Across Difficult Country

India When I heard guru Baba Ramdev had received a threatening letter I leapt to my feat and exclaimed, “This looks like the malign handiwork work of the nefarious Iqbal!” punctuating my outburst by gesturing with my pipe. Sure enough, today Zee News India is reporting : “Uttar Pradesh security forces on Thursday arrested a middle aged man, Iqbal, in connection with a threatening letter written to the popular yoga exponent Baba Ramdev.” New Zealand Arthur Ross Cradock , the orchard worker who told police being raped by a wombat had left him speaking in an Australian accent, was found guilty of having a sense of humor and sentenced to 75 hours of community service. United Kingdom Angry Chinese smashed the windows of the Natural Bed Company in Sheffield because of the store’s support of Tibet. Fearing retaliation by Tibetans the pro-China Sheffield Futon Shop has added extra security.

I again attempt to view the exhibit of Roman art from the Louvre at the museum, but, as before, when I approach the museum I feel overwhelmed and turn back. It’s as if I cannot withstand the presence of so many relics from that dead empire, and so shy away. No matter how much I intend on entering, this always happens right as I’m on the verge of the museum. UPDATE: I learn from a friend who works there the museum is closed on Mondays. UPDATE: I called the museum and asked if they had any paintings depicting Jesus in the hat he surely must have worn. After some delay they said no, but they did say the museum has a café where I might enjoy having lunch.

Scientists at Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research have been attempting to cross minke whales with cows ; so far without success (my guess is the cows drown when the whales try to mount them). They hope to produce a hybrid animal with the beefy goodness of a cow, the blubbery delightfulness of a 10,000 pound whale, and the ability to spout milk out of its blowhole. Unsurprisingly, this creative research project is being ridiculed by the moribund and humorless scientific establishment: The head of Australia's scientific delegation to the IWC, Dr Nick Gales, said the research not only lacked credibility - it was downright strange. "(The research involves) really bizarre and very strange experiments...It's totally esoteric, very strange research," he said from London. Gales claim to fame is his two year study of the turds and vomit of sea lions , so his jealousy of scientists doing something truly groundbreaking is understandable.

The tables were turned on a man discovered stealing meat from the freezer of an Italian eatery in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The startled thief menaced the restaurant’s owner with a “ five-pound log of frozen Italian meat ”, but the restaurateur retaliated, bashing the meat burglar in the face with a big ham . The thief fled and remains at large. It’s unknown if the suspect was drunk or a Polack, but at this time neither possibility can be ruled out. None of which has anything to do with the gigantic plantain banana shaped UFO Chilean air force general Hernan Gabrieli Rojas saw in the skies over northern Chile in 1978. The huge and idiotic looking craft was last seen flying in the direction of Easter Island, and has never been seen since.

Mundo Hispano Bilingual reports a drunken Polack was forcibly caressing a woman about the head and ears with a sausage when it inexplicably burst into flame. This startled the miscreant and he fled on a bicycle. A police spokesman said: "Witnesses said the Polack was definitely using a sausage. Earlier reports a Parmo was involved were mistaken. We do not know how it happened..." The victim said she was frightened at what the Polack might do next, while admitting she was also somewhat aroused. As a precautionary measure she was taken to a hospital to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

From the Scarborough Evening News comes the appalling story of a drunken man who rubbed a kebab on some poor lady’s face : “He [Stephen Black] started shouting obscenities and said ‘If you want it [the kebab] you can have it’, before pushing it into her face and rubbing it in.” [The victim] said she was frightened at what Black might do next and had to be taken to hospital after developing breathing difficulties. Police arrived and arrested Black, who had been out all day and admitted drinking 11 pints of bitter before the incident... This crime is the one of the many unpleasant consequences of mass immigration and multiculturalism. Certainly in the England of the past there were occasions when a woman had a steak and kidney pie shoved in her face, or perhaps was pelted with an order of fish and chips, but never would you have seen a woman bludgeoned with a kebab.

Last week a Polack riding a bicycle had his pants spontaneously burst into flame : Mieczyslaw Jasinski, 55, was on his way home from work in Koroszczyn, Poland, at the time. A police spokesman said: "Witnesses said he was like a flaming human torch. We do not know how it happened..." And to think there are those who continue to deny the existence of God.