Free Republic

Venezuela’s heavy oil project reserves will be left stranded as international players divest their interest. That’s what GlobalData said in a statement sent to Rigzone on Friday, which highlighted that TotalEnergies and Equinor had recently divested their respective interests in Petrocedeno to the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A (PDVSA) company. According to GlobalData, this means that due to high risks and the unstable deteriorating economy in the country, international players no longer see an upside in Venezuelan projects. GlobalData noted that with less investments supplied from the private sector, Venezuela will not be able to sustain its oil and gas...

Directives The Six-Month Deepwater Moratorium as set forth in this Notice to Lessees and Operators (“Moratorium NTL”) directs you to cease drilling all new deepwater wells, including any wellbore sidetracks and bypasses; prohibits you from spudding any new deepwater wells; and puts you on notice that, except as provided herein, MMS will not consider for six months from the date of this Moratorium NTL drilling permits for deepwater wells and for related activities as set forth herein. For the purposes of this Moratorium NTL, “deepwater” means depths greater than 500 feet.

"The alternative fuel credits were projected to cost the federal government $61 million a year in lost taxes, but that was before paper companies started applying for them. A preliminary estimate being circulated among lawmakers by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation now puts the price tag at $3.3 billion." What this article boils down to is that paper mills have been using byproducts of their production to provide energy for their process (using an alternative fuel). They have stepped into the government hand out line to receive tax credits ($$) for this process, although they have been doing this...

Conservative flash mobs (how do we get them going?). http://www.asuwebdevil.com/node/5751 Flash mobs are currently used in the United States as a sort of public art. The participants are usually students. They plan a time, location, and activity. All are notified of where, when, and what, and then show up and perform. Once done, all participants leave (quietly). Flash mobs have been used in some countries where political organization is banned. Perhaps all will show up in a public place and eat an ice-cream, while walking around in the area. This doesn't sound like much, but when you have 300 people...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Republican Party and the American Civil Liberties Union finally have found common ground. Both are outraged by a recently leaked report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center - an office that compiles and distributes homeland security information - that describes the characteristics of potential militia members. Among other things, the report claims militia members usually are supporters of third-party political groups and "often subscribe to the ideology of other right-wing extremist movements."

Scathing reports released Wednesday charge officials with “a culture of ethical failure” involving sex, drugs and financial shenanigans at a federal agency in Denver charged with collecting energy royalties for taxpayers. In three reports prepared for Congress by the Department of Interior’s inspector general, 13 current and former employees at the agency’s Minerals Management Service were charged with violating the public trust in a frat house atmosphere. MMS employees, according to the reports, accepted gifts from oil companies, had sex with industry contacts, and did drugs at the office and at oil company parties. Other MMS officials steered business to...

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Music fans, beware: Britain's Ministry of Defence has become the latest organization to add the iPod to its list of high-tech security risks. The pocket-sized digital music player, which can store thousands of songs, is one of a series of banned gadgets that the military will no longer allow into most sections of its headquarters in the UK and abroad. Devices with large storage capabilities -- most notably those with a Universal Serial Bus (or USB) plug used to connect to a computer -- have been treated with greater suspicion of late by government agencies and...

An IT project spearheaded by an alliance of lawmakers, IBM and software vendor Tarantella took its first steps last week toward providing a mobile data infrastructure that links local law enforcement and public safety agencies in a single database. When finished, the Mississippi Automated System Project (ASP) will provide mobile units with real-time access to all available public safety information including mug shots, arrest warrants, criminal intelligence, hazardous materials data and medical emergency protocols. This pilot project, backed by of U.S. Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Trent Lott (R-MS) could eventually become a national model for connecting more states via...

By Bart A. Basi and Roman A. BasiIndustrial DistributionJuly 1, 2004   No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, the title of this story does indeed say "decreasing." The Medicare bill that was signed into law on December 8, 2003 established a new and innovative insurance program for employers and employees called an "HSA", otherwise known as a Health Savings Account. This revolutionary vehicle will help many employers, large and small, save taxes and save money on health insurance premiums.What is an HSA? An HSA is a tax-exempt account that is created for the purpose of paying qualified...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man is trying to get rid of his pennies - all 1 million of them. Ron England bet his brother 30 years ago that he could save a million pennies in exchange for a dinner in Paris. And he did, eventually stacking up 20,000 rolls that fill 13 boxes in his garage. Now that he's moving, England wants to cash in the $10,000 in coppers, which weigh 3.6 tons, but is having a tough time finding someone who will take them without a price. ``I've been working seriously for the past two weeks to get...

The Web attack that was stopped dead in its tracks on Friday when a Russian Web site was taken offline remained under investigation Monday by a host of security firms still puzzled over the method used to infect a number of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers. But the evidence now is leading them to accept Microsoft's explanation that the IIS 5.0 servers were hacked manually and that the server software doesn't have an unknown, or so-called "zero-day," vulnerability. "Nobody yet knows how these servers were infected," said Ken Dunham, the director of malicious code research at iDefense. "But if...

Just as his "Fahrenheit 9/11" opens nationwide, several filmmakers are readying documentaries aimed at debunking Michael Moore, and a new film festival is being planned that will feature such works as well as other documentaries well to the right of Moore's films. Scheduled Sept. 9-11 in Dallas, the American Film Renaissance, as the festival will be known, has just been announced by co-founder Jim Hubbard, who said it is bankrolled primarily by some "big-time conservative donors." Hubbard currently is negotiating to show two films critical of Moore. The first is "Michael Moore Hates America," made by newcomer Michael Wilson and...

FDA seeks to drop CFC propellants from albuterol inhalers With two non-chlorofluorocarbon (non-CFC)-based albuterol metered dose inhalers (MDIs) now on the market for treatment of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, US Food & Drug Administration, Washington, DC, proposes removing “essential-use” status of CFC propellant for this application (Docket No. 2003P-0029). If agency finalizes proposed rule, Use of Ozone-Depleting Substances; Removal of Essential-Use Designations, marketing of albuterol MDIs using CFC propellant would cease at end of transition period. Scientists associate CFCs with depletion of earth’s protective ozone layer. Most aerosols dropped use of CFC propellants more than 25 years ago. Under...

MENLO PARK, Calif. - Consumers' passion for privacy in California and other Western states could signal an uphill battle for the proponents of a national cell phone directory. Already, slightly more than a third of Americans nationwide have unlisted home numbers, but in California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington, about half the people choose not be listed in phone directories. They pay as much as $2.66 a month to keep their home numbers private. The wireless industry, meantime, has promised it will submit to the 411 directory the mobile phone numbers of only those customers who grant their carriers permission...

U.S. companies complain they can't get a fair shake from America's plaintiff-friendly juries. Try resolving a dispute in Russia, Indonesia or Ukraine. Mark Getty may have just kissed $175 million good-bye. Four years ago an investment vehicle owned by the famous clan acquired a 62% stake in an oil and gas company owned by a subsidiary of Russian giant Gazprom. But when the family tried to sell the stake last year, Getty claims, these powerful Russian companies interfered with the deal and cast doubt on the validity of the licenses to produce oil. In March he filed legal complaints in...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Microminiaturization has made possible swarms of autonomous robots using nothing more than off-the-shelf parts. But concentrating their wireless chatter and getting them to cooperate to solve problems may be five years away, the National Science Foundation cautions. It's putting $2.6 million into a five-year effort to turn multiple wireless robots into an emergency search-and-rescue team. "We want to help emergency response personnel by sending cooperative robots into an unknown site," said California Institute of Technology researcher Joel Burdick. "My team will be developing software that enables each of them to perform slightly different tasks that together accomplish...

Almost three quarters of office workers in an impromptu man-on-the-street survey were willing to give up their passwords when offered the bribe of a chocolate bar. The organizers of the conference Infosecurity Europe 2004 plans to announce on Tuesday that they surveyed office workers at Liverpool Street Station in England, and found that 71 percent were willing to part with their password for a chocolate bar. The survey also found the majority of workers would take confidential information with them when they change jobs, and would not keep salary details confidential if they came across the details. Some 37 percent...

The largest single seal hunt in half a century begins in Canada on Monday. The government is allowing more than 300,000 seals to be killed this year, many of them in a 36-hour mass cull. The hunting of young seals for their fur almost stopped off Canada's east coast 25 years ago in the face of international outrage. Animal rights groups are hoping to sway international opinion against the hunt, but Canadian officials say it is now both humane and necessary. The seal hunt in Newfoundland and Labrador withered 25 years ago as brutal images of men clubbing infant seals...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Wednesday published the first in what will be an annual report on the steps being taken to wipe out bogus or incomplete information found in domain registrations. The findings? Nearly 5,000 of the 24,148 complaints dealt with domains containing incorrect or incomplete contact information -- telephone numbers, email addresses, street addresses -- of known or suspected spammers. The WHOIS database is a list of registered owners for every top-level domain (TLD) name governed by the Marina del Ray, Calif., organization -- .com, .net, .org, .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name and...

A 32 year old man was arrested by the FBI last week after threatening to "spam" Google. Michael Anthony Bradley faced fraud and extortion charges in a San Jose court after allegedly attempting to extort USD 100,000 from the popular search engine firm. Bradley had developed software that created false clicks on Google AdWords advertisements. Google pays webmasters a certain amount per click for displaying AdWords advertisements on their sites and Bradley had already used his software to defraud the program by generating thousands of dollars for himself via false clicks. Earlier this month, Bradley approached Google staff demanding a...