Monday, November 9, 2009

Acrostic Messages


The Numbers Guy has a great story in Thursday's WSJ that California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent more than one message to the legislature when he vetoed a piece of recent legislation.

It seems the text of the governor's message in the veto was a neat seven lines, a four line paragraph, followed by a three line paragraph. The first letter of each paragraph line spells something. Two words. The first is the word that Richard Burton lovingly described as that great Anglo-Saxon word for copulation. (To be without it would be to be without life. I don't think he was kidding.) The second is a pronoun: you.

A clear message, hidden in plain sight, it seems.

The article goes on about the mathematical possibilities that this was, or wasn't a coincidence. Worth reading, but it may be no surprise that coincidence is what has the longest odds.

This of course brings us to California governorships, Richard Nixon, and the nation's destiny.

Richard Nixon famously lost his election bid to be governor of California, and in a parting statement basically said the rest of the world would no longer have him to "kick around." There's that all needed K.

I don't know what the state of term limits are in California, but we know whatever they are, things can change. So, if governor Schwarzenegger seeks another reelection bid and loses, or is forced from office for some reason, then his next coded message can easily spell Hasta La Vista.

And in true Richard Nixon fashion, his final coded message, shown on Fox News after it is revealed that he really was born on a military transport plane bearing a vast cargo of American geraniums potted in U.S. soil, is that he really is eligible to run for president: I'll be back.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

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