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Feb 12 2023

China's balloons. Eby's numbers. Smarter office.

Feb 12, 2022
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics. Still in beta ... 
Canada
‘Far too early’ to say whether object shot down over Yukon came from China: minister
Defence Minister Anita Anand offered a brief description of the object amid questions over whether it could be another suspected Chinese spy balloon.

The head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency fears that China is expanding its spy activities against Berlin, he said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday, adding that Beijing was focusing increasingly on political espionage.
Ian Williams: There will no doubt be some tense moments in the boardrooms of western technology companies over the coming days after the revelation that the Chinese spy balloon shot down after traversing the United States had western-made components with English-language writing on them. 

Trudeau will be in Nassau on Feb. 15 and 16 as a special guest of the 44th Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, commonly referred to as Caricom.
Martin Regg Cohn: For Marci Ien and Charmaine Williams, the quest for equality has been the story of their lives.
James Bauder, one of the leaders of last winter's convoy protest, has lost his bid to have his criminal trial moved out of the city.
From the provinces
Premier David Eby riding high in opinion polls
However, people aren't happy with government performance on health care, economy, poll finds

A video tweeted by Smith on Friday has received a lot of backlash on social media and from the Indigenous community who claim her comments are harmful to reconciliation.
Elsewhere

The Finnish president said in an interview published Saturday that he trusts that Finland and Sweden will be admitted into NATO by July, and hinted that he wants the United States to put pressure on Turkey to approve their membership bids.

Media
Newsrooms need to do more to protect journalists from online harassment
"Because social media policies tend to focus on how posts get perceived rather than how they are written in the first place, enforcement most frequently occurred when the online audience was upset about something."
Tech

Microsoft is getting ready to bring its new ChatGPT-like AI to its Office productivity apps. After Bing, we’ll start to see it appear in Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook soon.
Issued this day ...
... in 1971: Scott # 532: Emily Carr. Design: William Rueter. 
Stamp
This stamp, issued to mark the 100th anniversary of the painter and writer Emily Carr (1871-1945) features her painting "The Raven" (1931), a big work which is part of the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

As Lisa Baldissera writes, "she was one of the first artists of national significance to emerge from the West Coast. Along with the Group of Seven, she became a leading figure in Canadian modern art in the twentieth century [and, as "The Raven" suggests, she was inspired by Pacific Coast Indigenous art.]

She spent the greater part of her life living and working in Victoria, where she struggled to receive critical acceptance."

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