Free Republic

A major Telecommunications firm pulled off an amazing surprise for one long-time customer. I have no idea how they got the idea, how they got the information necessary to know ahead of time that she would have the time of her life. It was obviously a three-minute advertisement but it seems absolutely genuine and I can't imagine how they did it.

Wildlife advocates want a federal judge to order faster action on a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx. ... Officials also say that lynx face a relatively low degree of threat compared to other protected species. The Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to come up with a timeline on the recovery document when Molloy last month expressed frustration with the government's progress. The judge said the "stutter-step" approach by federal officials necessitated court intervention. The lawsuit pending before Molloy was brought by Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the San Juan Citizens Alliance....

The establishment wing of the Republican party Tuesday will mount a last-ditch effort to prevent the Tea Party from winning a major victory in a high-profile Senate race in Mississippi. Thad Cochran, Mississippi’s long-serving 76-year-old senator, is fighting for his political life against Chris McDaniel, a Right-wing challenger backed by Sarah Palin. With polls showing Cochran heading towards defeat, the Republican leadership has rushed money and reinforcements to Mississippi to try to stave off another win for the conservative grassroots. John McCain, the former presidential candidate and one of the party’s most recognizable faces, campaigned for Cochran yesterday in the...

The Conservative government is proposing more than $100 billion in defence spending on a series of projects that would see the Department of National Defence get new fighter jets, rescue planes, helicopters, drones, ships, satellites, uniforms and even rifles. The Defence Acquisition Guide is a list of more than 200 separate procurement projects the military hopes to undertake in the next 20 years. The guide is not a rock-solid program, but a road map of sorts for the Canadian defence industrial sector. The generic nature of the information in the guide has already cause some consternation. Only a few minutes...

The vintage international lounge at the Gander airport in central Newfoundland is a time capsule where Italian marble and designer furniture still exude the faded glamour of world travel. It’s a vast room, its iconic yellow sofas whimsically arranged on a mezzanine overlooking terrazzo floors and sleek blue chairs where VIPs ranging from global leaders to the Beatles once stopped on transatlantic flights. It was opened by the Queen as a showcase of Canadian modernity in 1959. But the growing costs of preserving this cultural touchstone have raised the prospect that a more practical, smaller terminal will replace it. “We...

Georgiy Mamedov, Russia's soon-to-retire ambassador to Canada, says Ottawa is spreading propaganda about his home country's involvement in the annexation of Crimea. Mamedov, who is departing after 11 years as Russia's representative in Canada, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have come to him with his concerns when the crisis in Ukraine broke out. "Either you are serious that we are on the aggressive path… or you are just involved in propaganda before elections," Mamedov said in an interview with CTV's Question Period. "Why did it take you so long to talk to me? And even now you only want...

President Obama has three new reasons to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would bring 830,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil per day from Alberta to U.S. refineries, which would lead to economic growth and job creation in the United States. Escalating Conflict in Iraq. Though the fighting is yet to affect oil production in southern Iraq, uncertainty over how much havoc ISIS will create is driving up futures prices. Disruption in Iraq's production would substantially affect its heavy crude oil exports, the type of oil found in Canadian tar sands. If unrest continues in the region, Canadian...

Canada has officially extended an invitation to Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, to travel here to discuss the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer, accompanied by Conservative MP Rob Merrifield, hand-delivered the letter to Boehner's Capitol Hill office Thursday, on behalf of Boehner's counterpart, House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer. Boehner said in a statement on his website that he would make "every effort" to accept the invitation. "There's a tremendous opportunity right in front of us to help create jobs and support energy security for the people of...

In the face of the relentless dillydallying on the part of the Obama administration on the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada went ahead and starting exploring the potential of cutting deals with other markets in Asia — and yesterday, the Canadian government approved their own Northern Gateway pipeline to carry crude from the Alberta oil sands out to the Pacific Ocean for shipment via tankers. There has been some speculation about the possibility of the Obama administration approving the Keystone XL pipeline now that Iraq’s oil output is on seriously unstable footing (although, reality check: The Keystone XL pipeline by...

Crescent Point’s Torquay Discovery Reignites Southeast Saskatchewan. Just when you thought The Bakken couldn’t get any better—it does. Oil producers are now “cracking the code” on the Torquay, or Three Forks formation below the Bakken, and coming up with incredible economics—these wells are paying back in only seven months. This news has completely re-invigorated the Canadian side of the Bakken. And on the US side, the Three Forks is causing industry to leap-frog estimates of the amount of recoverable oil available–by about 57%! It’s hard to imagine that the #1 oil play in all of North America could have such...

Canada’s government on Tuesday approved a proposed pipeline to the Pacific Coast that would allow oil to be shipped to Asia, a major step in the country’s efforts to diversify its oil industry. The approval Tuesday was expected. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been a staunch supporter of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline after the U.S. delayed a decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Enbridge’s pipeline would transport 525,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific to deliver oil to Asia, mainly energy-hungry...

TORONTO (AP) — Canada's government on Tuesday approved a controversial pipeline proposal that would bring oil to the Pacific Coast for shipment to Asia, a major step in the country's efforts to diversify its oil exports if it can overcome fierce opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups.

A Canadian TV anchor called out Hillary Clinton for refusing to answer his question about the Keystone pipeline during an interview. “Keystone, yes or no?” the anchor asked Clinton. “Well I can’t say that, because I was there,” Clinton began to reply. “I don’t understand that,” the anchor interjected, “you can talk about so many other things, why can’t you talk about that?” Clinton continued to evade the question, saying, “Because that was a decision that rests with the secretary of state, and my successor is going to have to make that decision one way or the other and so...

An Edmonton woman who says she’s being discriminated against because she has 22 visible piercings is reigniting the debate about workplace dress codes. Kendra Behringer, 24, complained that one prospective employer threw out her résumé in front of her, but lawyers believe her chances of establishing discrimination are slim to non-existent, while employment and image experts say businesses are entitled to set rules on how workers dress. “The [employer] is going to perhaps wonder, ‘Will this person be able to conform to the rules that we have, or is this somebody who is more rebellious?’” said Diane Craig, president of...

The pipeline is critical to Canada, which needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil sands production. Alberta has the world’s third largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves. “I did not see it nor should it be a proxy for the relationship. It is, after all, one pipeline. We already have a lot of pipelines that cross our border,” Clinton said

The perpetually delayed Keystone XL Pipeline is wildly popular. A Reason-Rupe poll conducted in April found that only 32 percent of Americans oppose the construction of the pipeline which would transport Canadian tar sands oil from the frozen north to the Gulf Coast. 61 percent of Americans support the pipeline. That 61 percent includes 82 percent of self-described Republicans, 57 percent of independents, and 50 percent – that’s right; a majority – of Democrats. However, one subgroup strongly opposes the construction of the 1,200 mile pipeline: self-identified liberals. 57 percent of that group opposed the construction of the pipeline in...

The United States exported 268,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in April (the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau), the highest level of exports in 15 years. Exports have increased sharply since the start of 2013 and have exceeded 200,000 b/d in five of the past six months. The increase in crude exports is largely the result of rising U.S. crude production, which was 8.2 million b/d in March. To export crude oil from the United States, a company must obtain a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of...

Lawyers from the Law Society of British Columbia voted to prevent the British Columbia Trinity Western University from conferring law degrees due to the school's Community Covenant Agreement which requires that students "voluntarily abstain" from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman." According to the National Post, despite early results which suggested an overwhelmingly victory of 3210 to 968, the decision is not binding and only expresses the sentiments of those in the Law Society. Thirty-one benchers are still responsible for offering the final verdict on the law school, which is set to...

MONTREAL -- Montreal police are examining a primary-school teacher's claim that an officer choked and pepper-sprayed her in front of students and parents at their year-end party. Nadia Lessard tells QMI Agency that she and the school janitor were victims of "gratuitous violence" at the hands of a burly city constable Wednesday afternoon. Lessard says she was standing outside the school building with janitor Carl Cadieux at about 5 p.m. when a police car crossed through an intersection, on a red light, without his flashers. Lessard says Cadieux shouted to the officer "hey my friend, you burned the red without...

Imagine how weird it would be if the Cato Institute and Americans for Tax Reform praised Barack Obama for fiscal responsibility. And think how inconceivable it would be for the Heritage Foundation and the National Taxpayers Union to applaud Tim “Turbotax” Geithner for economic stewardship. But the Canadian version of that happened while I was at the conference of the World Taxpayers Association in Vancouver two weeks ago. The event was organized by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the main speaker was Paul Martin of the Liberal Party, who served as Finance Minister from 1993-2002 and Prime Minister from 2003-2006....