Saturday, March 5, 2011

confute \kuhn-FYOOT\, transitive verb:

• To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false.

Confute is from Latin confutare, "to check the boiling of a liquid; to put down; to silence."

fappable

• Something that is sexually desirable, or deemed high enough quality that it can be used for masturbation purposes.

Man, that picture is really fappable.

Trivia

In how many of its nine seasons was the sitcom Seinfeld No. 1 in the Nielsen TV ratings?

• Two—seasons six and nine.

History

• Boston Massacre: five colonists were killed when British troops fired into a rowdy crowd (1770)
• Stars and Bars: first of several Confederate flags was adopted (1861)
• Iron Curtain: phrase was coined by Winston Churchill in a speech in Missouri (1946)
• North Korea: held peace talks with South Korea for the first time in 25 years; the representatives met in New York (1997)
• Martha Stewart: businesswoman was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the investigation of ImClone insider trading (2004)

Birthdays

• Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594): cartographer, came up with the Mercator projection
• Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712): painter of cityscapes, inventor of the firehose; plus, artists Giovanni Tiepolo (1696-1770) and Howard Pyle (1853-1911)
• Antoine Cadillac (1658-1730): founder of Detroit
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959): musician and composer who founded the Brazilian Academy of Music; also, musicians Alan Clark (59), Charlie and Craig Reid (both 49) and John Frusciante (41)
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1897-2003): wife of Chiang Kai-shek and advocate for his government
• James B. Sikking (77): actor, Hill St. Blues; also, actors Rex Harrison (1908-1990), James Noble (89), Dean Stockwell (75), Michael Warren (65), Marsha Warfield (57), Penn Jillette (56), Adriana Barraza (55), Eva Mendes and Kevin Connolly (both 37) and Jake Lloyd (22)