Monday, August 8, 2011

chaptalize \SHAP-tuh-lahyz\, verb:

• To increase the alcohol in a wine by adding sugar.

Chaptalize comes from the French chaptaliser, which is in turn named for the French chemist J. A. Chaptal.

debt ceiling chicken

• A game where everyone in Congress refuses to agree on a deal to raise the debt ceiling until the last possible minute. It's like regular chicken, but instead of driving cars at each other, politicians are using the economy.

John Boehner: I don't give a shit if our country turns into Mad Max 2. I'm going to win this game of debt ceiling chicken.

Barack Obama: Challenge accepted!

Trivia

What ordinance about bigamy was issued in Nuremburg, Germany, in 1650, two years after the Thirty Years War ended?

• The parliament ruled that for the next 10 years, in order to rebuild the city’s devastated population, each male citizen would be permitted to have two wives.

History

• Mont Blanc: the tallest Alp was summited for the first time, by Frenchmen Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard (1786)
• mimeograph: was patented by Thomas A. Edison (1876)
• Great Train Robbery: 15 thieves stole more than £2m. from a London-bound traveling post office after stopping the train with a false red signal in Buckinghamshire (1963)
• Richard Nixon: announced his resignation from the presidency in the wake of Watergate, six years to the day after he was nominated by the Republican Party (1974)

Birthdays

• Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919): rebel leader of the Mexican revolution
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953): Pulitzer Prize-winner for The Yearling; plus, winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
• Paul Dirac (1902-1984): mathematician and physicist who won a Nobel Prize for work on atomic theory
• Dino De Laurentiis (92): film producer, Serpico; also, director/producer Martin Brest (60)
• Dustin Hoffman (74): award-winning actor, Rain Man; plus, actors Esther Williams (90), Connie Stevens (73), Keith Carradine (62), Donny Most (58), Tawny Cypress (35), Michael Urie (31) and Meagan Good (30)
• Drew Lachey (35): singer/dancer, 98 Degrees, DWTS; also, musicians Mel Tillis (79), Phil Balsley (72), The Edge (50), Kool Moe Dee (49) and JC Chasez (35)

Read more: http://www.answers.com/