From: Trond Engen on
Brian M. Scott skrev:

> On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:27:05 -0000, Androcles
> <Headmaster(a)Hogwarts.physics_u> wrote in
> <news:U3lgn.67724$3E5.39843(a)newsfe18.ams2> in
> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang:
>
>> "alan" <in_flagrante(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:hlsls1$294$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>>> "Androcles" <Headmaster(a)Hogwarts.physics_u> wrote
>>>
>>>> Observing the planets as gods goes back to prehistory
>>>> and are the basis of the seven day week.
>>>
>>> The strcit 7 day week actually had its origins with the Jews.
>>
>> IN FACT the seven day week ACTUALLY has its origin in
>> prehistory, as I've explained. [...]
>
> In fact you've done nothing of the kind: you've made an
> unsupported assertion.

IN FACT argument-by-capitalization makes him sound AWFULLY like another
LOON with a Greek NICKNAME.

--
Trond Engen
From: Cheryl on
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Feb 21, 4:17 pm, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Feb 21, 10:59 am, Mike Barnes <mikebar...(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>>> Yusuf B Gursey <y...(a)theworld.com>:
>>>>> On Feb 19, 11:25 am, Mike Barnes <mikebar...(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>>>>> But I thought that for most people the whole point of Easter is that
>>>>>> they get time off work.
>>>>> not in the US, at least not in my state.
>>>> So I now understand. Here in England, Friday and Monday are holidays,
>>>> and school terms fit around them. That's the problem with Easter. I
>>>> think it's fair to say that many people here would be happy if they
>>>> fixed the dates of the public holidays (e.g. second weekend in April)
>>>> and allowed the holy day to shift as it will. I don't if or why
>>>> disconnecting them would matter to anyone.
>>> That's because you're stuck with a state religion.
>>> In NYC, parking regulations are suspended for just about anyone's
>>> religious holidays.
>> Hey, we get to take some religious holidays (Christmas Day and Good
>> Friday) off work even without a state religion! I'm ecumenical; I'd take
>> ANY religious holidays. I suspect that there's some rule that you have
>> to be a member of the religion in question in order to not work that
>> aren't also legal or secular holidays, but that could be fixed by making
>> them ALL legal holidays. My home province ended up cancelling some of
>> the religious (ie Christian) holidays from the list of legal days off in
>> the interests of increased productivity, but some workers still have the
>> old list embodied in their contracts. Now, of course, some of them get
>> "Mid-March" and "Mid-July" off rather than religious holidays.
>
> What "religious holiday" does "Mid-July" accommodate?

I was thinking St. George's Day, but when I checked, it was Orangemen's
Day.

When all these were drawn up, people of both Irish Catholic and English
Protestant ancestry had to be accommodated, but I'd forgotten that the
Protestant got two days to the Catholic's single St. Patrick's Day.

--
Cheryl
From: António Marques on
Robert Bannister wrote (22-02-2010 01:15):
> Andrew Usher wrote:
>> On Feb 19, 6:07 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> 6. This is surely the best possible arrangement that can be made,
>>>> without disturbing the cycle of weeks or that of calendar days
>>>> inherited from the Romans.
>>> If you are going to try to make it sensible, then please give us 13
>>> four-week months with one or two specially named days at the end of the
>>> year to even it out. The first day of each month should be a Monday.
>>
>> Once again, I said that I excluded having days outside the week. And
>> the first day of the week is Sunday, not Monday - that is an
>> incontrovertible fact.
>
> Oh dear. I had thought that you weren't a crank up till now.
>
>>
>> Having 13 months, in addition, would screw up a bunch of things ; in
>> particular, 13 can't be divided.
>
> Why is that so important? Why is not having days outside the week
> important? I seem to have lost the point of having a calendar change.

1) It's ugly.
2) It's religiously unacceptable.

Just use a 364-day year with a leap week. What's troublesome about that?
From: Peter T. Daniels on
On Feb 22, 1:58 am, Transfer Principle <lwal...(a)lausd.net> wrote:

> Notice that the current USA Labor Day (first Monday in
> September) already occurs exactly 11 weeks and three days
> before Usher Thanksgiving. As Usher points out later, this
> is convenient for college football, which traditionally began
> on Labor Day weekend and ended on Thanksgiving, with enough
> time to play 11 games in between. (The recent practice of
> playing 12 games instead of 11 occurred because in a recent
> year when Labor Day and Thanksgiving were 12 weeks and three
> days apart, colleges scheduled an extra game, then kept on
> scheduling 12 games even when the period between the two
> holidays switched back to 11 weeks and three days.)

It can't have been terribly recent, since it was FDR who changed
Thanksgiving from "last Thursday in November" to "fourth Thursday in
November" -- supposedly to increase the number of shopping days before
Christmas.
From: Peter T. Daniels on
On Feb 22, 7:14 am, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Feb 21, 4:17 pm, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote:
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Feb 21, 10:59 am, Mike Barnes <mikebar...(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >>>> Yusuf B Gursey <y...(a)theworld.com>:
> >>>>> On Feb 19, 11:25 am, Mike Barnes <mikebar...(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >>>>>> But I thought that for most people the whole point of Easter is that
> >>>>>> they get time off work.
> >>>>> not in the US, at least not in my state.
> >>>> So I now understand. Here in England, Friday and Monday are holidays,
> >>>> and school terms fit around them. That's the problem with Easter. I
> >>>> think it's fair to say that many people here would be happy if they
> >>>> fixed the dates of the public holidays (e.g. second weekend in April)
> >>>> and allowed the holy day to shift as it will. I don't if or why
> >>>> disconnecting them would matter to anyone.
> >>> That's because you're stuck with a state religion.
> >>> In NYC, parking regulations are suspended for just about anyone's
> >>> religious holidays.
> >> Hey, we get to take some religious holidays (Christmas Day and Good
> >> Friday) off work even without a state religion! I'm ecumenical; I'd take
> >> ANY religious holidays. I suspect that there's some rule that you have
> >> to be a member of the religion in question in order to not work that
> >> aren't also legal or secular holidays, but that could be fixed by making
> >> them ALL legal holidays. My home province ended up cancelling some of
> >> the religious (ie Christian) holidays from the list of legal days off in
> >> the interests of increased productivity, but some workers still have the
> >> old list embodied in their contracts. Now, of course, some of them get
> >> "Mid-March" and "Mid-July" off rather than religious holidays.
>
> > What "religious holiday" does "Mid-July" accommodate?
>
> I was thinking St. George's Day, but when I checked, it was Orangemen's
> Day.

I grew up in a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian church in NYC, and I recall
Orangemen's Day as being August 5. I didn't learn what it commemorated
until I'd left for college, and was not happy.

The congregation lnog ago became Hispanic, and merged with a
neighboring Presbyterian church, but the building was made a NYC
landmark last year.

> When all these were drawn up, people of both Irish Catholic and English
> Protestant ancestry had to be accommodated, but I'd forgotten that the
> Protestant got two days to the Catholic's single St. Patrick's Day.