I’m from the UK, where we don’t have any coincidences (actually that’s rather creepy :eek: ).
But aren’t there both a Lincoln Centre and a Kennedy Centre in the US?
That can’t be just a coincidence!
This is not true. What is true, however, is that in the US there is both a Lincoln Center and a Kennedy Center. So not only do we have coincidences, we also have proper spelling.
Or should that be propre spelling?
Centre is the British spelling of center. It’s perfectly acceptable. There are other examples, but I can’t think of any just now.
Or was I just whooshed?
Maybe, it’s a grey area. 
I do believe there are some unexplained coincidences, although I do not know what causes them. Take for example the so-called Tecumseh Curse. Out of the 8 presidents that died in office, 7 died after being elected in a year ending in zero! That is more than just a random event. As for what is responsible for it, I still don’t know. The only concrete explanation I have ever heard is that some advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is secretly manipulating things on earth. But to some people, that is just as ridiculous as the Synchronicity thing. BTW, Cecil covered the Tecumseh Curse thing here. Cecil is a skeptic like me, but like Cecil says:
And back to my original post, the Adams Bush thing might just be random chance. But I think I might have something weird in the Mount Rushmore one. Again, I just think coincidences do exist. But I do not know what causes them. 
Nitpick: Jackson got a plurality of the popular vote (41%), not a majority. There’s also the fact that Adams had one term, followed by Jackson’s two, as opposed to W’s two terms, and Gore has been saying he’s not going to run.
Jim B. writes:
> Out of the 8 presidents that died in office, 7 died after being elected in a year
> ending in zero! That is more than just a random event.
Your grasp of statistics is very bad. Even if each American president was only elected to one term, the chances of each one being elected in a year ending in 0 is one in five. So even if each American president was only elected to one term, the fact that eight of the forty-three of them died in office and seven of the ones who died in office were elected in years ending in 0 still wouldn’t be that all-fired surprising. What’s more, since many of the presidents who died in office were elected to more than one term, it’s even less surprising. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in years ending with 2, 6, 0, and 4.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
That would be logical, A.R. Cane, except that for several years the only horses near our house were three Prezwalski’s horses. I think there are only about 800 of them in the world. What are the chances that three of them would be practically in our backyard in Nashville?
By the way, you can see the stripes beneath the hair on their back legs. They surely do want to be zebras. Wildest little horses you ever saw.
I guess you need to work on your comprehension skills. As I said, I’m from the UK.
In case your history skills are on a par with your sarcasm, we’re the home of English. Chaucer, Milton, Newton and Shakespeare were all writing English well before the USA even existed.
You’re welcome to have American spellings, but please don’t suggest it’s the ‘proper’ spelling.
Further, as your highly-educated leader so memorably puts it:
“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
“It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.”
“I have opinions of my own – strong opinions – but I don’t always agree with them.”
Y’all have a nice day, now!
Snigger 
You tell 'em** glee**
Actually, I think organizations and buildings and the like are only supposed to be spelled as they are in their own countries, not using your own dialect, but I could be wrong.
Yes, as we all know, George Bush is the paragon of diplomacy and lexical correction, and held as such by all American citizens. Oh, and he said all four of those things.
Over this side of the pond, we have trousers, pavements and colours. You ex-colonials have pants, sidewalks and colors. But as the song so memorably puts it “You say tomato, I say tomato”.
I think it was creditable that I knew of a relevant couple of buildings in the US. If Julius Henry had made a pleasant joke of my spelling, that would be fine. However he was rude.
I think that guests should be treated with respect, but I could be wrong.
He is the face of the US to the rest of the world. If he was my leader, I would refrain from making fun of the way people in other countries communicate. 
With seven billion people in the world, what are the odds that all four of those things would have been said by the same person? The mind reels.
Furthermore, I have it on good authority John Quincy Adams also said something about a budget with a lot of numbers in it.
Do you seriously think there is something significant here?
Random things typically contain clusters that humans perceive as non-random - and once this perception occurs, the cluster seems more significant or important than the surrounding data. It’s called cognitive bias and it’s quite a well-known phenomenon.
So you found a cluster of names that appear to have some sort of sequential relationship.
What you’re ignoring is:
[ul]
[li]All the ways in which these four names are not apparently sequentially related (for example, the third letters of their first names: R, O, O, E - no discernible pattern, the alphabetic values of their whole names: 43, 68, 65, 81 - no discernible pattern, etc )[/li][li]All the other examples of the names of four people (limit it to monuments commemorating famous people, if you like), where there is no apparently significant relationship between the letter count in their names.[/li][/ul]
I am a Britischer pigdog, and I agree with you. Proper nouns should be recreated as the locals spell 'em.
As to the OP: not amazing in the least. Mildly diverting at best.
Yes. I’m having a real difficult time figuring out why the letters thing is astounding or even interesting. I mean, the part about “building on the number 13” is really stretching it. I mean, so what?
The old Kennedy-Lincoln one that used to go around was kinda fun and playful, although much of it was demonstrated to be factually incorrect. Simple letter counting, though? Come on. You can be more creative than that.
But while we’re on the letter-counting kick, you can also add the fact that the proposed fifth face Susan B. Anthony (which never got carved, do to funding), has 13 LETTERS. OMG!
The sculptor’s surname was BORGLUM (7 letters)
The formation is composed of GRANITE (7 Letters)
One of Borglum’s other works is called the AVIATOR (7 letters)
Borglum was born on March 25th (2+5 = 7)
Coincidence? I think NOT!