Remove "Finder" from dock in Mountain Lion?

Question

I would like to remove the Finder icon from my dock.
I know people are going to ask "Why?" Simply because, I don't like it being there.
I know Finder is always open and I know to close it would cause problems. I don't want to close it, I am just wondering if there is a way to remove, or hide it, from the dock so I don't have to see it.
Thanks!

Answer 1

I found the solution a few years ago, and posted it on the forums I could find, but nobody seemed to propogate it.  The LSUI Element solution is FLAWED because the menu of the application dissapears when the application is running.
Anyway, the solution is to edit DockMenus.plist and add a "Remove from Dock" option to the "finder-running" category.  Then you can remove it by right clicking like normal.  You can find the remove from dock option in DockMenus, and then copy and paste it into the finder-running category.  And if you add it to the processes category, you can remove other running applications too!
/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/DockMenus.plist
Now, once you remove the Finder, it can only reappear if the Dock process is relaunched.  And this only happens when you log in.  So the best way to have your Finder icon always gone, is to make a small applescript which clicks the "Remove from Dock" option FOR you, and then put that applescript in your login items.
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dock"
          tell UI element "Finder" of list 1
                    perform action "AXShowMenu"
                    click menu item "Remove from Dock" of menu 1
          end tell
end tell
This worked for Snow Leopard and it works for Mountain Lion too.  I'm assuming it worked for Lion also.
Matt