Salman Rushdie, in a speech I heard several years ago, said that it was widely doubted that Iran would or could actually come up with the three million dollar bounty on his head. This may play a large part in why he is still around. Also, while speaking at the National Press Club recently, flogging his new book, he said (from memory), "Iran now wants us to believe that they don't want to kill anyone, and in fact never did. I wish they'd told us sooner, it would have saved a lot of trouble." This was greeted with laughter. He added, "But when the European Union tries to get them to put it in writing, they are unwilling to do so." If Iran is sending mixed messages about whether they even *intend* to pay off, coupled with widespread doubts of their ability to, it isn't surprising that no one has offed him. I think all the analyses of the economic costs of protecting one person vs. protecting many people are rather beside the point, in light of this. -- David R. Conrad, conrad@detroit.freenet.org PGP key on GDFN Hardware and http://detroit.freenet.org/staff/conrad home page Software Committee "If you can't say 'fuck', you can't say 'fuck the government'." --Lenny Bruce