Author Archive
January 16, 2011 by Robin Rowland
Snow snow and more snow
El Nina and the Pineapple Express brought heavy weather to Kitimat over the past few days. Neighours and friends say it is hard to remember so much snow in a few days even in Snow Valley, home of People of the Snow. I heard there were 30 centimetres at the local firehall overnight Saturday to […]
December 2, 2010 by Robin Rowland
Browsing the State Department’s old style analog paper Wiki
A quarter century ago, the US State Department had its own analog, paper-based Wiki that covered almost every diplomatic dispatch going back centuries, millions of three by five inch index cards. And that tells a story more complicated than the current Wikileaks data dump. My story for CBC News Online Don’t mistake WikiLeaks for how […]
December 1, 2010 by Robin Rowland
Robin needs to know, what’s next from the State Department Bat Cave?
Ever since I was a little kid, and because my name is Robin, I have always admired my junior namesake of that dynamic duo, Batman and Robin. Now with Wikileaks, and probably, only a Robin would notice this, the U.S. State Department seems to be seeking humint (human intelligence) from the bat cave. Two stories […]
November 11, 2010 by Robin Rowland
Remembrance Day, Kitimat, BC, Nov. 11, 2010
Snow began falling in Kitimat, BC, for the first time this winter, at about 9 in the morning Pacific Time. and by the time the residents gathered 90 minutes later for the Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph, it was still snowing. A photo gallery of a small town Remembrance ceremony. In Kitimat, children lay […]
November 10, 2010 by Robin Rowland
One more suggestion about the “mystery missile”
The media has been in a big flap recently about the so-called mystery missile that a KCBS cameraman shot off the coast of California. The experts now say the missile launch was most likely a contrail of an aircraft, an optical illusion created by the setting sun, but as David Martin of CBS News […]
November 3, 2010 by Robin Rowland
Recent essays and blogs
I haven’t been blogging that much in the past several months, while I was selling my house in Toronto and moving to British Columbia and then settling in. With most of that completed, I am now resuming my various focused blogs. As well: Essay for The Kitimat Northern Sentinel A different vision of Kitimat’s future […]
September 9, 2010 by Robin Rowland
Don’t ask, don’t tell, but you can use the flash drive
A U.S. federal judge stuck down the American ban on gays in the military on Sept. 9. 2010. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that policy of don’t ask don’t tell was a violation of the US First Amendment that gives Americans freedom of speech (pretty obvious once you think of it) And speaking of free […]
July 22, 2010 by Robin Rowland
The real reason Harper wants to kill the census:Wipe out the Jedi
This morning’s Globe and Mail has a real investigative scoop, but apparently they don’t realize it. As most Canadians know by now the government wants to make the census long form voluntary rather than mandatory, which everyone who has any expertise in statistics knows, will destroy the validity of the survey. The head of Statistics […]
June 29, 2010 by Robin Rowland
The G20 and the police. A massive intelligence failure
Two days after the G20 disturbances in Toronto, it is clear, just from the statements made by police (not demonstrators nor lawyers nor journalists) that there was a massive failure of intelligence by the Integrated Security Unit. That failure of intelligence lead to unjustified mass arrests, imprisonment, and according to a growing number of reports, […]
April 19, 2010 by Robin Rowland
