House Speaker Newt Gingrich authorized government spending for a large monument dedicated to the Berlin Wall, which will be built near San Diego, California. “Berlin was a focal point during the cold war” Mr. Gingrich said in a Congressional speech on Wednesday, “and our nation will not forget the sacrifice that citizens of Berlin bore for political freedom.” The monument, a symbolic tribute to the now-sundered Berlin Wall, consists of a 18-foot high concrete wall, fifty-six miles in length, which will be “artistically punctuated” with guard towers, machine guns, minefields, and “extremely hungry dogs which do not understand Spanish.”