[Wikipedia] October 17: Truthiness

[Faraaz Damji]

   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


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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)


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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

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


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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)