coast and dip the Democratic voter-well of New York City. Mr. Miller calls it the "baconmander." "Those long skinny districts are not going to cut it," one commenter said. Another said: "It looks like the state's been sliced up like a bell pepper under the knife of a masterful chef!" Mr. Miller posted a map at 1 a.m. Christmas Eve showing his idea of what Missouri might look like after it loses a Congressional seat this year. It prompted a debate that ran to 100 comments through 3 a.m. Christmas Day. The mappers haggled over whether Mr. Miller's lines would pass muster with Missouri's Democratic governor, or whether a court would have to settle the matter. "It's a wild card," Mr. Miller conceded to one commenter. The Show Me State will lose a congressional seat this year because of slow population growth. Mr. Miller's map would put Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan of St. Louis out of a job come 2012. A spokeswoman for Mr. Carnahan said: "We are always thrilled to hear people are so engaged in the democratic process that they're staying up late at night looking at congressional maps." She declined to comment on Mr. Miller's handiwork. U.S. politicians have fiddled with district boundaries for as long as there have been boundaries with which to fiddle. Patrick Henry unsuccessfully tried to keep James Madison out of Congress with Virginia's first House map, according to several redistricting experts. In 1812, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry approved a map of state