Thanks Alien! I was thinking that the country-flag hack was a cool idea, but I don't have many international members. Just a few from Canada and Germany. I never got around to asking about states though.
I don't care what they say about short, green men. Yer okay in my book!
I used slightly larger state flags on my board and made them animated. I think so far (in the first week) we probably have about 15 visitors from foreign countries and about 40 people from different U.S. states who have picked flags. The only problem with state flags is that some users don't say where they are from and then pick a state flag and so you really have no idea what flag it is (the alt tag as you move over the icon will say 'soandsouser is from' with nothing else. Maybe I need a posting just identifying all the flag options?