From my favorite internet nutjob’s website, Steven Lightfoot’s Steven King killed John Lennon
Cape Canaveral (Spanish for reedy marsh), named by Juan Ponce de Leon, is locally claimed to have been the second geographical feature in North America to be given a European name. The first was La Florida itself, because it was the season of* Pascua Florida* (“Flowery Easter”) and because much of the vegetation was in bloom when Ponce’s expedition arrived.
The moon rotates on its axis in about 27 days. Daytime on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half days, followed by 13 and a half nights of darkness. When sunlight hits the moon’s surface, the temperature can reach 260 degrees Fahrenheit; when the sun goes down, temperatures can dip to minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit.
All of the US space missions launched from Cape Canaveral. It was known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 through 1973.
Physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit is known for being the inventor of the mercury-in-glass thermometer (the first practical, accurate thermometer), as well as for developing the temperature scale which bears his name.
Though there are some conflicting stories about how Fahrenheit chose the reference points for his scale, his original reference points are generally believed to be the temperature of a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (which originally defined 0 degrees F), and the normal body temperature of a human (which originally defined 96 degrees F).
The planet Mercury, closest of all to the Sun, has no moon, unlike Earth.
A research team undertook a study in 2016 to understand the appeal behind Freddie Mercury’s voice.Led by Professor Christian Herbst, the team identified his notably faster vibrato and use of subharmonics as unique characteristics of Mercury’s voice, particularly in comparison to opera singers. They confirmed a vocal range from F#2 to G5 (just over 3 octaves) but were unable to confirm claims of a 4-octave range. The research team studied vocal samples from 23 commercially available Queen recordings, his solo work, and a series of interviews of the late artist. They also used an endoscopic video camera to study a rock singer brought in to imitate Mercury’s singing voice.
As I learned in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie Mercury was born with four extra teeth in the back of his mouth, pushing the front ones forward and causing a large overbite. Mercury never fixed his teeth, fearing that the procedure would cause more health issues, and might affect his unique voice.
According to the site “Jesus is Savior,” Freddie Mercury was The Spirit of Sodomy.
Warning: That whole site is a hoot, but be prepared to spend some time on it.
Per Wiki, Mercury’s surface appears heavily cratered and is similar in appearance to the Moon’s, indicating that it has been geologically inactive for billions of years. Having almost no atmosphere to retain heat, it has surface temperatures that vary diurnally more than on any other planet in the Solar System, ranging from 100 K (−173 °C; −280 °F) at night to 700 K (427 °C; 800 °F) during the day across the equatorial regions. The polar regions are constantly below 180 K (−93 °C; −136 °F).
At its warmest, when it is closest to the sun, the dwarf planet Pluto can reach temperatures of -369 °F (-223 °C). At its coolest, temperatures can fall to -387 °F (-233 °C).
A ‘day’ on Pluto is 6.4 Earth days or 153.3 hours long.
The maiden voyage of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B, was planned as a “quick run around the block,” taking the ship out beyond Pluto and then returning to spacedock, in the movie Star Trek Generations. However, the flight plan was abandoned when the Enterprise received a distress call from an alien starship.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s 1843 short story “The Black Cat,” the cat’s name is Pluto. And this was long before Mickey Mouse’s dog took the name.
Edgar Allan Poe, who was born in 1809, was just 40 years old when he died in 1849. According to Wiki, the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, “brain congestion”, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other causes.
Allan Blakeney was the Premier of Saskatchewan in the 1970s. Although he was a socialist, he got along well with Premier Lougheed of Alberta, who was a conservative. They were united in their determination to keep natural resources under provincial control, rebuffing efforts by then Prime Minister Trudeau to assume control under the “National Energy Policy”.
The British Prime Minister is ex officio also First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. During World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill also held the portfolio of the Minister of Defence. He did so again for less than a year during his second stint as PM.
When PM Chamberlain finally took Churchill into Cabinet on the outbreak of WWII, he appointed Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, a post Churchill had previously held in WWI.
The Admiralty laconically announced it in a message to the Royal Navy: " Winston is back."
Off-play
It’s the other way around: you’re appointed First Lord of the Treasury, thereby ex officio becoming Prime Minister. The British Constitution contains odd little quirks, like a head of government position that is not defined by statute anywhere. ![]()
The long-running television jingle for Winston cigarettes, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”, drew criticism from pedants for an incorrect word choice. Advertising agency William Esty Co. deliberately, and ungrammatically, used “like” rather than “as” in the slogan and jingle, just to gain attention.
In the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and journalistic communities in the United States when Merriam-Webster published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the editors refused to condemn the use of “like” as a conjunction, and cited “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” as an example of popular colloquial use. After publication of Webster’s Third, The New York Times called the edition “bolshevik,” and the Chicago Daily News wrote that the transgression signified “a general decay in values.”
Dental caries are the most common chronic disease of children aged 6 to 11 years and adolescents aged 12 to 19 years. Tooth decay is four times more common than asthma among adolescents aged 14 to 17 years. Dental caries also affects adults, with 9 out of 10 over the age of 20 having some degree of tooth decay.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 13 people in the US have asthma. More than 25 million Americans have asthma; this is 7.7 percent of adults and 8.4 percent of children.
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the fat, glasses-wearing Piggy regularly begs out of activities, telling Ralph about his asthma. Ralph’s regular reply is “Sucks to your ass-mar”.