#88: Gas Planets and Blowhards

I woke up this morning at 4:30, fully wired and rarin' to go, probably because my histamine levels are elevated for the unofficial start of Allergy Season. (I'm thinkin' the Evil Government's plan of Daylight Stupid Time starting a month early can be blamed for it, but I guess it REALLY falls into the category of one of those Mysteries of Providence that John Flavel writes about, somehow 'working together for my good' but I'll be dogged if I can figure out how.)
Anyway, in thinking about what to write in today's post, I looked at one Today In History site. Well, good old Sir William Herschel observed what he thought was a star this day in 1781 but what actually has turned out to be my second favorite planet, Uranus. Obviously, I had to go to Dictionary.com to get the official pronunciation so that my totally depraved nature did not take precedence over decorum. Before I got that for which I was looking, I was brutally accosted by the Word of the Day: Rodomontade
Here's part of the entry:
rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun: Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant.
When I read the definition, my first thought was that it sounded like something William F. Buckley, Jr. would say. Repeat after me, "Bob, You Were Right!"
Here's example #4:
'But what he said -- that if any official came to his house to requisition his pistol, he'd better shoot straight -- was more rodomontade than a call to arms or hatred.-- William F. Buckley Jr., "What does Clinton have in mind?", National Review, May 29, 1995'
OK...so then I typed in "Uranus" and got 8 possibilities from which to choose. I could only chuckle when I read these two:
The American Heritage Science Dictionary
Uranus (y r'ə-nəs, y -rā'-) The seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest, with a diameter about four times that of Earth. Though slightly larger than Neptune, Uranus is the least massive of the four gas giants and is the only one with no internal heat source. A cloud layer of frozen methane gives it a faint bluish-green color, and it is encircled by a thin system of 11 rings and 27 moons.
Online Etymology Dictionary
'Uranus... Planet discovered and identified as such in 1781 by Sir William Herschel (it had been observed before, but mistaken for a star, cf. 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged it as 34 Tauri); Herschel proposed calling it Georgium Sidus, lit. "George's Star," in honour of his patron, King George III of England.'
Well, my twisted wit makes sense of this combination of possibilites by seeing that Christian English King George III's rodomontade towards his American colonies made him, perhaps, the Fifth Gas Giant in our solar system. Bragging is bad, Christian bragging, way worse in my book.
Got Madness, King George? (GREAT movie, "The Madness of King George", by the way.)