The first edition of Mullings in the HTML format was not without some problems which, because of the patience and expertise of the folks at Hockaday/Donatelli and Focus Data Solutions, I believe have been solved.
January set a new all-time record for what are called "page views." This is a measurement which is accepted by most Internet pros as an excellent gauge of how many people are coming to a web site and what they are doing when they get there. The number of page views for January was just over 142,000. That, I am told, is a very big number for a site like Mullings.
The Mullings Subscription Drive is under way. The subscription cost has not gone up - still 25 bucks - which is a great bargain, and will help keep Mullings a strong, independent voice on the Web. I need your help.
Now, on with the show:
The Chancellor of Germany is a guy named Gerhardt Schroeder. Gerhardt Schroeder won re-election four months ago by poking his finger at President Bush and declaring Germany would never, under any circumstances support - much less participate in - an invasion of Iraq.
Schroeder won re-election by a whisker. The Greens joined the Social Democrats (the center-left party in Germany) to give Schroeder the thin margin he needed.
Since that time Schroeder has raised taxes causing the German economy to go into the tank; he has not paid off on economic reforms he promised; unemployment has skyrocketed; and his popularity has sunk farther than the submarine in Das Boot.
Schroeder then whispered sweet nothings into French President Jacques Chirac's ear about Germany and France running the European Union together and, by extension, all of Europe. All Chirac had to do was to buy into the German theory of non-intervention in Iraq and the world would be theirs!
Everyone, except Jacques Chirac, has understood from the start that Schroeder was using France for his own purposes and would (a) discard France or (b) swallow France when it suited him.
Does any of this sound at all familiar?
Herr Schroeder got a good smack in the Kopf this past weekend when two major elections went heavily against his Social Democrats and went, instead for the center-right Christian Democrats. In European politics you don't have to be a Socialist to be a Social Democrat; and you don't have to be a Christian to be a Christian Democrat.
One of the places where Schroeder got thumped was in his home region, Lower Saxony. Imagine the press reaction in the US if, this past November, Texans had elected Democrats for Governor and Senator and gave the Dems control of both the State Senate and State Legislature. (None of those things, by the way, happened in Texas).
The New York Times reported that, on the heels of the crushing election defeat, "[T]here was clearly a sense on the day after the vote that Schroeder was considerably weakened and even isolated. The cover on the weekly newsmagazine Speigel on Monday showed a picture of Schroeder under the caption, 'The Lonely Chancellor.'"
The International Herald Tribune, in its editions today, is reporting that the French - stand-up guys that they are - have "quietly started readying forces that could fight alongside Americans if there is a war in the Gulf ..."
And, an analysis on the BBC web site, ahead of Colin Powell's appearance at the UN today, says: "Should Germany still vote 'No' or abstain in a Security Council vote, and if France decides to break ranks with Germany and vote 'Yes', then Mr. Schroeder's international isolation would be total."
Germany isolated from the international community? Hmm. Given its history over the past century, the international community might well decide that Herr Schroeder has put Germany exactly where the international community wants it to be: Isolated with a weak leader.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the IHT and the BBC articles, a Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption.
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