Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Got a question? Get an answer. Send an e-mail to Dear Mr. Mullings Dear Mr. Mullings: After I graduate from law school and then leave the military, I hope to someday be the US Congressman for my rural district in north Georgia. What should I be reading and what should I do everyday to help me become a successful leader and policy maker? Clayton Georgia Mullings. Seriously, I'm the last guy to give advice on what to read to further your career. The book I have with me as I type this (sitting in Bryant Park in Manhattan on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon) is some 1967 spy novel by Jack Higgins. Here's what you should do: Send this same note to the Governor, your two US Senators, and your Congressman and tell us what (or if) they wrote back. Dear Mr. Mullings: Are there any other countries (other than the good old US of A) that maintains military bases in foreign countries during peace time? John Houston Not many outside of multi-national defense organizations like NATO. In the good old days of the Soviet Union, they had bases all over the place (including, briefly, Cuba). According to a left-wing group called "The No Bases Coalition" "Most of the 1,000 foreign military bases on the planet belong to the United States, which has 737 in different countries (excluding secret bases)" which would lead us to believe there are 263 bases operated by other governments in countries other than their own. Dear Mr. Mullings: What is the purpose of windows on envelops used to make payments. Wouldn�t it be more economical to simply print the return address on them? Art Fredrick, Maryland Yes, if Mullings were doing the billing and everyone sent their payment to the same address. However, most large organizations which send out monthly bills - American Express and Virginia Electric Power to name but two - have payment processing facilities (called "caging operations" in more than one place. To parcel out the workload (and to get the payments into their hot little hands as quickly as possible) your bill is pre-addressed so that your payment goes the the nearest facility without overloading the process. Last one Dear Mr. Mullings: How did you get the umlout over the word �ber? Herr Wagner A very useful little tool in Microsoft Word is the ability to insert things like umlauts or tildes. To do this, look for the "Insert" tab on the toolbar. When you click on it (you may have to hold it down for the full menu to appear) look for the "Symbols" sub-menu. Click on that you you will see you have a choice of symbols including those called "Whizbangs" which are really cute symbols you should never use in any document which is being sent to someone over the age of seven. Pick the same typeface you are using in the document - Times New Roman is typical - and scroll down until you see the "u" with an umlaut. High light that. Press CTRL-C to copy it onto the computer's clipboard and close the menu. Then, at the appropriate place press CTRL-V to paste it into your document. 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