Pennies worth more!

The New York Times reported this morning that the U.S. Penny is now worth more than 1 cent, it costs the United States Mint 1.4 cents to make one penny, and they made 7.7 billion pennies last year, more than any other coins made last year in America, GOOT GOSH! Good thing I've been saving my pennies every day in spitoons for the past 26 years... now I'm waiting for that rainy day/week/year to count 'em and cash in! I'll have to take a year, I guess, 'cause I have mostly REAL COPPER pennies made before 1982, when the value of the penny rose then too, and the mint resorted to zinc pennies coated with a thin layer of copper, so I have a lot of sorting to do. And for any collector who may want to inquire, no, I do not have many of the old steel pennies made during World War II, but I do have a hoard of weat-back pennies, they are still in abundance and in use daily in Southern Louisiana.
Oh, and Ray Nagin won the Mayoral race this morning by 38% in New Orleans, and is headed for the May 20th run off. I guess the hurricane-hit people of New Orleans are not ready for a change. Either that or the lack of political advertisements in outer areas where the evacuees moved to (and they were allowed to vote as absentees) caused the only mayor-elect they knew of to stick in their minds. I heard not one single Mayoral race ad on radio in Southern or Central Louisiana in the past three weeks, and we are still bombarded with evacuees here.