I never heard that information about Ted Kennedy, but it doesn't surprise me -- fat piece of crap that he is. Thanks, Ted -- back to your bottle!
When I was living in Europe, it was awesome to have coins instead of bills. France has the equivalent of a $4 coin (along with $2 and $1), and it's just so nice to pull out a changepurse instead of having to fiddle with coins and bills.
The main advantage to having coins, from the government's perspective, is that they last an average of 30 years as opposed to bills which last about 18 months.