Taxing: The British public favors taxing Queen...

Taxing: The British public favors taxing Queen Elizabeth II and it’s particularly unhappy with her daughter-in-law, the Duchess of York, better known as Fergie. A weekend newspaper poll said 70% of the public believed the queen should pay taxes. Fortune magazine called the monarch the world’s fourth-wealthiest person, with an untaxed personal fortune of $11.7 billion. Brits have snickered at Fergie for her party-going and her frumpy clothes.

Word Up: That watchdog of manners and morals, Sen. Robert Byrd, is giving Webster’s dictionary an X-rating. The West Virginia Democrat railed in the Senate recently that the Third College Edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary includes all sorts of “dirty” words. While Byrd did not name names, an aide did, including one zinger listed between mother country and Mother Goose. Said Victoria Neufeldt, the tome’s editor-in-chief: “For heaven’s sake, I’ve defined some of these words, and I have never used any of them and feel no more inclination now, than then.”

Fly Guy: Former U.S. Rep. Pat Swindall says some customers give him the buzz at his Atlanta flea market. “I know who you are and I think you’re a jerk” is what often passes for conversation, Swindall said. The conservative Republican lost his re-election bid in 1988 and is appealing a 1989 conviction on charges related to money laundering. He says he is over his “arrogance” and is writing a book about how God allows bad things to happen to good people.

Desert Beauty: Miss Nebraska hopes she is called up to the spotlight before she’s called up to the war. Army National Guard medic Ziba Ayeen, a 26-year-old native of Afghanistan who moved to the United States in 1980, competes in the Miss USA pageant in two weeks. “All that we have been told is there is a good chance” her unit could be shipped to the Persian Gulf, she said. “I’m willing to go. I just hope it wouldn’t be in the next two weeks.”