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Legal Tender means it can be accepted as a payment of debt.

While it's not in the US, Ottawa will no longer accept cash when used to pay for taxes.

Also, in the U.S. there is no law requiring anyone accept cash as payment. I know Heinlein thought otherwise in some statements in "Time Enough for Love," but it's not true. For a little more, read this. As someone else pointed out, the legal tender issue will only work for paying debts incurred, not ones about to be incurred.

While most of the Northeast, Mid-West, and Coastal Western States are left-leaning, the South (and the south-west and non-coastal west) has a right-leaning attitude.

Wrong. A closer representation relating geography to political standing would be this: Rural areas are more likely to lean Republic, and urban more likely to lean Democrat. One of the sibling posts was kind enough to link to the Wikipedia map for the 2004 election. It's shaded, however. Look at a map of just who won 2004's election, by county, such as this one. Just the south voting Republican? I think not. Furthmore, I live in a city (indeed, the state capital!), and many of the people I associate with day to day are anything but Republican.

And lots of people live in these states.

Because, as you say, it's such a horrid place. Why would anyone want to live there... Seriously, excuse me? New York is more populus than any sourthern state save Texas. (And California is larger still.) Ignoring the eight digit populations of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. Where do you get the idea that "lots of people live in these states"? Indeed, we have our share of cities, but "lots of people" is exaggerated and ridiculous.

the south has lower salaries, a lower-skilled and less-educated populace, more children per household, more religious tendancies, and a host of other features you could probably guess

• Lower salaries - Compared to some places that aren't in the south, a lower cost of living as well. Do I need to look around at my "lower salary" dwelling? Heating, AC, two cars, nice house, nice neighborhood. Not bad, for a "lower salary", I'd say.
• lower-skilled and less-educated populace - In a nutshell, you're calling me stupid. Such an argument will win you nothing but hate and resentment fairly quickly. If you're going to may such claims as any of the ones you've made, back them up with reason, personal experience, or citation. In all faith, I would contest your assult on the quality of our education, unfortunately, I'm tempted to agree. However, I have the personal experience to back that argument up, and I can only argue for one school district - the one I attended. While it's quality is lacking, it's an inner city school district, a type not known for its quality regardless of location. My highschool was ranked 23rd in the nation this last go round, up from 43rd last year. Perhaps this coming year they'll improve the rating, again.
• more children per household - And this matters because...? We here in any part of the USA enjoy a few things known as freedoms, and if bringing up a larger family is your thing, so be it, should you have the resources to do it. As it happens, while I was born in the south, neither of my parents were - both were from the north. I have three siblings. My parents? Three siblings for one, four for the other, which have since moved and resided happily in all geography regions of the USA - be it south, north, midwest or west.
• religious tendancies - I'll take that as a complement. Perhaps a little faith in your life would do you good, as well as learning to love your neighbor. Your southern neighbor.
• host of other features you could probably guess - Oh, what a way to end a flaimbait of a post. Let's ju

Really sad comments. I am not an anti-American, although you do appear to be anti-European. I do however think American automobile design is abysmal. America makes excellent fighter planes and aircraft carriers. The UK makes the best tanks. When it comes to cars, it is European design coupled with Japanese manufacturing techniques.

Your comments regarding how expensive life is in the US are grossly ignorant. The US is cheaper, much cheaper, than Europe. Time to stop whining. People drive just as far to get to work in the UK, often driving for two hours each way, which is insane combined with an eight hour workday - time for your kids?

The emotional event you describe is coming. Check out Cluster Fuck Nation. if you want to know more.

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /the_dinosaur_pr.html Bye, Oliver

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /online_wash.html Bye, Oliver

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /the_sophisticat.html Bye, Oliver

According to documents which the Coast Guard provided to the Committee (mere hours before the hearing) the Coast Guard confessed that during the Bluewater projects the Coast Guard only provided one or specification was provided to Lockheed Martin in regards to the this series of ships being required to protect classified information was "MIL-HDBK-232, Red/Black Engineering - Installation Guidelines.", and that there were zero... get this... ZERO other TEMPEST requires, measurements, or guidelines listed in the contract spec.

In turn this allowed LM to deliver nothing of value in regards to TEMPEST, but wait, it gets even worse. Lockheed Martin even ignored the requirements of MIL-HDBK-232, so that when they delivered the they were not in compliance with even the single TEMPEST related specification they were given as part of the contract.

American business interests are hurt by counterfeiting, and not just in music or movies. I was at the Pomona Fairplex a few years ago when San Bernardino county sheriffs came in and seized mislabeled Pentiums (they were 300s internally overclocked to 450 MHz -- yeah, this was a while ago :). Purveyors of fake Louis Vuitton handbags in the garment district get raided too: http://lapdblog.typepad.com/lapd_blog/2006/05/poli ce_seized_c.html (1) How likely is it, do you think, counterfeiters are paying collected sales / income taxes on their counterfeit product sales? (2) Even if they are, don't you think the sales/income taxes collected would be higher for legitimate goods? (3) RIAA member companies, and the artists that (however indirectly / low -- an argument for a different time) are paid through their efforts, are being deprived of their financial interest in the work they produced.

All of these are wrongs that "taxpayer funded" cops should be involved in policing.

Such as "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "suppressTopSpacingWP", etc.

You can find a longer discussion here:

http://fussnotes.typepad.com/Achieving_Openness_1p oint0.html

Believe it or not, she's not that unusual. There are actually hundreds of people still living there, who refused to leave after the disaster.

Their numbers have dwindled, mostly because all those of childbearing age and under left and haven't returned. Natural causes take their toll each year.

One thing I do remember is that they haven't shown as much of an increase in cancer rate as expected. Sorry, no source. Hmm.. Interesting read about marginal radiation doses... They may actually be helpfull.

What's so new about this?

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /most_sued_profe.html Bye, Oliver

Hehehe ... let's try to leave Gladwell's article out of this. The blogosphere tore him a new one on that piece -- just check his crappy blog for his attempt to defend it.

But as for the substance of your claim, I don't see how it contradicts my position. The employer, we can agree, offered the company pension as a counterplan to the union pension, and the union accepted this as a valid substitution. Having a job-related pension was the union's idea. My point was that they could have simply used their clout to demand higher wages, and then applied that money to their own retirement accounts, held completely separately from the employer. No, the "Toledo area collective" plan doesn't count. That's still tied to Toledo area employment, with an added layer of unnecessary outside control.

That's just another misdirection.

The GDP of the US has only increased if you measure GDP in US$.
The US$ has collapsed, and your $ will only buy you 58% of the corn it did at the turn of the millennium or 40% as much oil.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2007/05/loo king_at_the_.html

For example:
Supposed your GDP stayed flat when measured in oil. When measured in US$ it would appear to be 2.5 times greater (100/40), because the $ has devalued so much. You say 'yippee out GDP to oil ratio is 2.5 times better, aren't we clever!'.
But your GDP is the same, it's just your US$ have devalued by that amount and your actual ecomony is stagnant.

For some reason the signs banning camera use on the GWB were unusually blurry that day.

You apparently missed the part of the brochure they sent as marketing. The part that says "Managed and Moderated to the Max" or the part that says "Full monitoring and management of submissions" or perhaps even that part that says "Completed work is just 1st draft to be polished by the pros".

In other words, fans take something they love, write extensions to it for their own not-for-profit amusement, hand it to FanLib, and proceed to get completely exploited. Oh, but in return they'll maybe get a free t-shirt or something. No thanks. Clearly, they have no concept of what fanfic is and are completely out of touch with writers in general.

See my small cartoon:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /dr_faust.html

Bye,
Oliver

...cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /the_ballmer_the.html Bye, Oliver

Someone else mentioned hosted Wordpress blogs at wordpress.com and there's also TypePad. TypePad isn't free, but it's inexpensive, and it also supports domain name customization so the blog can be accessible at her own domain name while still being hosted and managed elsewhere.

Yeah -- Fox News, Fair and Balanced.

You are aware that they do things like assessing reporters politcal loyalties during the interview process and giving regular memos directing their newscasters to do things to support Republicans, right? You aware that even the CEO admits using it as a propaganda mouthpiece to sell the Iraq War, right?

If you can't tell that sort of stuff by watching them, then they're succeeding.

Here's an interesting little article about the author of the Salon article you posted.

It appears that Community Management for MMOG's and the game industry has suddenly hit the pop-culture wave and is gaining a lot of attention.

Sanya's posts are somewhat lacking, but entertaining. Whereas, Terra Nova's Lisa Galarneau has repeatedly taken on tough topics that stand out against the miasma of current trends.

On the other hand, blogs like Virtual Cultures take on the Gamer's motivations and explore the society that forms through these communities.

It surprises me what in the chaff is separated from the wheat.

It's a pretty well-worn complaint that the better technologies often lose out, but innovators often seem to be at a loss about how to win in situations where they're up against an entrenched competitor with an inferior product but the existing relationship. I read on a blog somewhere the story of how Sun got it's early business away from the big guys of the day like Apollo ... here's one such link: http://fridayreflections.typepad.com/friday_reflec tions/2007/05/persistence_pay.html

The consensus there seemed to be that sheer bloody minded persistence is the key ingredient to getting something innovative adopted. In other words, "Fall down seven times, get up eight times". Sounds too simple to be true ... but I'm sure there's a million other stories like that.

As a Pennsylvania farmer put it to me in February: "It looks like we're going to burn up the last remaining six inches of Midwest topsoil in our gas-tanks." I *heart* Jim Kunstler. Here's a link to his piece on ethanol, etc..

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /the_worse_is_th.html Bye, Oliver

That mode of interaction seems oddly familiar. Would that be an online (virtual) automat? Buttons next to each item and all.

Presumably the patents on the automat are well and truly time-expired. So it's definitely nothing like that at all ;-)

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /chiefgeek_wolfg.html Bye, Oliver

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /suse_and_its_fr.html Bye, Oliver

when both sides of a dispute are heavily armed, they both have a motivation to work things out. The fact that there's a lot of people with guns in Iraq doesn't mean that they armed factions won't eventually come to a resolution other than genocide.

death squads may or may not be indicators of later genocide,

At the beginning of this year, the death squads were escalating and maybe you're right, they would have come to a resolution. But I believe if it hadn't been stopped, it would have escalated out of control.

Since Petraeus has been brought in, he has started to get it under control because he is doing what should have been done from the beginning (which I think you'll agree with):
http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/20 07/01/thomas_ricks_on.html

Maybe if they promised to be very, very good? And made puppy dog eyes?

You are absolutely correct: this graph shows the average miles per gallon of all vehicles in the United States. It is extremely telling that the graph is practically level since the mid 80s. To think that we haven't gained any more knowledge of engines is ridiculous - we should be improving fuel-efficiency standards, but we're not.

To address the GP, I recall reading somewhere that if the average vehicle got 28 miles per gallon (the actual number is between 25 and 30), we would not have to import a drop of oil from OPEC. Even if hybrids get only 50 mpg, the demand for fuel would decrease substantially. Furthermore, the technology that goes into hybrid vehicles could easily improve (it's a relatively new technology).

I recently read an article about solar power in Wired magazine: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/solar.htm l

The article mentions a new design for a concentrator that only uses two motors. To quote the article -

"Then, in a weekend flash of inspiration, a young Caltech physics grad named Kevin Hickerson figured out how to reduce the number of motors needed to move 25 mirrors independently, a major cost factor. Instead of two motors for each mirror - the traditional approach - Hickerson's solution requires only two motors for any number of mirrors. The key is a mathematical curve known as the conchoid of Nicomedes (named for the ancient Greek mathematician, who discovered it). A grid of ball bearings arrayed to match the conchoid is attached to a frame inside the Sunflower. As the motors move the frame, the bearings control each mirror's position individually."

I have found this but it is not helping me much:

http://nvizx.typepad.com/nvizx_weblog/2005/08/conc hoid_of_nic.html

I have been unable to locate a more detailed explanation of the system and I'm not sure if this basic math is patentable. My advanced math skills are very rusty and I'm not quite sure where to start to understand this. I have an idea that this technique might be useful and I want to understand how to design such a frame. I did look at the concentrator page here: http://www.sandia.gov/pv/docs/PVFarraysConcentrato r_Collectors.htm but it was not much help.

These articles as well also have some implications for the benefits of a simple energy source:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/1 2/1621204&tid=126&tid=14

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816, 1101299,00.html

Also, this today triggered my interest again:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=46765

I want to understand how to make a spreadsheet or something that would allow me to input number mirrors, focal length, size and it tell me shape, size a location of pivots. Can you explain it to someone who hasn't touched calculus in 18 years? I want to build a cheap one on my roof!

even in the future they will love DRM.
See my small cartoon:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /the_dark_centur.html

Bye,
Oliver

Actually, the place that I lived had a big red button. But when I pushed it, nothing happened. So I'd push it every now and then. About six months later, I got a call from some lady in Germany. She said, "Cut it out."

(Modified from an old Steven Wright bit)

Of course there's a way around it! It's software after all.

I worked in a company that did software in the banking/finance world and the lawyer literally spent all her time working with engineering to figure ways around patents or otherwise write code that stuck to as many standards as legally possible.

Apparently this presented great complexity from a coding perspective.

Two informative links for those that want a bit of substantive background on the topic.
http://ipurbia.com/2007/03/verizon-patent-analysis .html

http://herot.typepad.com/cherot/2007/04/verizon_se rvice.html

That this kind of litigation has to happen at all is another indicator of how bad the business climate is in the U.S.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/
here's wil geeking out about being the headnoter,and getting a swag wii out of it.

so i'm going to be the keynote speaker at PAX . . .

Back in February, I recounted the first time I met Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade at Comicon:

I have always enjoyed Penny Arcade, because -- like pVp and Dork Tower -- it has characters I can care about and relate to while I'm laughing at myself, or them, or (usually) both.

I talked to Gabe and Tycho for a few minutes that year, did the obligatory geek out, and then got out of the way, because there were literally hundreds of fans who wanted to meet them and give them money. I guess I made an impression on them, because they featured me in one of their comics, which Gabe or Tycho drew on the plane home, and sent me via e-mail (I can't remember who and it's not really important enough to unpack e-mail archives from that long ago to find out. Also if I'm vague enough about it, maybe one of them will ping me and put me in a new comic. How's that for attention whoring?! Very nice.)

Well, they didn't put me in a new cartoon (though I'll always have this one, sniff, sniff, wipe solitary tear off cheek) but they did something that's a little bit cooler and invited me to be the keynote speaker at the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo.

"You know this is Wil Wheaton the writer and occasional actor, and not the guy from Brother Bear," I said, certain that they'd asked the wrong guy.

They assured me, via their official organizer Robert, that it wasn't a mistake. They wanted me to come speak, play games, and listen to MC Frontalot and Jonathan Coulton, and OMFG THE MINIBOSSES.

So I picked myself up off the floor, and tried to talk them out of it.

"If you make this about me being on Star Trek," I said, "it's going to piss everyone off, and we'll get the obligatory flood of 'who is that?' and 'why does Star Trek matter to a game convention?' and 'I love bacon!'"

They assured me that their demographic is older than the typical bacon-loving, Wheaton-hating 20 year-old. This wasn't about Star Trek as much as it was about my very public love of gaming, and that I shouldn't be so goddamn insecure.

I actually had to think about it for a few days. I love Penny Arcade, and I wanted to be absolutely certain that I would entertain the people who were there with something that would be relevant to their lives.

A weekend passed, and I called Robert back.

"So here's the thing: Seattle is really close for me, so I can come up and back without missing anything important at home. I also know that there's a little over one hundred people who want me to come to Seattle, according to Eventful.

"I really want to do this, but I want to be absolutely sure that I'm going to be a good match for PAX. I don't play anything like World of Warcraft, and I haven't played anything like Halo since Half Life was new. What I know and love are classic arcade and console games." I said. "In fact, other than the GTA games and Guitar Hero, I really don't play anything you'd consider 'new.' Hell, I don't even have a next-generation console . . . though I've been trying to buy a Wii since they came out, because the Virtual Console is the most awesome th-"

"I can get you a Wii," Robert said.

I dropped the phone.

I picked up the phone.

"Sorry, I dropped the phone. Are you serious?"

"It's the least we can do."

"So you're telling me that, not only will I get a Wii, but . . . I'll get a Wii from Penny fucking Arcade?!"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Dude. Uh, yeah. That'll be awesome."

After a moment's silence, he said, "so do you want to come do PAX? We'll hook you up with the Wii either way."

"I'm really nervous about appealing to the audience," I said, "but I know that I can write something entertaining about classic arcades and the significance of consol

Here's an incredible example:
    http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

This family's actually doing what I sort of partly do.

I am interested in knowing if most major news outlets have this same sort of policy of journalists not being able to "bite the hand that feeds"

No, they most certainly do not. And neither did PC World ... until now.

What happened is that a tin-pot egomaniac named Colin Crawford -- who had been a senior vice president at IDG -- PC World's parent company, was made the new President and CEO of the group of publications that includes PC World and MacWorld. This happened in March 2007. Barely one month into his tenure, Crawford caught wind of Harry's story and the rest is history.

Seriously, the man is a complete tool and an example of everything that's wrong with the media business. Just try reading his blog, if you don't believe me.

One wonders if the publicity caused by the major strip willingness to publish soldiers story had something to do with this. The other reason is to protect soldiers from themselves. Some young people have a need to gain attention by publishing even detail of thier lives, such as bondage photos torturing a prisoner.

But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we'll get him to own a Zune.

> People using MSFT tech are the types who are easily impressed and afraid of change...yet another flash type scripting thingy.

You don't care to read what's inside Silverlight, yet you mark (lots of) people as being afraid of change with a single move. Nice.

It's not a script thingy. It's the ability to use CLR on the browser (including all the cool stuff like Generics, LINQ etc.), DLR on top of CLR which means a new world of dynamic languages, XAML (the thing what you think a script thingy but actually an object serialization notation), etc etc.

MS developer community is currently bombarded with new technologies / methodologies / patterns since the last three or four years. Some ideas came from Java land (IoC containers, ORM), some built by MS (WPF, WCF) etc. It's in fact hard for the community to grasp all the new bits in such a short period of time but we are keeping up.

It seems that you have ideas without having the necessary knowledge.

IronRuby
DLR

It amazes me how the Chinese leadership consistently violates the basic human rights of its citizens through paranoid censorship of the media and the networking activities of its citizens. The United Nations should stand up to the Chinese on this and make them change their restrictive, stifling and repulsive attitudes towards their citizens. Ikey Benney http://mscsrrr.typepad.com/

One of my favorite blogs just wrote about this argument and how very very wrong it is. How convenient!

Your argument falls through the floor because, first, there are a lot of other reasons news outlets publish stories, everything from ease of accessibility to career-making opportunities, to airtime needs, to political interests, to entertainment, to good old fashioned journalistic integrity. Placing money at the center of their motivations, regardless of all the other things that may motivate them, is willfully disingenuous.

Second, your argument fails because U.S. news isn't slanted toward doom and gloom. Look at Fox News; their view on the Iraq war and the current Executive has been overwhelmingly positive since 2002. In fact, they and the White House made the same argument you did; they complained that nobody was showing the positive effects of the war because the negative story sold papers. And this lie worked, because it played on the same common folk wisdom that you're invoking. If anything, the current state of news is slanted toward crap. The crap is marked by three things: 1) Over-coverage of big stories, 2) Myopic, angry, simpleminded debate sessions, and 3) Sponsored stories, like CNN's "interview" of Ronald McDonald last year. Number three is what you want to focus your rage on.

Why does CNN run stories like that? They have a huge audience, and they didn't get that big by running horrific news stories, winning over the hearts and minds of the vapid, gore-consuming populace; they bought into the market. CNN is owned by Time Warner, who bundles it with every cable package they deliver. Think of it as getting Internet Explorer bundled with your Windows install. The point is, CNN would have a wide install base regardless of what stories they run. In reality, CNN is the least accountable news outlet on the planet, and yet for some reason we tend to regard it as more respectable than the local news.

Even your local news station probably isn't running much local news these days. Most stations run a mix of local news and prepackaged segments from their Network, and some stations leave out local news altogether and simply run regional and national news programs instead. Its far cheaper to let a video of a news show run, than to rehearse and produce a live one. Again, this has nothing to do with the market they're playing to; Fox (national) News can successfully install itself in a market sight unseen and still maintain viewership. Needless to say, all this conglomeration of news outlets means that its worth the money for big advertisers to get seen on these uber-viewerbase programs; and thats why Ronald McDonald was on CNN.

My point is, even if the populace wanted doom and gloom, it wouldn't mean a damn thing. If CNN wants to run stories about kittens all day, it does that; and if it wants to do nothing but praise our Beloved Government, it does that; if it wants to run celebrity news and music videos, it does that. They don't make their money selling copies of their work to satisfied customers. Honestly, to me the fact that CNN shows a good chunk of real news, instead of running nothing but sponsored pieces or even switching format altogether, says to me that at least someone over there isn't doing it for the money.

What they want doesn't come into the equation. What they _chose_ does. Why should I suffer for others choices? And then be expected to be glad about it? Or criticized for not understanding how difficult it is? The whole point I made was that I looked at it rationally and constructively, weighted the difficulties and made the choice.

Now I am expected to suffer others problems because they were incapable of doing so? No, I really don't think so, thank you.

If your kids are the ultimate reward, that you will sacrifice all for etc etc etc blah blah blah broken-record.... ... then why do you feel such need to persuade me of how I am mistaken?

Are you completely sure it's me you're trying to convince?

Oh, and as for the "used to be one yourself" routine, I used to be a separate spermatozoa and egg at one point. Doesn't mean I want to be surrounded by unguarded samples of either while I'm eating/working/living, and I certainly don't want to be entertained by your detailed stories about them either.

Hint to all parents, NO-ONE wants to hear about juniors first unassisted dump. Not even his/her grandparents.

(Not too mention Bingo!)

Woohoo! Bingo!

And just to note, in addition to all the other benefits you listed for me, my non-wife and I get to have sex anytime, anywhere in our luxury home without having to deal with interruptions.
And even beyond that there's not the slightest hint of the "hot dog in a hallway" issue.

And I do not get paid more. I just make better choices as to how I'll use my income. You chose kids (unless you were oopsed, in which case you've got a great line of rationalizing, and my sympathies)

And lets just note on the side that at no point has anything I have said been in any way construable as racist. Your reading comprehension is lacking.

I am however anti-human. There are indeed too many of us. By between 2 and 3 orders of magnitude. I've done my bit to reduce this problem. For the greater good of all. You, very selfishly, have apparently decided to let your biological urges over-ride your intelligence.

Nations, races and too a lesser extent families are a short term item. A nonsense in the grand scheme of things. Humanity in a recognizable form has only just been birthed and unless we get our population in check and under rational control we're going to drive ourselves to extinction in less than a hundredth of what even the dino's managed.

So, sure, I may screw up your 50 year plan to use the next generation as slaves to support your luxurious decrepitude, but unless a lot more people start thinking with the heads on their shoulders then you're all screwing humanity out of a future.

See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/04 /geek_bush.html Bye, Oliver

• Tax preparers don't use a separate set of tax laws, nor do they make up records out of midair. Everything they do you can do yourself with the same materials, all it takes is a little reading. Most of those special deductions are explained in the standard 1040 instruction book or through the PDF's available on the IRS site.
  
  
• It's a tax refund. You aren't getting anything back you didn't pay to start with. If you're getting humongous refunds, maybe you should adjust your withholding. Then open a savings account and have the difference funneled automatically to it every month. That way the money you used to overpay the government will be sitting in your account and earn you interest, not Uncle Sam.

See my small cartoon:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/04 /gates_in_space.html

Bye,
Oliver

Woohooo! Win by knockout