Because congress adopted a federal holiday on June 26, 1870. Simple. Why, you ask? Well, it had an inauspicious beginning in the country. It was so controversial (decadent) in the 1700s that it was actively banned by Puritains, including those who left England to settle the early American states. Perhaps more importantly it was shunned … Continue reading Why Christmas is a holiday
The “national security versus the public’s right to know” debate is nothing new to the US, but Bush appears to have lost serious amounts of credibility as key members of the House and Senate openly compare his faith-based requests for secrecy to Johnson’s worst decisions during the Vietnam War. For example Rep Murtha was just … Continue reading The Silent Majority circa 2005?
Harold Pinter gave a spirited Nobel Lecture on December 12th: Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified. But my contention here is that the US crimes … Continue reading Pinter on US foreign policy
Donohue and Levitt are somewhat famous for their bold claim, published in the May 2001 edition of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, that legalized abortion has reduced crime. The Economist just put forward an amusing update that discusses a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston working paper and counter-claim that is based on a re-test of … Continue reading Computer controls and conclusions