Permawar: OK, sorry. It’s back to reality. While billions of people celebrated Christmas around the world, some definitely did not.

The leader and several of his lieutenants commanding one of Syria’s most powerful rebel groups were killed in a rocket strike east of Damascus. Al Arabiya television reported that 10 rockets hit a meeting of Jaysh al-Islam commanders. Zahroun Alloush, 44, the founder of the Saudi backed rebel group died in the attack.

Jaysh al-Islam is believed to have tens of thousands of fighters, but Russia dismisses them as a terrorist organization. This attack may have been an effort to make them leaderless before peace negotiations, but they’ve already appointed a new leader.

Disaster around the World: Nothing good here.

>A tanker truck blew up in southeastern Nigeria, killing dozens of people waiting in line for gas to cook their Christmas dinners. News agencies report that as many as 100 people died and many were severely burned.

> A Christmas Day brushfire destroyed more than 50 homes in Australia’s Victoria State. Reports say residents had their barbecues going for Christmas dinner when fire lit the horizon.

>Dozens of people are missing after a landslide in the jade mining region in Myanmar,

> More than 150,000 people are displaced from their homes in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil by some of the worst flooding in years.

Heavy Weather: Several people were trapped beneath rubble yesterday after a tornado touched down in north-central Alabama.

A major winter storm is forecast this weekend from the Rockies to the southern plains bringing blizzard conditions to New Mexico and northwest Texas. Southeast Wyoming to northern Michigan will have snow through Sunday. Southern Minnestota and Michigan could get 10-15 inches.

Northern Exposure: Few people outside the state know that oil money pays a lot of the public bills in Alaska and pays citizens an annual dividend. But with the tanking price of crude, government leaders are considering cutting back the dividend check and imposing a state income tax for the first time in 35 years.

Small Screen: Television face man Josh Elliott is leaving NBC Sports after only two years at the network with no announcement about where he might plug in his microphone next. Elliott left ABC’s Good Morning America after he overplayed his hand demanding a huge raise. He went to NBC Sports with the understanding that he would be groomed for a spot on The Today Show, maybe even Matt Lauer’s seat, but he’s been paid $5 million a year to do barely anything.

The Obit Page: Fernande Grudet, the French businesswoman of a certain kind who operated under the name “Madame Claude” in the industry of making rich men happy for a moment, has died at age 92.

In the 1960s and 70s Grudet ran a high class call-girl operation staffed by some of the most beautiful young women in the world, some of whom just hadn’t quite made the cut in high fashion modeling. Her selectively picked girls had to be familiar with history, literature, and what to do in bed. She called them “swans. “Grudet once said, “It was so exciting to hear a millionaire or a head of state ask, in a little boy’s voice, for the one thing that only you could provide.”

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