Schwarzenegger: Profanity in veto was 'wild coincidence'

Sacramento Bee ^ | 10/30/9 | Rob Hotakainen

[SmithL]

WASHINGTON ---- It may be highly improbable mathematically, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that the encoded profanity contained in one of his veto messages was "a wild coincidence."

Speaking to reporters at the White House, the Republican governor said: "That was a total coincidence. It was one of those wild coincidences."

The first letter in seven lines of the message, when read from top to bottom, combine to spell out "F• you."

[Joe 6-pack]

While not profane, my favorite coded message during my lifetime was George Plimpton's Sidd Finch story...

"He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga — and his future in baseball."

[mongrel]

The article is wrong. It wasn’t profanity. It was vulgarity.

[La Enchiladita]

Riiiiiight.... remember, Ahnolt’s an actor.

[Sudetenland]

I believe you algorithm is incorrect. I is based on the random appearance of letters. The number of possible words is far different than the number of random letter occurrences.

How many possible words are there and in combinations that actually would make sense? A very difficult probability to approach.

[Overtaxed Patriot]

The probabilities could be as low as:

27 to the 10th power, or one in 205,891,132,094,649... or one in about 205 Trillion. This is assuming:

There was no overflow in my calculator in a number that large; the letters are equal in occurrence, but of course they are not; the 27th "letter" factors in a paragraph start.

So see, it COULD be a coincidence.

[bigbob]

Yeah, nobody gets that definition right anymore...

Of course a few decades ago people would have been more offended by the other guy’s use of the word “ass” than of “gay”

Anyhow, Arnold wins the round, even if he did get caught on his little trick ;-)

[oldteen]

Gave me a good laugh. Even passed it around a bit.

[green iguana]

LOL

[smokingfrog]

Seriously
Unusual
Rino
Event
!

[Tublecane]

“No, it’s just a coincidence. There are no big coincidences or small coincidences, just coincidences.”

I might go along with this, had the human race never discovered statistics and probability.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Some of his opponents are eying the governor’s job. This sort of thing is common in politics. Remember, he is a “republican” and that’s enough for his opponents to sling dirt at him.

[HIDEK6]

There's no such thing as a coincidence.

Isn't that rule #1?

[Hildy]

LOL!

[Hildy]

You guys don’t really think he wrote it? Some staffer did and he signed it, probably without knowing.