Let's take a break from the nanosecond-by-nanosecond reports and analyses of who's saying what, and who's doing what, to whom in the Middle East.
Wait. One thing. On Tony Snow's Saturday Fox show, I said there was a danger in judging the outcome in the Middle East by what is happening at any given moment.
After the opening day of the baseball season, the Baltimore Orioles were in first place and the New York Yankees were in last. If the baseball season were being reported like the Middle East, George Steinbrenner would have fired Joe Torre last Monday night. He didn't and now the Yankees are in first and the O's are exactly where we thought they'd be: Wait'll next year.
One more quick thing: It turns out there IS one person who can stop the terrorist suicide bombings by Palestinians against Israelis: Ariel Sharon.
There was an AP report out of Colombia, Sunday, that a car bomb in the city of Villavicencio killed 10 people. That's horrible in and of itself, but reporter Susannah Nesmith reported that "Colombia's 38-year civil war, pitting the country's two main rebel armies against a rival paramilitary group and the government, kills an estimated 3,500 people every year."
Without diminishing the anguish of the Middle East, I think it is true that if every major news organization in the world had a bureau in Bogota, this would be a much, much bigger deal. According to ABC News, "Since the beginning of the latest Intifada in September 2000, a total 1,712 people have died, among them 1,263 Palestinians and 416 Israelis."
That is exactly one-half the number of Colombians being killed every year.
A Washington Post piece by John Pomfret detailed an effort by Taiwan to buy influence in North and South America. A $100 million fund was established to sway "U.S. think tanks and Washington lobbyists." Once again, Mullings is the last to know.
Dear Sirs: I would like to interest you in purchasing a site license to Mullings for the people of Taiwan. According to published reports there are 22,370,461 people residing in Taiwan. At $25 per person, a Taiwanese site license for would total $559,261,525. Because Taiwan would become one of Mullings' largest subscribers, I am willing to offer you the Mullings Half-Off Discount; a savings of nearly $280 million!
On a completely different subject, having absolutely nothing whatever to do with anything else, an article in this weekend's well written and excellently edited Taiwan China Post formally announced "the appointment of Douglas H. Paal to the position of director of the American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) Taipei office, the de facto U.S. Embassy."
On Saturday, 10,000 Scottish people marched in New York. They all played bagpipes, which makes you think that if the US military had parked Abu Zubaydah on Fifth Avenue and forced him to listen to the entire parade, he would have given up every secret he knows about future terrorist attacks.
Or, maybe he would have said, "That WAS the next terrorist attack on New York."
Last point on the Scottish parade. The Hillary has marched in the alternative St. Patrick's Day parade because the real parade organizers refused to allow gay groups to participate. Here's my question: 10,000 guys in kilts. How would you know?
Speaking of The Hillary, the Washington Times reported last week that Russian spy, Robert Hanssen, had been poking around the FBI computers looking up information on her. Remember that Hillary was accused of being involved with the Clinton White House's misuse of the FBI files of former Reagan and Bush aides.
So, Hillary had White House staffers' FBI files, Hanssen got Hillary's FBI files, Hanssen gave the Russians our FBI files, we assume the FBI is looking at the Russians' files.
I have to go listen to some bagpipe music to clear my head.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, links to the AP, Washington Post and Washington Times articles, and the usual things.
If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a
look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well:
� 
