Just got an e-mail from a New York politician whose mailing list I somehow got on, touting his new website and featuring his classically generic slogan: "Now, More Than Ever". I think the comma is what made me do a slight double-take and realize that, actually, Ever is significantly more than Now.
Further analysis of the prophecies of Nostradamus (sticking once again to the two quatrains I was provided from the documentary about Antichrist #3) has revealed shocking anagrammatic evidence that Nostradamus may have had a dark secret! Read on. Here's the original quatrain:
Pau, Nay, Loron more fire than blood will be
In praise to swim, the great man will flee to the confluence.
He will refuse entry to the pies
And the depraved ones of France will keep them confined.
The...pies? Seriously? Once you anagram to find the hidden meaning, though, all becomes clear:
I, Nostradamus, invented all this willy-nilly;
No seer I, but a pretend prophet below contempt.
All words I pen are off the cuff and free of coherence,
Like "no more of wee genie" -- I mean, what the hell?
FYI, I haven't heard from the producers yet. I don't think it would have taken Nostradamus to predict that.
I got an e-mail today from the producers of a program for the History Channel about the prophecies of Nostradamus, specifically relating to his prophecies about the third Antichrist. (There were others?) They were looking for an anagram expert, and had been referred to Will Shortz, who referred them to me. I don't know if they're going to want to use me, since they want to see if anagrams can reveal any hidden meanings in Nostradamus's prophecies, and my position is that, given enough letters, you can anagram a text to mean anything you want it to mean (as you may recall from this item which I had a hand in). And even if you did think that anagrams had some mystical power of divination, the fact that the original prophecies are in French and I only have the ability to anagram the English translations would probably have some bearing on how much weight you gave my discoveries.
All that being said, I have looked over some of Nostradamus's quatrains, and I believe I may have, in fact, unearthed the identity of the Antichrist. Here's the (translated) original:
Mabus then will soon die, there will come
Of people and beasts a horrible rout:
Then suddenly one will see vengeance,
Hundred, hand, thirst, hunger when the comet will run.
And here's my anagram:
When Obama one-ups old McCain in two-thousand-eight run,
We'll see well-heeled Enron-lovers defend thee,
Antichrist, repellent netherworld deity --
Bush? No...Rush Limbaugh!
As if any of us needed more evidence to believe that.