A97 tables needed containing geodata for USA state boundaries 'n city loc'ns

[MLH]

Fat chance, huh? If its not in the public domain, it ought-a-be. As
much tax money spent by the USGS & other dept's, every US citizen
should be given a copy of s'ware near as powerful as MapInfo. Oh
well, enough griping, here's my question:

I want to be able to create graphic images showing the outline
of US states and place dots on them for selected cities in a selected
state. Example: North Carolina selected, Raleigh and Wilmington
selected, I would like to show on a form the state outline image and
two dots, roughly approximating the location of those 2 cities on the
map. Who can tell me where I can get the required mapping data
for producing the state outline image and locating the cities?

I would imagine a table of LAT/LONG coords at 1-mile intervals around
each state's border(s) would do for the states outline images. Then, a
table of [city], [state], [lat], [long] where the lat/long is the
centroid of the city for all cities in all states should do it.
Helpful hints?

[MLH]

BTW, I would be happy to trade a comprehensive database of US zips 'n
matching time zone data for the state boundary and city datapoint
data, in case that's of interest.

[MLH]

And to boot, I will throw in a copy of HEAL medical records database
program (History Exam Assessment Layout) - a complete, open source
copy of it for anyone's use/benefit. HEAL is much like the AMA's
adopted standard SOAP (Subjective Objective Assessment Plan) acronym.
Both, of course, describe the 4-step approach to patient processing in
a physician's office.