I work on Christmas out of PROTEST of the fact that a religious holiday is a federal holiday. I'd rather work than sit at home and contemplate the true meaning of the separation of church and state.

FIRST

It should be "on," not "over," as in "I did not work on Christmas Day."

Also, I assume the reference is to New Year[']s Day, not New Year's Eve, but you should make that clear.

Ha ha ha, I took off four weeks!

2:15: you, sir, are a moron.

2:17, I think that since it's a reference to Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Day and New Year's Eve collectively (based on the survey questions that appear if you click yes), "over" is ok.

But I confess not to be a practitioner in grammatical transactions or linguistic arbitration.

Screw this crap. I want some raise or bonus info. Lat, we're not paying you (via our multiple clicks) for this kind of crap.

LAT - PLEASE GET US THE CHASE v. SEINFELD COMPLAINT

Don't be fooled by the prelim results. The vertical axis is WAY out of scale.

2:47, agreed. The scaling of those charts is very odd.

Lat, your graphing is crap. The second one graphically implies a split that is not merited by the numbers. Scale it vertically from 0-100% and it will look like what it is, an almost 50-50 split.

Smoking Gun has the Chase-Seinfeld complaint:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0107083seinfeld1.html

Tonight I will work out of PROTEST that 2:15 is a tool.

2:15, I am a devout Christian (attend church weekly and tithe a full ten percent of my income), and if the federal government observed Samhain and Winter Solstice I would happily take both days off, because they would be fucking DAYS OFF. You're seriously complaining that you get a day off work? Guess you really do belong in biglaw...

First off, I don't work on my religious holidays, so it comes out in the wash.

Second, as a matter of principal I oppose the recognition of a religious holiday as a federal holiday. There really are lots of good reasons for this position and they are rather obvious, so I won't mention them.

Anyways, I'm just standing up for what I believe in. And I'm being fair to my company since I take my holidays off. Whats wrong with that?

4:03, if Yom Kippur or Ramadan were federal holidays, you (or at least most "devout Christians) would be UP IN ARMS. so, I don't know what you are talking about.

and by "principal," I mean "principle."

2:15, you don't know me, and you appear to suffer from the delusion that right-wing crazies represent the majority of "devout Chrisitans" (hint: they don't). I certainly don't get upset when my boss or coworkers observe Jewish holidays (as many of them do), and I wouldn't be upset if they were made federal holidays. I don't work with anyone who observe Ramadan, but I wouldn't care if they made it a holiday too (um, the whole month? Actually, that would be fucking sweet).

This year was saved, but for the prior year for me was almost ruined by opposing counsel deciding it would be fun to drop pleadings on us that would require us to work over Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and one of Labor or Memorial day. Pleadings that could completely have been filed any other time, with no looming deadlines, the sole point to make us miserable. We had to go in ex parte to save Christmas.

When I'm a judge, simple local rule: Any deadline that falls within 10 days after a holiday automatically gets a 20 day extension, and there is automatically a show cause on the moving party to show they didn't do it expressly to fuck with the responding party's holidays. The practice of law is full of dicks (see, e.g., almost every comment regarding salaries and TTT and everything else) and games like this are constant.

I once had a partner point out that I could work on something over Christmas, since I was Jewish. I was tempted to suggest that he could spend eight days blowing me over Channukah . . .

4:03 -- I don't get upset at people taking off Christian holidays; and I didn't suggest that you get upset when people take off other holidays. All I said is that the federal government -- the one with the military -- should not recognize a religious holiday. I dont' care if Skadden does.

As for the religious tolerance of "devout Christians," I certainly believe you that most are tolerant, but my impression is that many are not. I mean, when a muslim was elected to the house, Glenn Beck on CNN said "how do I know you don't work for Al Quada."

So, I ask you this, 4:03: say the dems are elected to the house senate and presidency and they want to improve relations with muslim countries. To do so, they make a Muslim holiday a federal holiday -- or they announce "Mohammed Day." What would the "devout Christian" community do. If that community is a minority, so be it, but they are the ones who seem to mobilize.

The crux of your criticism seems to be "if you have an available day off, you should take it, or else you worked for no good reason and, thus, are an idiot." Maybe thats right, but I still don't think that means Christmas should be a federal holiday.

2:15, I'm not calling you an idiot for not taking the day off. Sometimes shit has to get done and you end up working on a holiday. Or sometimes you just want to get ahead, and the holiday in question doesn't mean much to you personally, so you work it and take off some other day sometime instead. That doesn't make you an idiot -- but *complaining* that a holiday even exists strikes me as... well, a bit punishment-gluttonous.

I think the problem is that you're talking about the Christian "community" as though Christians are a monolithic group that thinks the same or similar things about most issues pertaining to the government. Christians can't even agree on our own religion. Just about the only thing that pretty much all Christians agree on was that Jesus was probably a pretty cool guy. Much more than that, and bets tend to be off with respect to what "Christians" believe. Catholics and Anglicans talk to the dead and believe Jesus' spirit is actually IN the bread and wine. Baptists think drinking wine, with or without Jesus' spirit, is sinful. Lutherans eschew confession before a priest. Hard-core Calvinists think God chooses people to burn in hell. Unitarians believe whatever sounds right today. Etc., etc., etc. And none of this says anything about what any of us thinks about federal holidays.

So I can't purport to speak for all these other people who identify as "Christians." In my corner of the country (left coast), most Christians probably would not bat an eye at the holidays you suggest, because we are used to working side-by-side with people with diverse religious backgrounds. In places that are less diverse, there would probably be less understanding due to fear of difference, inherent in every human being and excused as "religious objection" rather than what it really is.

Is Glenn Beck a Christian? I know nothing about his religious beliefs, but just as George Bush does not speak for all Americans, Glenn Beck or Ted Haggard or Pat Robertson or Al Sharpton do not speak for all Christians.

I "get" the objection to the federal government recognizing what's traditionally considered a religious holiday, but keep in mind Christmas (and Easter, for that matter) has its roots in pagan celebrations, and was later co-opted for Christian purposes, and has now been co-opted by the almighty God of American Corporate Capitalism. At most, it's a secular holiday with a religious-sounding name, to which a lot of people attach religious significance.

4:03 - I agree with most everything you say (including that I, 2:15, am a glutton for punishment).

But i think you underestimate the relgious content of Christmas Day to say its merely "a secular holiday with a religious-sounding name." My view is that it should not be a federally recognized holiday because its not really secular. I mean its called CHISTmas because its about the birth of Jesus. Not everyone sees its federally-recognized status in historical terms as you do. Many people take it as endorsement of one religion over another.

LMAO 4:23. I do not know any Christians, devout or otherwise, who would be "up in arms" if they did not have to work on Yom Kippur. Try to get some basic grasp of reality instead of projecting your assumptions on the rest of us.