The way to fight corruption is by fighting corruption, not by giving us things like the Citizens' United ruling (which is in fact less government, yet eminently more bribable).

I'm not sure that trying to emulate the [other] wealthiest countries is the best of goals. Doesn't that ensure that we will be, optimally, second best? Given that corruption is endemic everywhere, including those other wealthy countries, isn't it worthwhile to strive for something better?

Outlaw political campaign advertising

That's just another way of saying "Throw out the 1st Amendment and outlaw freedom of speech". That is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

allow the people to better represent themselves using technology.

What makes you think that the electorate as a whole can do any better. Consider the rampant ignorance of the issues in our voting today. And on top of that, most people aren't simply ignorant, but just plain wrong about matters of statistics and economics. I'm inclined to believe that the result would be far worse.

You don't have to mimic, but it does give a very strong indication that size of government isn't the problem.

[Outlaw political campaign advertising is] just another way of saying "Throw out the 1st Amendment and outlaw freedom of speech".

Nice try. No, this is "access to media." And currently it's controlled by the wealthy when it should be more democratically controlled.

What makes you think that the electorate as a whole can do any better.

That's funny, because the entire history of the world has been a ruling class not wanting to give up power because they don't "trust" the commoners, when all evidence has been that the greater the democracy, the greater the success. You can take the king; I'll take the people, every time.

Not necessarily. It may be that size of government is a problem, but those other countries have encountered a different bottleneck before reaching it.

Nice try. No, this is "access to media."

If you're saying that I won't be allowed to put up a billboard saying "Senator Smith is a rat", or take out a newspaper ad saying the same, then you have shot the 1st Amendment squarely between the eyes.

all evidence has been that the greater the democracy, the greater the success. You can take the king; I'll take the people, every time.

I think you're arguing in circles. For one thing, there are still a lot of monarchies in the world, many of them quite free.

But more important, the entire point that you're arguing against is (if you'll excuse me for paraphrasing; I hope I'm not making a strawman): "It seems to me that the real solution is to dramatically limit the size of government, so that there is nothing to be bought"

That is, the top post in this thread wants to strip away the power of government, and allow people to make their own decisions (including using the power of the market to constrain the action of corporations seen to be doing bad things).

But you seem to be saying that in this case people cannot be trusted, so we need to give additional power to the government to constrain runaway corporations, and in particular to keep those very same corrupt politicians from selling out.

This is self-contradictory in two ways:

First, you've said on the one hand that you'll take power away from the government and vest it in the people, "every time" -- yet in order to support this, you're proposing that we do just the opposite (i.e., prevent people from voicing their opinions as widely as they feel warranted).

Second, you're postulating that the politicians are corrupt and can't be trusted. Yet your solution relies on giving them more power to limit our political behavior. It seems like you're giving them our weapons while telling them "use these guns to ensure that you don't shoot us".

Second, when you talk about "reducing government" what you mean is to shift it from the people to the private sector. Government is the people. That's the definition. It needs to be managed. But moving it to the private sector just makes it for-profit instead of non-profit, and opens up a whole new can of worms.

Again, look around. Countries with the highest standards of living are not struggling with this. Their large governments are not a problem, and in fact could be nicely argued to have provided that high standard of living.

No, it doesn't. Keep the things that work for us, and then take a look at the things that we're having problems with (lobbying, healthcare) and steal any solutions that look better.

Just because Apple stole the GUI from Xerox didn't mean they had to steal Xerox's business plan for it, or their management structure. And I don't think anyone's claiming they wound up 2nd best to Xerox.

The largest governments: Soviet Union, Third Reich, North Korea, etc.

Maybe because of the Control Panel revamp, or the fact that the menu-bar is hidden by default in Explorer windows?

I'm not sure which will look dumber as a consequence of this post: me or the Windows 7 UI.

The bullet recovered from the radio matched ammunition issued to the Met., and was likely fired by them, not the suspect.

My sister is in that range and she and most of her friends pay for content when they can, or so she tells me.

Suspense is all very well, but Google really need to let us in soon or they're going to miss out on the wave of free hype.

Anyone who fancies sending me an invite, my email is jonnie at cleverna dot me

Plus requires a google profile in order to use it, and Apps accounts can't have profiles. Apparently someone from google has said this will be coming "soon."

WTF google? Hasn't it occurred to you that the set of power users/evangelists/early adopters and the set of people who have their own apps account on their domain might overlap a bit?

This isn't so much dropping the ball, it's bordering on an own goal.

Any googlers reading this: sort it out. Or go and bother the nearest person responsible for sorting it out, lest my disappointment spill over into murderous rage.