What’s the only thing better than a superhero flick? Answer. Three superhero flicks. So, you should be excited to hear that this week’s episode of South Park was the second of a superhero trilogy.  Plus, it had jokes about double penetration and the gulf oil disaster. Watch out, Spiderman! Step off, Iron Man! Screw you, Daredevil! It’s the return of … The Coon.

Nearly 100 hundred students and community members met in Call Auditorium to discuss the issue of hydraulic fracking on the University's 11,00 acres of natural gas-rich land in Tompkins County.

The University announced yesterday evening that they have established an ad-hoc advisory committee to examine the issue of hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale region of land.

For much of last semester, student and local environmental activists spoke out against gas drilling in upstate New York. Local and campus groups decried the possibility that companies would harvest natural gas located under the Marcellus Shale through the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking.

As time runs out to comment on the draft of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Oil and Gas Mining through horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, made a passionate plea last night to kill the draft of the SGEIS altogether.

A public hearing concerning regulatory measures for horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for the local Marcellus Shale natural gas resource was held at the State Theater in Ithaca last night, the topic of discussion: the draft of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS).

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Monday lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling and challenged Congress to follow suit, aiming to turn the enormous public frustration about gasoline prices into political leverage. Democratic lawmakers rejected Bush's plan as a symbolic stunt.

With gas prices topping $4.10 a gallon nationally, Bush made his most assertive move to extend oil exploration, an energy priority of his presidency. By lifting the executive prohibition against coastal drilling, Bush rescinded a White House policy that his own father put in place in 1990.

The move will have no practical effect unless Congress acts, too. Both executive and legislative bans must be lifted before offshore exploration can happen.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a quarter-century, drilling for oil and gas off nearly all the American coastline has been banned in part to protect tourism and to lessen the chances of beach-blackening spills.

Then gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon this summer. Drivers and others began clamoring for federal lawmakers to do something about the record price of oil, much of it produced in foreign countries.