Free Republic

On Monday, March 21, 2011 the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta received word that the remains of either a plesiosaur or an ichthyosaur had been discovered in the Milllennium Mine operated by the petroleum company Suncor Inc. This mine is located about 30 km north of the town of Fort McMurray (population ~50,000) in northeastern Alberta (about 800km north of Drumheller), and is one of the places where bitumen rich sand is mined and refined into various petroleum products. On Wednesday, March 23, 2011 myself and technician Darren Tanke flew up to Fort McMurray expecting to see...

My newest article yesterday weighed in on the Alberta election and posed the question, "Could Alberta Vote Socialist?" The answer is yes. Tonight, the people of Canada's most conservative province have elected an NDP majority government and thus ended the Tories' 44-year reign in power. That reign was the longest in Canadian history. The NDP have been elected or are leading in 54 of the 87 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Wildrose Party remains the Official Opposition have been elected or are leading in 20 seats.

The Kings rented out their Calgary, Alberta, home in Canada using the popular renting service Airbnb. They thought it would be an easy way to help offset the cost of their travel with their two kids, CTV reported. They were wrong. The Airbnb renters told the King family that only four people would be staying at the home while they attended a wedding. So on Saturday, they handed over the keys and were off on their trip. But it wasn’t long before they their neighbors called and sent them text messages, explaining that they were concerned about what was going on. Later,...

Edmonton, Alberta, spends five months a year below freezing. Now, the Canadian city is considering a proposal to create a 7-mile skating trail for Edmontonians to use during their winter commutes.

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Jim Prentice has called a provincial election for May 5. The campaign will play out against the backdrop of an Alberta economy in flux. The collapse in the price of oil, the province's main income source, is expected to cause a $5-billion deficit this year. Prentice's Progressive Conservatives will be running on a budget that includes tax hikes and spending cuts to ride out the storm.

Alberta wages almost 25% higher than Canadian average Economists, politicians and business leaders seek ways to bring wages down Springtime is typically oilpatch bonus season. As the grass turns green, car dealerships and upscale stores tend to get busier. This year is different. Bonuses — if they exist at all — are expected to be small. Wages have been frozen. Oilpatch workers are happy to have a job at all. And that's the private sector. Public sector workers, like teachers and nurses, are on high alert as the provincial government makes increasingly loud noises about reopening their contracts to cut...

Headline only.

Environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, have raised concerns that the pipeline could foul underground and surface water supplies, increase air pollution around refineries and harm wildlife. They also have speculated about what they consider inadequate pipeline safety and emergency spill responses….. Supporters say the project could be a boon for U.S. jobs and energy production while strengthening a friendly source of oil.

In this famous photograph by Bruno Engler, Bella Twin is shown with the hide from the world record grizzly bear that she shot in 1953 with a single shot .22 rifle.  The question is, what rifle is she holding?   It has been written that Jack O'Conner "heard" that it was an old Stevens single shot.   But as he only "heard" this, I do not think it is at all definitive.  This is said to be from page 304 of "The Hunting Rifle", published in 1953.   Given that the bear was shot in 1953, and the reference was near the...

A reporter for the Calgary Herald was there, but she didn’t find their words newsworthy. Her story about the rally mentions the counter-protesters, but not their “All Hail Hitler” chant. See, because that might cause problems for the good guys. The ones using children as shields.

Hear no evil. See no evil. Report no evil. When it’s Hamas supporters anyway. When I posted the video of anti-Israel protesters chanting “Heil Hitler” at pro-Israel supporters during Ezra Levant’s rally in Calgary Thursday (see here) you absolutely knew there was no way that attending media didn’t witness it and stayed silent – now we have proof that at least one did exactly that. While reading this piece “Silent vigil Palestinian solidarity” I noticed Calgary Herald reporter Erika Stark omitted the fact that Israel supporters were attacked even after referencing the event where it happened: Meanwhile on Twitter, Stark...

EDMONTON A man who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" is calling out an Alberta teen after receiving a series of profanity littered death threats. Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio says the 16-year-old Morinville, Alta., boy has been sending e-mail death threats since last year. Most of the threats are too vulgar to print, but one of the emails talks about killing the sheriff and burning the body.

"We know that the impact occurred within the last 70 million years, and in that time about 1.5 km of sediment has been eroded. That makes it really hard to pin down and actually date the impact." Erosion has worn away all but the "roots" of the crater, leaving a semicircular depression eight kilometres across with a central peak. Schmitt says that when it formed, the crater likely reached a depth of 1.6 to 2.4 km—the kind of impact his graduate student Wei Xie calculated would have had devastating consequences for life in the area. "An impact of this magnitude...

An energy company worker has been killed by a black bear at a base in the tar sands region of the Canadian province of Alberta, the firm has said. The 36-year-old woman was declared dead at the scene on Wednesday. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police later shot and killed the male bear, which had remained in the area. Bears are emerging from hibernation near the Suncor Energy Inc oil sands mining operation, 25km (15.5m) north of Fort McMurray.

The D.C. metro was plastered last month with ads by GoWithCanada.ca, promoting the proposed 1,179-mile Keystone XL Pipeline, a 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline originating in Hardisty, Alberta, and extending south to Steele City, Nebraska. Described as “America’s best energy partner,” Canada provides United States refineries every day with 2.4 million barrels of crude oil, more than Saudi Arabia and Venezuela combined. The ads explained that “80% of Canada’s oil sands production capacity is owned by North American companies.”

Several hundred Chrysler minivans are stuck indefinitely on a piece of prime Detroit real estate, unable to be transported across America. The reason? The fossil fuel boom in Canada and the United States is hogging much of the available rail capacity needed to transport the vans. Citing a report by the Associated Press, the Windsor Star reports that railway capacity – which is normally transport new vehicles – is being eaten up by deliveries of oil from both the Alberta Oil Sands and the Bakken shale formation in the United States. According to the AP, just 9,500 railway carloads of...

A controversial proposal to build a massive underground pipeline to carry 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas has become the environmental issue of the summer, pitting developers and labor unions desperate for construction jobs against environmentalists and Native American tribes who fear the pipeline will spell environmental disaster. TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL project would consist of more than 1,700 miles of 36-inch-diameter pipe, about 327 miles of which would be in Canada while the rest would snake southward through the central United States. Because the pipeline would...

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article by Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin titled “The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers.” The article’s first paragraph included this claim: The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David. The theme of the article was that the Keystone Pipeline is all about the Koch brothers; or, at least, that this is a plausible claim. The Post authors relied on a report...

Enbridge Inc. says the U.S. State Department is taking longer than expected to review an expansion to its Alberta Clipper pipeline between Alberta and Wisconsin. But executives with the Calgary-based energy shipper say they're confident a green light will come in time to expand the line to 800,000 barrels per day by the middle of next year. Enbridge obtained a U.S. federal permit in 2009 before starting up the first phase of the line, which has 450,000 barrels per day of capacity, but the State Department says it needs to amend its environmental review before allowing the expansions to go...

Democrats who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline have thousands of dollars invested in direct competitors to the company looking to build the pipeline, public records show. A recent environmental assessment by the State Department was seen as a step toward the pipeline’s approval, but Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) remains opposed to its construction. “In my view, there is now enough evidence to conclude that construction of this pipeline is not in America’s long-term interest,” Kaine said in a statement on the review. The freshman Democrat has between $15,000 and $50,000 invested in Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, according to his...