Green Christmas, White Boxing Day

This happened a lot when I was a kid: we had no snow - and I mean none - on Christmas Day, but we got a lot of it the next day. Today it's a blizzard, which meant the stores were surprsingly empty when the Boxing Day sales started. (Stores in Newfoundland are closed on the 26th.)

But I shouldn't complain about the weather, considering the biblical-scale destruction throughout Asia. CTV has the death toll at 22,000 and rising. 22,000 - it's almost incomprehensible. The Canadian Red Cross is taking donations here. Tim Blair has much, much more on this story.

A few other notes:

- Ukranians got the best Christmas present of all: democracy.

- Peyton Manning broke Dan Marino's single-season TD record against the Chargers yesterday, and if he plays in the final game of the year, he'll almost certainly break 50. To put that in perspective, only three quarterbacks - Manning, Marino (twice) and Kurt Warner - have ever thrown for more than 40 touchdowns in a single season. If Manning quits football tomorrow to smoke weed and study alternative medicine, his place in history is secure. Too bad it had to come on the same day as the great Reggie White's shocking death, though.

- the big story here in Newfoundland this Christmas, as you might expect, is Danny Williams' removal of all Canadian flags from provincial government buildings after offshore oil negotiations broke down. This isn't the first time a Newfoundland premier has done something like this - in 1982, after the Supreme Court ruled against Newfoundland's claim to ownership over continental shelf resoruces, Brian Peckford declared an official day of mourning and had all flags lowered to half-staff. Like all Newfoundlanders, I'm with Danny on the main issue here, but is desecrating the national flag (in a manner of speaking) really the best way to get the other provinces on our side? If I were in Alberta - a province what has, up until now, shown some sympathy for Newfoundland's position - I'd be pretty upset, and thinking something like, "if they hate Canada so much, maybe we should stop giving them so many millions of dollars in transfer payments."

- hope you all had a great Christmas with your families and friends. As promised, I'll be back on the 4th of January. Have a great New Year.

Posted by damian at December 27, 2004 01:13 PM