The obvious 1st choice is to offer $100,000 tax free to anyone who gets sterilized. $50,000 if they have 1 kid. World-wide. The poorer the country, the more $100,000 is worth. It'll boost economies better than wars.

I'm currently working in Saudi Arabia. I haven't seen any US citizens here working illegally, but if you'd like to fly us both to India, Korea, London, Tokyo, Paris, Nepal, New Zealand I will gladly point them out to you. Americans are very honest to point out that they're working illegally in other countries at least to non-natives.

I see US citizens doing that all over the world. You should try traveling before you make that statement. From nice expensive cities like London, Tokyo and Paris, to 3rd world nations.

Don't blame Lucas for that. They destroyed their reputation by selling the bean counters who were destroying the British car/bike industry. They demanded the lowest price and Lucas said for a few cents extra, we could build you reliable stuff. Then after the bean counters were finishing off reliability of their products, they cut back on R&D. Then the unions getting involved and the British government. Wait, in fact, just say "Lucas sucks". It's easier. And the Civil War was over slavery.

I'd like to see citations please.

I'm currently working in Saudi Arabia where everything is subsidized. There's little to no taxes here. I've heard import taxes are 2%. Fuel is 13 cents American a liter. But to mail something is expensive -- $4/letter -- according to the Saudis I've asked. I haven't mailed anything yet.

I love that US mail is cheap. I used to mail things all the time. I'd much rather get an actual hand written letter than email.

Fuck, that'd be great. Decker could have a wacky sidekick played by Gary Busey. They can also solve crimes with a totally hot large breasted actress who knows some kind of space kung-fu. Too bad Sean Young is too old. She's a crackpot as well.

I'm sensing doom for this project. Maybe they can get Joss Whedon on it. Then abandon it after 6 episodes. Then wonder why it sells so well on DVD and bring it back. Then cancel it. Argh.

Dick lived a speed freak lifestyle, but his liver processed speed so it didn't effect him. He didn't know it at the time. Or at least that's what he said in interviews.

I think Saudi will be fine. There's no taxes here and everything is subsidized. The people are well fed. Still, it's the ME so any monetary bet on it wouldn't be make or break.

I'm actually working in Saudi. Just above the Yemen border. It's in my own best interest to pay attention to what's going on. This city was shelled a year ago and in December there was a firefight with al-Qaeda.

Yikes, yes. My mistake. It's hot in Saudi and I'm distracted from watching news of Libya and Bahrain. I'm near Yemen and I'm keeping an eye on that, too. If Yemen goes, I think the school staff will be evacuated.

UPS is your friend, not your mortal enemy. That's universal power supply, not the delivery service. The delivery service IS your mortal enemy.

I've had these arguments with friends but once people have decided Islam is to blame, it's hard changing minds. Right wing/lefties it doesn't matter. It's not science where you can give a composing argument for most people.

I'm in Saudi now. Foreigners get it different but I still don't try to talk to women. They can get in trouble by talking to single men of any religion. Oh, and the veils here pre-date Islam. Still it's a crazy culture and I'm glad I didn't grow up in it.

So, wait, Yoko Ono destroyed wikileaks?

I was at a Jesuit high school. It's the 80s and all so we sat around waiting for the USSR to nuke us. They got someone (can't remember if it was the principal or a brother) on the speaker and did an announcement about how sometimes men don't understand technology and they go too far. It went on for a few minutes without saying what happened. Me, and a few other people, figured it was nuke time. Then they said the shuttle blew up. I laughed and so did a few of my friends. It sucked, but the death of seven you don't know is much nicer than the death of you and everyone you know. Other students were "fuck you, that's not funny" but no point in explaining why we laughed. Like war movies when a soldier walks past a dead soldier, laughs, and says "poor bastard". It sucks, but better him than you.

I still get a few spams in my gmail inbox and I still get actual email going to the spam box. I'm on a ton of mailing lists and I have it set so everything sent to my domain goes to gmail.

I have my domain registration email set to dead_babies@ which is starred when I get those. Those almost always go to the spam box and they hardly show up but it makes me laugh when I get them.

Part of the false positives are probably my fault to occasionally responding to the "we should swap links" with "sure, would you like to be on the page about necrophilia or the page with the naked girl pinning Marshmallow Peeps (tm) to her vagina?

I have too much time on my hands sometimes.