Across Difficult Country

In Habentem Longum Barbam Thy beard is long: better it would thee fit, To have a shorter beard, and longer wit. On his Three Marriages Though marriage by some folks be reckoned a curse, Three wives did I marry, for better or worse; The first for her person, the next for her purse, And the third for a warming-pan, doctor, and nurse.

Lord Tebbit battles Chinese dragon ! The 78-year-old was so upset by the noise caused by a Chinese New Year celebration near his home that he ran 100 yards down the street, grabbed a drum that someone was banging, and planted a kick on the backside of a dancing dragon - without realising a boy was inside." Restaurant owner Patrick Chung, who organised the street celebration in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, said: 'A drum was being beaten outside my restaurant as part of Chinese New Year but Lord Tebbit arrived and stopped the drummer. 'He probably did not realise what was going on. He did kick the dragon. 'There was a child inside the costume and he was kicking the dragon's bottom. He ran after the dragon and kicked it. The child was upset. He did not know what was happening.' Another witness said: 'This old man came running towards the dragon on the parade. 'He grabbed the drum and cymbal being played and then started violently kicking the dragon ...

Instead of creating a new ugly building, acclaimed architect Daniel Libeskind ’s latest project is the vandalization of an old building normal human beings enjoy looking at. The “improved” Dresden military museum . Presented as a war memorial, the result is merely a monument to the talentlessness, vulgarity and egomania its designer. Libeskind says “You can't do architecture if you don't believe in a better future.” In a better future his buildings would be razed to the ground.

President Obama intends to put Mussulmen into space . Good news! I thought, until I realized he didn’t mean all of them. Instead the plan is to use the space program for "outreach" to "to non-traditional partners". For we live in a time of Progress, and Progress requires NASA abandon its mission of boldly going where no man has gone before to serve, instead, as an orbital ‘Make-A-Wish Foundation’ for backwards countries. This ridiculousness can‘t be prevented, so we should make the best of it and urge the President to also send a Zambian Afronaut or two .

There are two other animals, which have some resemblance to the camel. One of these is called, by the Ethiopians, the nabun. It has a neck like that of the horse, feet and legs like those of the ox, a head like that of the camel, and is covered with white spots upon a red ground ; from which peculiarities it has been called the cameleopard. It was first seen at Borne in the Circensian games held by Caesar, the Dictator. Since that time too, it has been occasionally seen. It is more remarkable for the singularity of its appearance than for its fierceness; for which reason it has obtained the name of the wild sheep. - The Natural History of Pliny .