God bless America. Better yet, God bless Ma Bell for giving us free local telephone calls. Today I was reminded by one of my British readers that most countries charge for local calls. Imagine what this would mean for surfing the net! Those of us in America who surf the net regularly would be paying up the wahzoo. I realize the internet was "born" in America, but I can't help but wonder if free local telephone calls are the reason for 64% of world wide net traffic to be coming from America. Another reason I think this is because Sega has just released their new video game system, "Dreamcast", in Japan. It comes with a modem to play games online against your friends. The Japanese haven't really been blown away by this opportunity. Why? They have to pay for local calls. Sure, Japan is second to America in net access, but that's not saying much. I mean, if I had to pay to watch TV by the minute, I'd probably only watch Red Dwarf.