It looks like $4-a-gallon gasoline might be here to stay, and that heating oil costs might cause further problems for consumers as the weather gets colder. Futures prices for natural gas turned lower Friday, but are still about twice as high as a year ago.

"If you think your gasoline bills are expensive now, wait till you get your home heating bill this winter," said Stephen Schork, an analyst and trader in Villanova, Pa.

Heating oil is used mostly in the Northeast United States; homes in most other parts of the country use natural gas. It's possible for people to cut back on heating as they do on driving, but it's not easy to slash the bill significantly.

"We've been building these ridiculous McMansions over the past few years. It's harder to trade in a McMansion than it is an SUV," Schork said. "But you can turn your thermostat down and throw on a sweater."

Political unrest in oil-producing regions -- along with production cutbacks by refineries and fairly resilient demand for diesel fuel -- have been keeping energy costs high.

Iran, which has long been under U.N. scrutiny for its uranium enrichment program, has been testing missiles this week, including a new missile capable of reaching Israel. On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned the oil-producing nation that the United States will defend its allies, and Iran responded with another missile launch. Neither the United States nor Israel has ruled out a military strike on Iran.

Then on Friday, there were rumors of Israeli military exercises taking place in Iraqi air space. The rumors were reportedly denied by Israeli officials.

"The war of words is quite heated," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. in Winchester, Mass. "And it raises the possibility of some serious problems in the area -- either the cutoff of Iranian exports, or Iranian strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz."

About 40 percent of the world's tanker traffic passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Brazilian oil workers were threatening to go on a five-day strike next week unless the state-run oil firm Petrobras gives them an extra day off at the end of their 14-day shift. Those supply worries added to those sparked Thursday when Nigeria's main militant group said it would resume attacks in the oil-rich region.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery soared to an all-time high of $147.27 a barrel before settling at $145.08, up $3.43. That's slightly below last Thursday's settlement record of $145.29 a barrel.

Meanwhile, the dollar weakened against other major currencies Friday. Because oil is bought and sold in dollars, oil's rise has not been as severe for countries with stronger currencies; meanwhile, traders have been using commodities as a hedge against the tumbling dollar.

In Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose to a trading record of $4.1586 before settling at $4.0766 a gallon, up 3.92 cents.

Gasoline futures also rose to a new trading record of $3.631 a gallon before finishing at $3.5632, up 5.23 cents.

The average U.S. retail price for gasoline was at $4.096 a gallon, down slightly from the record $4.108 a gallon reached on Monday, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.

Natural gas futures fell 39.6 cents to $11.904 per 1,000 cubic feet, but only after rising as high as $13.694.

On London's ICE futures exchange, Brent crude settled at $144.49, up $2.46.

Associated Press Writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

Crystal skulls believed to be made by the aztecs ruled a fake

How about this for the next instalment of the Indy franchise: "Indiana Jones and the Dodgy Antiques Dealer"?

Less than three months after the Quai Branly Museum in Paris discovered that a crystal skull once proclaimed as a mystical Aztec masterpiece was a fake, it is now the turn of the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution to find they were victims of skull-duggery.

Scientists from those two prestigious institutions on Wednesday said their crystal skulls were cut, honed and polished by tools of the industrial age, not by Mesoamerican craftsmen of yore.

"The skulls under consideration are not pre-Columbian. They must surely be regarded as of relatively modern manufacture," they say.

"Each skull was probably worked not more than a decade before it was first offered for sale."

The skulls became star exhibits in all three museums long before the Indiana Jones movie, "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," hit the movie screens this year.

The superstitious deemed them part of a collection of 12 skulls, endowed with healing or mystical powers, that dated back to the ancient culture of Central America.

Reuniting all 12 skulls, together with a putative 13th, would conjure up a massive power that would prevent the Earth from tipping over on December 21 2012, the "doomsday" in the Mayan calendar, according to one fable.

Legend-lovers had a bad day on April 18 when the Quai Branly said it had found grooves and perforations in its 11-centimetre (4.4-inch) -high quartz skull revealing the use of "jewellery burrs and other modern tools."

Doubts had also surfaced about the skulls in London and Washington, with art experts noting they were unusually large and with teeth markings that were exceptionally linear.

Seeking the verdict of science, researchers from those two museums examined the skulls with electron microscopes, looking at tiny scratches and marks left by the carving implements.

These were then compared with the surfaces of a crystal goblet, rock crystal beads and dozens of greenstone jewels known to be of genuine Aztec or Mixtec origin.

The study appears in the Journal of Archaeological Science, published by the Elsevier group.

The skull in the British Museum, purchased in 1897, is made of transparent rock crystal and is 15 centimetres (six inches) high. The Smithsonian skull, acquired by the museum in 1992, is of white quartz and measures 25.5 cms (10 inches) in height.

The investigators found that rotary wheels gave the British skull its sharp definition, a drill had dug out the nostrils and eyes, and diamond or corondum had been applied with iron or steel tools to smooth its upper surfaces.

As for the US skull, "faint traces" of tool marks remain, but these too are consistent with rotary wheels or grinding pads, the authors say.

No evidence has ever been found that rotary wheels were used to cut stones in Central America before the arrival of Europeans.

The investigators also found a black-and-red deposit in a tiny cavity of the Smithsonian skull. X-ray diffraction showed it to be silicon carbide -- a tough compound that only exists naturally in meteorites but is widespread in modern industrial abrasives.

Tiny irregularities in the quartz suggest the mineral for the London skull came from the European Alps, Brazil or Madagascar, while the quartz for the Washington skull had "many potential sources," including Mexico and the United States.

The sleuths pored over the archives of both museums, the Museum of Mankind in Paris, the French National Library, the Hispanic Society of America and newspaper records in a bid to find where the skulls came from.

The only documentation existing for the Smithsonian skull indicates it had been purchased in Mexico City in 1960. The scientists believe the skull was "probably manufactured shortly before it was purchased" there.

As for the British Museum and Quai Branly skulls, the paper trail leads to a French antiques collector by the name of Eugene Boban Duverge.

Boban had a shop in Mexico City and parlayed his way to the salons of Paris thanks to the 1863-67 "French Intervention," when troops of France's Second Empire invaded Mexico.

He built up a collection of 2,000 pre-Columbian artefacts, the biggest in Europe at the time. It included several crystal skulls, including the newly-unmasked fakes in London and Paris.

The skull that would eventually be bought by the British Museum was acquired by Boban between 1878 and 1881, possibly in Europe, the study says. In 1885, he tried to sell it to the National Museum of Mexico, but was turned down.

A year later, Boban sold it an auction to the New York jeweller's Tiffany's.

Two years later, Tiffany's sold the skull to a Californian businessman who nearly a decade later went bust and asked the jeweller to hunt for a new buyer.

So it was that Tiffany's vice president, George Kunz, made a pitch to the British Museum.

He recommended the purchase of "this remarkable object," sketched a past of colourful ownership, beginning with a Spanish soldier who had brought it back from Mexico, and quoting the opinion of others that the skull was of ancient Mexican origin but no-one knew for sure.

The rest, as they say, belongs to history... and human gullibility.

"Faceless Aliens" appearing at events all over the world

This is pretty creepy stuff. Apparently, people are putting a skin-like mask on their face making it look like they have no eyes, mouth or nose. All I know is that if I ran into one of these i'd be pretty scared!

(Alex Millson)With the blankest of blank expressions on their faces, these mysterious figures have been popping up in the most unlikely of places.

The faceless mutants have a penchant for A-list celebrity bashes and have been spotted at Elton John's White tie ball and Harrods summer sale, opened by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall.

With a membrane of skin stretched tightly over their eyes, noses and mouths, the alien-like figures were most recently snapped 'watching' a match perched on Murray Mount at Wimbledon.

Close inspection of the pictures rules out an alien invasion - small perforations around the eye areas of the masks allow the people beneath to see the world outside.

But nobody knows who the faceless figures, who often appear as motionless couples are, or why they are turning up at high profile events.

Theories include the possibilities that they are limelight-seeking pranksters, performance artists or that they are at the centre of a viral marketing campaign for an as-yet unknown product of forthcoming horror film.

Speculation has even arisen that the masks hide a pair of well-know faces, fed up with being harrassed by the paparazzi.

One blogger wrote on the Moue Magazine website: "They probably aren’t just random people off of the street.

"If it ends up being a pair of celebrities who have had it with being photographed all of the time and are staging a protest, I vow to support every project they appear on from now on.

"Whatever their purpose, I want to join them. And I have a new Halloween costume for this year."

Women prostitutes herself for....Gasoline??

Wow its pretty obvious that gas prices are out of control when something like this happens:



JULY 2--A Kentucky woman is facing prostitution charges for allegedly trading sex for gasoline. Angela Eversole, 34, was nabbed last weekend during a police stakeout at a Days Inn, where she allegedly trysted with customer Kenneth Nowak. According to court records, Nowak admitted paying for Eversole's services, in part, with a $100 Speedway gas card. Eversole was hit with a prostitution rap and also charged with doing business without an occupational license. Nowak was charged with promoting prostitution. Eversole and Nowak are pictured below in mug shots snapped following their June 27 arrests. A local prosecutor noted that it was sad to see someone selling their body for gas, in this case about 25 gallons worth.

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