Two disparate subjects.
The Interview has been released to several streaming platforms today, including Xbox 360 and Google Play, in an article at Huffington Post.
It also lists by state the theatres that are showing the movie (including links where theatres have Websites).
The conspiracy theory is strong on the article's comment section: apparently, it was a stunt by Sony to out tens of thousands of employees' and customers' Social Security Numbers, credit card accounts, home addresses, damning E-mails between its staff all to get adverts for a movie the company had already invested millions in adverts for.
They also managed to get the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency, the official news organ of the DPRK), the FBI, and even the President on-board, keeping the "conspiracy" to advertise a movie secret though hundreds of thousands of people would have to all simultaneously vow to keep it secret; despite two previous Sony hacks and a government that cannot allegedly do anything competently.
The amount of conspirators required would seem to equal the number required to "fake the moon landings" or "9/11 was an inside job." They cannot seem to grasp simple things like a group of hackers attacking a corporate site or an inside theft from Sony, despite Neimen-Marcus, Target, Staples, &c &c &c.
Of note, it was revealed where the name "Guardians of Peace" (the name of the hackers) came from. It came from a speech by President Nixon, referring to South Korea. It seems even less likely the DPRK would take something referring to their hated enemies to perpetrate an attack over the Internet when it has only been on the Internet since 2005.
In the meantime, regardless of your religious faith, or lack thereof, enjoy your Christmas celebrations, however they might be. It has only been a Federal holiday since I was eleven. More below the orange tinsel.
The US Senate Website (US Flag Code) notes Christmas as one of the noted Federal flag days.
Title 4 United States Code (the US Flag Code, Public Law 77-623, signed June 22, 1942) § 6. Time and Occasions for Display, paragraph (d) lists the Federal Holiday of Christmas as one of especially important days the National Ensign should be displayed, though Christmas was not added to the Flag Code until 1968. Of note, the first Congress met on Christmas Day in 1789.
The Long Parliament under Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans in the United Kingdom outlawed the celebration of Christmas in 1647, identifying the date with “paganism and popery.” Since the Puritans also settled New England, celebrating the holiday was outlawed in the Colonies as well in 1659 (with notable exceptions in Virginia and Pennsylvania). The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 in the United Kingdom ended the ban, however Calvinist ministers still disapproved of celebrating the holiday. The ban was not revoked in Massachusetts until 1681.
16 Statute 168, passed by Congress and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant June 28, 1870 designated Christmas to be a Federal holiday for Federal employees within the District of Columbia.
Public Law 90-363 (§ 6303), passed June 28, 1968 under President Lyndon B. Johnson (and which came into effect on January 1, 1971) extended Christmas Day as a holiday throughout the United States, overturning remaining state and local laws against the holiday.
Where I grew up, the area was majority Mennonites, thus no holiday decorations in the various towns. (Private decorations, but no public ones.) That changed in 1971, when the public law designating Christmas as a national holiday went into force under President Nixon's administration.
The reason that we have a few Mediæval Christmas carols today is because they were widely sung in protest of Cromwell's government. They were thus preserved.
Secular songs (such as Jingle Bells) did not come about until the latter part of the XIX and early XX Century in the USA.
The "War on Christmas" as you frequently hear from Bill O'Reilly did not come from we atheists, it came from Christians. What I find most egregious about his screeds every year is that there are people old enough to remember when Christmas was not a public holiday (and he is old enough too).
So whether you want a greeting Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, Joyous Festivus, or just want to get through the day to a Prosperous New Year, there ya go.
(A local carpenter just left my home a few minutes ago. He was delivering a cabinet for my kitchen I had made as a gift for my wife - she'd requested it some time ago. He combined his trip with another to the Public Library to deliver new handmade bookshelves, so my wife was over at the library while he was here installing the cabinets.)
11:46 AM PT: If you can think of a few more tags that have absolutely nothing to do with each other but do have something to do with this post, by all means add them. I don't believe I have ever used such a strange combination before.