Good Friday

A merry Passover to all y'all ...




Oh, dear. The appointed public servants don't care for Justin any more:

Following a request from the Conservatives, the Privacy Commissioner has confirmed that he is opening an investigation into leaks of discussions around a possible Supreme Court pick.

The leak was related to the SNC-Lavalin PMO Scandal, as Trudeau loyalists tried to discredit Jody Wilson-Raybould by making up slanderous lies about highly respected Manitoba Chief Justice Glenn Joyal.

No doubt tired of serial flunkies, fifty-four percent of Canadians feel that term limits are necessary:

'Those Albertans are just not like us ...' bemoan snobs:

Alberta is now in reverse gear and roaring backwards. Back to the day when a high-school dropout could earn $100,000 a year driving a truck for an oilsands giant. Back to a time when no one had even thought of climate change. All delusion. @GillianSteward https://t.co/yKKntxNqke

— TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) April 18, 2019

 
Funding for post-secondary institutions will depend on how many graduates find employment:

Future funding for post-secondary institutions in Ontario will depend on metrics such as graduates’ earnings and employment rates.

The Progressive Conservative government announced in its recent budget that it will start tying more funding for the province’s colleges and universities to performance outcomes.

Only a small proportion of funding has been linked to institutional performance in recent years — 1.4 per cent for universities and 1.2% for colleges — but that will go up to 60% in the next five years.

But ... but ... New Zealand!:

A week-long closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will commence on Friday ahead of Passover, the IDF announced Thursday evening.

Following an assessment of the current security situation, all crossings to the West Bank and Gaza will be closed to Palestinians begining on a Friday, April 19, and will last until Saturday, April 27 at midnight with the exception of humanitarian, medical and exceptional cases approved by the IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the IDF said.

Security forces regularly step up their preparedness prior to the holidays, regularly imposing closure on the West Bank as there is often an uptick in tensions and violence.

**

Authorities from Spain and Morocco have arrested a 23 year old man in Rabat, Morocco, who is suspected of planning an attack  during Holy Week celebrations in the Spanish city of Seville.

The smallest prematurely born boy is set to go home:

The world's smallest baby boy, who was born in October in Japan weighing as much as an apple, is now ready for the outside world, his doctor said Friday.

Ryusuke Sekiya was delivered via emergency Caesarean section, after 24 weeks and five days of pregnancy as his mother Toshiko experienced hypertension.

At 258 grams (9.1 ounces) he was even lighter than the previous record holder, another Japanese boy who weighed just 268 grams when he was born last year. That baby was discharged from a Tokyo hospital in February.

When Ryusuke was born on October 1, 2018, he measured 22 centimetres (8.66 inches) tall, and medical staff kept him in a neonatal intensive care unit.

They used tubes to feed him, sometimes taking cotton swabs to apply his mother's milk to his mouth.

Nearly seven months later, the boy has grown 13 times in weight, now weighing over three kilogrammes. He will be released from Nagano Children's Hospital in central Japan over the weekend.

The last seven words Christ spoke from the Cross:

As Catholics we can lament and protest persecution. But betrayal from within is a different matter. And so the words of Psalm 55 seem fitting as we begin these meditations on the Seven Last Words:

My heart is in anguish within me, the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.

And I say, “O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yea, I would wander afar, I would lodge in the wilderness, I would hasten to find me a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”

Destroy their plans, O Lord, confuse their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city.

Day and night they go around it on its walls; and mischief and trouble are within it, ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.

It is not an enemy who taunts me — then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him.

But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.

We used to hold sweet converse together; within God’s house we walked in fellowship.

(Psalm 55:4-14)

Glory be to the Father …