Sunday, 12-3-06: City officials in Amsterdam say they'll close a third of the prostitution "windows" in the red light district, which has been thriving since at least the 1600s. They legalized prostitution in 2000 to make it possible to tax and regulate. Now they're using a new law that makes it possible to revoke a brothel's license when they suspect money laundering. Brothel owners are appealing in court. They say it's the street pimps who are the problem rather than the window owners. Monday, 12-4-06: A suicide bomber rammed a minibus into a military convoy on the main road through Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three British soldiers were wounded, and a vehicle was set on fire. A helicopter came in to clear out wounded soldiers. Crowds and cars pushed to get past the blocked road, and the troops opened fire on at least one civilian vehicle that didn't obey hand signals. As many as 8 people were killed. I have such fond memories of Kandahar from when I was a kid.... John Bolton has resigned as ambassador to the UN. Hurray! Bolton's critics saw him as uncompromising and hotheaded. I like one thing he did: getting Myanmar's repressive military regime on the Security Council's agenda. Myanmar is the country in the world I hate most.... Tuesday, 12-5-06: A US Marine in the Phillipines was sentenced yesterday in to 40 years in prison for rape. Smith says the sex, which took place in the back of a moving van, was consensual. The judge says she couldn't give consent because she was too drunk. That's fascinating. It makes sense from the legal standpoint that one has to be of sound mind to enter a contract, and being drunk is hardly of sound mind. But it means that any man who has sex with a drunk woman can be convicted of rape. Which is ironic, seeing that when women get drunk, their libidos increase by 300% to 400%. Just when a women really wants sex, it's illegal.... Tony Blair laid out plans yesterday for a multibillion-dollar submarine-based nuclear arsenal. This is expected to be one of his last major acts as premier. Britain has 200 nuclear warheads, and four nuclear submarines. NASA announced yesterday that it's building a permanent base camp at one of the moon's poles. The south pole is more likely, as it's in sunlight three quarters of the time. Construction will start in 2020, and the camp will be staffed fulltime by 2024. Wednesday, 12-6-06: Residents of southeastern Australia were startled by a large fireball which made a bright streak and a loud explosion. It was so bright it could be seen clearly in the sky just before sunset, and the trail lingered for 15 minutes. Wow! A lot like Tunguska.... Drunken moose and elk are fairly common in Sweden in the autumn. They eat fermented fallen apples. A moose drowned recently when she got drunk on apples and fell through the ice on a lake. The rescue effort failed. Thursday, 12-7-06: Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of the vice president, is pregnant. The President's Office issued a statement that they don't approve of gay marriage or gay adoption. The Vice President's Office issued a statement that Cheny and his wife are looking forward to the birth of their grandchild. The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments. The EPA says concentrations of lead in the air have dropped 90% in the last 25 years. An unearthed sarcophagus in Rome might hold the body of the Apostle Paul. The excation by Vatican archeologists began in 2002 and was completed last month. The findings will be officially presented on Monday. Friday, 12-8-06: A judge in Tallahassee, Florida, lost his job because he was ruled unfit yesterday by the State Supreme Court. He once jailed 11 people because they were late to traffic court after being directed to the wrong courtroom. Power is good, isn't it?... Bad news! The ebola virus threatens to kill all the gorillas in the wild. It's killed a quarter of the world's gorillas in the last four years. It's killed 5000 in the last four years in one region of the Congo alone, and is continuing to spread. A vaccine has been developed, and ecologists want to inject the remaining animals with dart guns or put an oral vaccine in their food. But there are miles of red tape to get through, so help is unlikely. Saturday, 12-9-06: Machiavelli was on his deathbed. Three times a priest begged him to repent his sins and renounce Satan. He said, "At a time like this, Father, one tries not to make new enemies." In local news, a driver was angry yesterday because he was driving more than 100 MPH on city streets, and the police didn't notice. So around five in the afternoon, Jason Klopf rammed his Honda Civic into a parked police car, backed up and rammed it again, and then took off. The police caught him a few blocks away. He didn't appear to be drunk or high.