Happy Sir John A MacDonald's Birthday

Today is the day we Canadians celebrate our first Prime Minister's Birthday. The records indicate he was born on the 10th, but he celebrated it on the 11th. This is a very Canadian thing to do. We celebrate Thanksgiving in October, we have our Hockey playoffs in late June or early July. Elections can happen anytime. The traditional way to celebrate Sir John A's birthday is to break a New Year's resolution. Perhaps this is because if he ever made a resolution about drinking, he broke it often. Here is what Wikipedia says about Sir John A. MacDonald and alcohol:

Macdonald was well known for his wit and also for his alcoholism. He is known to have been drunk for many of his debates in parliament. One famous story is that during an election debate Macdonald was so drunk he began vomiting violently on stage while his opponent was speaking. Picking himself up Macdonald told the crowd, "see how my opponent's ideas disgust me."

In another version of the story, he responded to his opponent's query of his drunkenness with "It goes to show that I would rather have a drunk Conservative than a sober Liberal." [Wikipedia Entry]

In any case, Sir John A set a different sort of tone for our country than George Washington set for his. {This posting may contain statements that lack support in available evidence.}