Hold on Cowboy
This blog post is pretty old. Be careful with the information you find in here. The Times They Are A-Changin'
I used to clear floats by adding the CSS style clear: both to the element underneath the floating elements. This was a pain because sometimes you had to add a tag under it with the clear: both set. Then while searching for a better way (there is always a better way) to clearing floats I found the overflow rule.
Essentially, just add overflow: hidden to the parent of the floating elements. That will clear the floats so that elements under the floats will be cleared. Excellent!