Eideard

Nearly two-thirds of Americans prefer the traditional religious greeting of “Merry Christmas” to the non-specific “Happy Holidays,” a poll found.

Of adults surveyed nationally, 64 percent said people should say, “Merry Christmas,” while 31 percent believe the appropriate greeting is “Happy Holidays,” the Knights of Columbus-Marist poll released Friday said.

For more than five decades, the Knights have been at the forefront of the campaign to “Keep Christ in Christmas,” producing public service announcements with the “Keep Christ in Christmas” message since the 1980s.

“That we prefer ‘Merry Christmas‘ by such a wide margin is indicative of the importance that Christmas has in the lives of the great majority of Americans,” Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said.

Reflections of vulgate communication skills is always dependent on context. If Mr. Supreme Knight Carl Anderson was trolling the streets of Berlin, say, in 1935 – no doubt his greeting would have been, “Heil, Hitler”. In fact, I have no reason to believe his peers, his antecedents said anything different.

Har!

A Miami man who attempted to smuggle a cache of cocaine concealed in Easter eggs pleaded guilty to the crime Monday. Esteban Galtes, 23, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers searched his luggage and found dozens of pastel-colored, egg-shaped candies.

The Easter eggs might not have aroused so much suspicion if Galtes hadn’t been transporting them just two days before Christmas.

“Drug traffickers are always trying novel ways to conceal their contraband,” said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles. “But cocaine camouflaged as Easter candy is one of the more unusual tactics we’ve come across. Obviously two days before Christmas, this defendant didn’t expect his trip would end with federal officers conducting an Easter egg hunt,” he said in a December statement.

Officers found more than 14 pounds of cocaine, the majority camouflaged as Easter treats, as well as some stashed under the cardboard bottom of a paper shopping bag.

He can receive up to 40 Easters in the slammer as payment for his business venture.

A project that began with an iPod Nano and an experimental wristwatch design has quickly exploded online, receiving over $540,000 in funding through Kickstarter, a Web site that helps people find support for projects.

The project was created by the Chicago-based design firm Minimal, which wants to take the iPod Nano, Apple’s latest tiny multitouch iPod, and incorporate it into a wristwatch. Those who pledge $25 to the project will receive a Nano-holding watch kit when it is produced.

Scott Wilson, founder of Minimal, said his company had been astonished by the response to the idea.

“It just seems to keep on going,” Mr. Wilson said, referring to the number of pledges received since the project idea was posted online two weeks ago. “I had expectations that we would get $15,000 in funding from Kickstarter, but by the second day of sales we had quickly passed that.”

Fred Benenson, an employee at Kickstarter, said on Twitter Thursday that the project was the first on Kickstarter to top $500,000 in funding…

The TikTok design created by Minimal turns the Nano into a watch by letting you snap it into a wrist dock. The LunaTik, a more expensive design, is meant to be more permanent. It is made of aluminum and holds the Nano in place with screws.

Mr. Wilson said he decided to finance the project through Kickstarter to ensure that his designers had more input on the final product.

“I’m most excited about using this platform to give creative control to the designers and experiment with the product without having to enter a complicated corporate deal to produce it,” Mr. Wilson said. “It seems to be working; there’s nothing more validating than someone putting a credit card down to buy something.”

We’re starting to offer Giftmas suggestions to our readers, this week. This is the first of several.

I was a more than reasonably successful salesman when I was working at it – in fields as wide-ranging as sporting goods to tech goodies. This is one of those products I would have loved to sell to retailers. Its attractive design adds more functionality to an already successful product. Piece of cake.

Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Is your marriage or a friend’s going through a rocky patch? How about a divorce voucher?

In an unusual take on the season of giving, a London law firm is offering Christmas gift vouchers for divorce advice.

The firm, Lloyd Platt & Company, which normally charges £325 an hour, said it had been swamped with enquiries since it launched the vouchers early last week.

So far, more than 60 have been sold — a snip at £125 for a half hour session with a divorce lawyer.

The firm’s founder, Vanessa Lloyd Platt, said she had been amazed at the response to the vouchers. “They seem to appeal to an enormously widespread spectrum of people looking for that ‘must have’ gift for Christmas,” she said.

Not associated with the holiday, especially – but, I did schedule one of my divorces for after the first of the year – for tax reasons. Har! 8)

“No god? … No problem!” reads the advertisement featuring the smiling faces of people wearing Santa Claus hats. “Be good for goodness’ sake.”

Over the next two weeks, 270 of the ads will go up on city buses and trains in the Washington area as part of the holiday kickoff to campaigns sponsored by secular groups in cities around the country and abroad. If last year was any indication, the signs are likely to spark a theological war of words.

“We don’t intend to rain on anyone’s parade, but secular people celebrate the holidays, too, and we’re just trying to reach out to our people,” said Roy Speckhardt, the executive director of the American Humanist Association. “To the degree that we are reaching out to the godly, it’s just to say that you can be good without god…”

Elsewhere, this year’s secular signs vary in tone.

In Seattle, this year’s signs say “Millions are good without God.” In Las Vegas, signs to be put up this week will say “Reasons Greetings” and “Yes, Virginia … there is no God…”

The campaigns come against a backdrop of a growing number of nonbelievers. Fifteen percent of Americans identified themselves as having “no religion” in a 2008, up from 8 percent in 1990, according to a study by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford.

Overdue. But, don’t get your shorts in a bunch over discovering Americans are more ignorant than the rest of the industrial West. That’s true in almost every aspect of life – whether it be politics, social structure, interpersonal relationships, knowledge of science.

You name it – we can figger out how to lag behind.