Did you know that the words "race car" spelled backwards still spell "race car"?
And that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the first letter and move it to the last, spells its own past tense, "ate"?
And if you rearrange the letters in "Tea Party Republicans," and add just a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the hell up you free-loading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent hypocrites, and deal with the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush and that our current president is black, so suck it up and get over it."
Isn't that interesting?
Subject: SEVEN REASONS NOT TO MESS WITH CHILDREN.......
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'.
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?'
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'.
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.'
The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.'
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.'
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to 'honour' thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?'
From the back, one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, 'Thou shall not kill.'
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, 'Why are some of your hairs white, Mum?'
Her mother replied, 'Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.'
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, 'Mummy, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?'
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.'
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.'
'Yes,' the class said.
'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?'
A little fellow shouted,
'Cause your feet ain't empty.'
The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
'Take only ONE . God is watching.'
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples..'
At the wedding reception someone yelled,
"Would all the married men, please stand next to the one person who has made your life worth living."
The bartender was almost crushed to death.
A sweet grandmother telephoned St. Joseph 's Hospital. She timidly asked, "Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?"
The operator said, "I'll be glad to help, dear. What's the name and room number of the patient?"
The grandmother in her weak, tremulous voice said, "Norma Findlay, Room 302."
The operator replied, "Let me put you on hold while I check with the nurse's station for that room."
After a few minutes, the operator returned to the phone and said, "I have good news. Her nurse just told me that Norma is doing well. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back normal and her physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged tomorrow."
The grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful. I was so worried. God bless you for the good news."
The operator replied, "You're more than welcome.
Is Norma your daughter?"
The grandmother said, "No, I'm Norma Findlay in Room 302.
No one tells me shit."
TRUE STORY
_________________________________________________
SOMETHING ROTTEN AND IT AIN'T THE CHEESE
Just hours after he delivered a State of the State address that he hoped would set the tone for his campaign to avert a recall election threat, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was hit with exactly the sort of news that embattled politicians fear most.
Two former aides to Walker — one of whom was in the employ of his campaign until just days ago — have been charged with felonies and misdemeanors in the ongoing John Doe investigation of wrongdoing by aides, political allies and campaign donors with links to the embattled governor.
These charges follow closely on the filing of felony charges against Tim Russell, a former Walker deputy chief of staff and one of the governor’s closest aides over the past decade.
The aides charged Thursday were, according to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, engaged in fundraising and other political activities during work hours while on the staff of Walker when he served as county executive.
Chisholm explains in a pair of detailed complaints that Russell and the newly indicted aides established a “secret email system available to and used by select ‘insider’ staffers for both official and unofficial business.” That system was built around a wireless router that was kept in an armoire in the office of Walker’s deputy chief of staff — just a few feet from Walker’s office. Its existence was “never disclosed to county employees outside a closely held group within the Walker administration.”
The complaint discusses the exchange of thousands — yes, thousands — of emails involving fundraising and political activity. Many of these email exchanges involve the deputy chief of staff who is now charged with four felony counts of misconduct in public office, Kelly Rindfleisch, and top political aides to Walker, including Keith Gilkes, who went on to serve as the governor’s chief of staff.
Walker admits that during the campaign he was in constant communication with Gilkes about fundraising and campaign strategy.
Rindfleisch was in constant communication with Gilkes and other campaign aides.
Despite the fact that it is illegal for county officials to use their offices for campaign work, Rindfleisch revealed in one email that “half” her taxpayer-funded work was “for the campaign.”
Another individual who appears to have been in email contact with the Walker aides was Reince Priebus, the former Republican Party of Wisconsin chair who now heads the Republican National Committee.
Additional emails went to the campaign of Brett Davis, a Walker ally who was running for lieutenant governor in a 2010 Republican primary. Davis lost that race, but now works in the Walker administration as a top appointee of the governor. The manager of the Davis campaign for lieutenant governor was Cullen Werwie, who exchanged emails with Rindfleisch.
Werwie, who now serves as Gov. Walker’s spokesman, has been granted immunity in the John Doe investigation.
For Rindfleisch, Walker’s former deputy chief of staff, the charges are very serious — major felonies that carry with them the prospect of multiple years in jail. The 57-page complaint against her, and against a lower-level political operative named Darlene Wink (who has agreed to aid prosecutors), provides a rough outline for what political observers have begun to refer to as a classic “pay-to-play” political operation, where key government aides are involved in both policymaking and campaign fundraising from parties that are interested in those policies.
The added twist: Rarely if ever has an investigation into this sort of activity revealed that discussions about money and policy were mixed on a “secret email system.”
The investigation is ongoing. It continues to expand at an exponential rate, touching more and more of Walker’s inner circle, including aides in the county executive’s office, 2010 campaign aides and donors, and aides in the governor’s office and Walker’s current campaign. Notably, Rindfleisch, who was paid by Milwaukee County taxpayers during the 2010 Walker campaign, left county employment after Walker’s election to help organize the new governor’s inauguration. Rindfleisch then went to work as a top fundraising aide with the governor’s political operation, Friends of Scott Walker, with which she was employed until January 2012.
This John Doe investigation is still in the early stages of sorting through mountains of information obtained in FBI raids and related investigations of Walker aides and donors. Key players are cutting immunity deals and agreeing to talk. That means that the charges and complaints will continue through the recall campaign demanded by the 1 million Wisconsinites who petitioned for Walker’s ouster.
The potential that the John Doe inquiry will be a major political problem for Walker now seems a good deal greater than it did just days ago.
Here’s why.
The latest complaint ties wrongdoing to Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
This new complaint makes the connection to Walker’s current spokesman Cullen Werwie, who has requested immunity in the John Doe probe. The private email network in the county executive’s office was aiding both Walker’s campaign and the campaign of a Walker ally, Brett Davis, who was running for lieutenant governor. Werwie was Davis’ campaign spokesman. (In addition to Werwie, Davis is now a top Walker appointee.)
The complaint features a reference to an email from Walker showing at least some knowledge of problems with politicking in the office. He is primarily concerned that there be no media stories about political operations being run out of the county executive’s office — following the revelation in 2010 that one of the aides charged Thursday, Wink, was doing political work on county time. “We cannot afford another story like this one,” reads the email, which was included in the complaint. “No one can give them any reason to do another story.” The governor even counsels his political wingman about the use of laptops and websites during the workday.
The complaint released Thursday is the most detailed and serious yet directed at the official and political activities on behalf of Walker.
And few will debate that these charges are the most serious to arise thus far from the John Doe probe. They bring the investigation dramatically closer to the governor.
This does not mean that the governor is going to be indicted, or that he is guilty of wrongdoing.
But it does raise the classic question from the Watergate era inquiries into the misdeeds of aides to President Richard Nixon. Of Nixon it was asked: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
With the latest charges and the fresh complaint, it is now entirely reasonable to say with regard to Scott Walker: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com
Kim and I watched the Grammys for the first time ever as we had to see if Justin Vernon, once our next door neighbor and the producer of both my CD's, would indeed, win a Grammy as Best New Artist of the Year.
