Truthiness is a satirical term created by television comedian Stephen Colbert to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts. Colbert created this definition of the word during the inaugural episode of his satirical television program The Colbert Report, as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd". It was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society and for 2006 by Merriam-Webster. By using the term as part of his satirical routine, Colbert sought to criticize the use of "truthiness" as an appeal to emotion and tool of rhetoric in contemporary socio-political discourse. He particularly applied it to U.S. President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1346: King David II of Scotland led an invasion of England during the Hundred Years' War, but was captured in the Battle of Neville's Cross. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Neville%27s_Cross)

1604: Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an exceptionally bright star which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1604)

1662: King Charles II of England sold Dunkirk to France for £40,000. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk)

1860: The Open Championship, the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf, was first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Championship)

1977: German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos rescued all remaining hostages on board. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_181)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

accrete: To grow together, combine. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accrete)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind; and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone. -- Arthur Miller (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller)