Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Got a question? Get an answer. Send an e-mail to Dear Mr. Mullings Dear Mr. Mullings: When I am preparing to enter the exit ramp and another car is preparing to get onto the highway, who has the right of way? Although it's not a huge issue here in Indiana, if ever I were to go to the big city, I would like to know what to do. Heather Indiana Take a cab. Seriously, in the olden days of highway design, engineers went to great lengths to build the exit ramps which would allow cars to get off the road prior to the entrance ramps. Seems like a good idea, but for some reason this has fallen into disfavor. Actually, I suspect it has to do with cost. If the exit ramp is prior to the entry ramp, you need two additional lanes: One to slow down to get off; and one - seperate - to speed up to get on. If the entrance ramp is prior to the exit ramp then the merge lane for the entrance ramp can simply be extended for a few dozen feet and it automagically becomes the slow-down lane for the exit ramp. Or buy a tank. Dear Mr. Mullings: What's the story with Dick Morris and Hillary Clinton? While you'd never guess it now, Morris was an advisor (and one therefore assumes friend) to Bill and Hill. What happened? Matt Lincoln, NE Bill, Hillary, and Dick are the best sources but you would have to believe that it has at least something to do with the 1996 re-election campaign when Morris was found to be keeping company with a prostitute whom, it was alleged, he had allowed to listen in on conversations with the Clintons. Again, just conjecture, but one suspects Hillary got it into her head that the last thing Bill needed was to be sharing stories about extra-marital affairs with his senior political guru and so Morris got canned about two months before the end of that election. As it turned out, Bill was plenty able to come up with interesting scenarios all on his own and didn't need Dick Morris to guide him. Years ago I was on O'Reilly with Morris and he had come up with some theory on whatever election we were talking about and I said that it ran counter to everything I knew about politics. He said that only one of us had managed a Presidential campaign; to which I responded "Which means only one of us has ever been fired from one." I believe we went to a break. Dear Mr. Mullings: What are the specifications for the computer you use to compose your thrice weekly column? Briggs Singapore Interesting you should ask that. I am writing a summary of my adventures with the new Microsoft Operating System, Vista. Part of that summary includes the following: I do all my work on the same machine at home, in the office, and on the road. It is a Fujistu Lifebook P7120D. The Lifebook is a 32 bit machine with a 1.2 gigahertz Intel Pentium (M) processor and came with 512 MB of memory which I doubled to 1 GB because I wanted to run the new version of Flight Simulator. The Lifebook has a screen of only 10.5 inches but it weighs only about 3 pounds. It comes with an onboard DVD R/W drive so all I have to schlep along is the power cord. decided some years ago that, Cosmo notwithstanding, size wasn't that important, but weight was. With the amount of time I spend dragging my laptop around the planet, the difference between three pounds and five or six pounds is enormous. Last year I flew about 125,000 miles. On a pound-per-mile basis that means I saved nearly two TONS of weight. I know that's sophistry, but I did the long division and I wanted to use it. This is my second or third Fujistu. I can't remember what happened to the first one, but the second died a horrible death when I spilled what turned out to be a $2,000 cup of coffee on the keyboard. I still have it because when I break this screen - as I will surely do sooner or later - I can replace it with the screen from that one. Last one Dear Mr. Mullings: With the Oscars getting so much attention over the weekend, I was wondering where the Green Room got its name? Brian There is a lengthy, boring, and probably correct discussion of this on the World Wide Words website. Other theories have it that the holding/waiting room at the old Tonight Show (which first aired in 1954, starred Steve Allen, and was 105 minutes long) was painted green ... just because it was. The story is the phrase "the green room" came from the number of stars who waited their turn with Allen, Paar, Carson or Leno on the Tonight Show and has become the generic phrase for the holding room at a TV studio. See you next week. Rich Got a question? Get an answer. Send an e-mail to Dear Mr. Mullings                                     Click here to return to the Secret Decoder Ring page Copyright © 2007 Barrington Worldwide, LLC