I think they've started adding up the amount of money they make from women driving around the world.

How can they take money from women drivers if they consider it immoral for women to drive?

If you're really a strict Muslim then I'd think you'd have turn down any money earned through an activity that your version of Islam forbids.

They're not going to turn down the cash.

If half the money they live on comes from foreign women drivers, then it becomes difficult for them to justify this view that women shouldn't be allowed to drive.

So tell me Rudy Giuliani's position on medical marijuana.

You can't tell me Rudy's position on medical marijuana, because you can't even mention the subject in Salon, because Joan doesn't want to be mocked by conservatives.

Nobody is ever going to find out any candidate's position on medical marijuana from Salon. Never again is this ever going to happen. Never, never, never.

So you shouldn't be so hard on Susan Ostrich. You guys aren't all that different from her after all.

People rarely change out of the goodness of their own hearts.

The Soviet Union didn't collapse because Russians started loving freedom. It collapsed because the state-run economy was unsustainable and that fact became inescapable in daily life.

Look at Russia now -- Russian people are welcoming restrictions on their political freedom under Putin. That's because they've got oil money now.

And look at medical marijuana. All the science being peer-reviewed and published right now is very clearly heading in one amazing direction -- this is the most incredibly valuable medicinal substance that has ever been synthesized by any plant or laboratory on this planet.

What's holding it back? Certainly not any scientific facts.

It's economic, pure and simple. You cannot patent the cannabinoids in marijuana.

So Big Pharm is never going to allow the federal laws to change.

The only force that can really work here is economic. When insurance comanies start to realize that medical marijuana patients only use about 1/5 of the high-priced prescription drugs that other patients with the same illnesses are consuming, then insurance companies will recognize that medical marijuana has a major impact in reducing the cost of health care, and they will get behind a change in the laws.

And only then will the laws finally change.

I gues that means I should shut up about this topic. Let people remain in ignorance about the science.

The insurance companies are going to figure it out eventually all by themselves.

According to my reading, my obsession over matters of scientific fact and my insistence on placing them above more social concerns like political affiliation is one of the typical behaviors of a person with Asperger's.

And going on and on and on about a narrow topic of interest -- that behavior trait of mine is in the autism spectrum too.

Abusive Twiddle-person:

Saudi Arabia needs their foreign oil revenue more than ever before, but they have the worst public image ever among the people who are their best customers.

This women-can't-drive thing really hurts their image among the women who CAN and DO drive.

It's a no-brainer that when you're in business to succeed, you don't want to unduly alienate your best customers. Especially not when those customers are trying to deal with global warming along with gender oppression, and already have lots and lots of motivation to stop buying your products.

I think that the luxury lifestyles of three generations of Saudi princes has finally run down the family fortune enough for these economic considerations to make a difference.

About economic forces and medical marijuana:

Melissa Etheridge told Stone Phillips on Dateline that the reason she turned to cannabis when she had breast cancer was because the federally legal alternative amounted to taking at least five different prescription medications, three of which were necessary just to combat the side effects of the other side effects medications.

If I were a Big Pharm CEO watching that interview, after I finished having an episode of high blood pressure and anxiety, I would immediately start putting money into anti-drug groups and politicians who were vehemently opposed to medical marijuana.

I think activists are underestimating the amount of economic impact this is going to have. If every cancer patient replaced five prescription meds she has to buy from Big Pharm with one herbal med she can grow in her back yard -- that would cause an economic meltdown in the pharmaceutical industry.

They are going to fight this to the absolute death.

If I wear nail polish containing dibutyl phthalates for more than three days, my estrogen-sensitive autoimmine problem flares up as if I had taken estrogen. Maybe DBTs are having an estrogenic effect on young girls as well.

There are a LOT of estrogen-like chemicals everywhere. Plastic water bottles, we've heard about that one here in Salon. Scientists just discovered that lavender has an estrogenic effect. It can make young boys grow breasts. So that's another possible candidate.

Soy protein acts like estrogen on me. And they're putting soy into EVERYTHING now. It's hard to find bread and pastry nowadays that doesn't use soy protein as a dough conditioner.

All multigrain breads nowadays have flax seed in them, and flax is very high in plant estrogens.

By the way, OPI is getting rid of the DBT. Their new nail polish lines are being advertised as DBT-free. So I can't eat commercial bread or pastry any more, but at least I can get my nails done again.

What difference does it make?

I don't know what difference it's going to make in Burma.

But I think the Internet played a role in ending the systematic extrajudicial homicides of Thai drug users that followed the Thai government's campaign for a Drug Free Thailand.

I think the phrase Drug Free Thailand is now being interpreted less homicidally by the Thai police as a result of the Internet.