Charles Hill lives in a state (Oklahoma) which apparently has yet to impose taxes on digital music downloads, and while he thinks that's a good sign, he wonders how long the loophole will last.

How long the state can hold out remains to be seen, what with the market for digital music now running $1 billion a year, but the mere fact that the Capitol can read the news and not immediately think "Ooh, a new revenue source!" has to be considered a Good Sign.

Cigarettes cost Catherine Cavallo her husband of 25 years.

Now they might cost her $875.63.

Two years after her husband, Anthony, died of smoking-related illnesses, Cavallo got a New Jersey tax bill for the thousands of cheap cigarettes he had ordered on the Internet.

Cavallo, who lives with her daughter in Brigantine, N.J., doesn't smoke. She said she did not think she should have to make a secondhand payment on the smokes that killed her husband.

"It's not fair. They were bought under my husband's name, the credit card was under his name, and they came in the mail under his name," she said. "The only thing he did was use my computer without my permission. ... He didn't have an e-mail."

I remember the good old days when the very idea of "taxing the Internet" brought indignant cries of outrage from every geek and libertarian with a modem. Now it seems like a done deal. Ebay, Paypal, even virtual money -- the state has its mitts everywhere.

Back to Mrs. Cavallo. She might not be much of a geek (and I doubt she's a registered Libertarian), but she sure knows how to tap into what moralists would call the wisdom of repugnance:

Consumers often think discounted Internet cigarettes are cheaper because state taxes don't apply.

"Maybe that's what the Internet companies want you to think," Vincz said.

The Internet company where Anthony Cavallo shopped, esmokes.com, handed over a list of customers to New Jersey.

"I was thinking, 'My God, how did they get into my computer?' " Cavallo said. "What is this, communism or something?"

Anthony Cavallo bought three cartons every three weeks in 2002 and 2003, his wife said.

"I know I'm going to have to pay it," she said, "but I'm not going to go down without a fight."

MORE: In an unrelated coincidence, I'm on the road for most of today.

(Driving to New Jersey.)