MacGuineas found crowdsourcing the budget consisted pulled effective, moderate ideas out of people, while moderating extremes, regardless of party affiliation. Their answers revealed a great deal of bipartisan agreement on certain solutions. The biggest was "means testing," the idea that social benefits should primarily be paid to those who need them, rather than high income individuals. "It’s about what makes sense," she says. "Republicans and Democrats ask why do we send checks to people who don’t need them. Social security and medicaid are huge toxic issue … but you can’t give a town hall meeting without means testing coming up. It’s kind of a head-nodder.

Why not? We've got Americans Elect and PopVox and how many other experiments in crowdsourcing government. At first glance, we'd wind up with a citizenry more knowledgeable about the budget and more involved in government, a broader base of ideas for a way forward, and a way to get past the entrenched interests that seem to have a lock on things now. Take a look at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Stabilize the Debt.

Your smartphone is an incredibly powerful tool—one that we mostly waste by just using to make phone calls and check email. But in addition to that, it’s an advanced bundle of sensors that is with us nearly 24 hours a day, collecting massive amounts of data. Doctors and health professionals are starting to understand the opportunity this data can provide. Take a new app that helps silently identify diabetes patients who might be slipping with their treatments.

Just when I said I hadn't heard much about apps aimed at diabetes, along comes this news about Ginger.io. The app senses a user's mood and alerts a network of caregivers. Seems brilliant and useful. I wonder when it will be adapted to other conditions.

And with Glooko's logbook app and MeterSync cable, your iOS device can become an effective tool for spotting trends and managing the condition.

The $40 sync cable tethers to your iPhone or iPod Touch's dock connector, automatically downloading blood sugar readings from six of the most popular blood glucose meters from Bayer, OneTouch and FreeStyle. The cable works in conjunction with the free Glooko app which not only keeps track of when the reading was taken, but also allows you to add pertinent notes about how you were feeling at the time, your level of physical activity, or what you had recently eaten.

All of this detailed information can be then be used to spot trends or patterns when viewing your readings over time, which can help a diabetic better manage their blood glucose levels. And when it's time to visit the doctor, the app even lets you email or fax a fourteen day report to your practitioner so they can see how you've been doing the past couple of weeks.

Don't think I'e seen an app for managing diabetes before...

AP photo.

Disabled voters in Oregon will nominate their next representative in congress with the tap of a finger.

The state is launching the first iPad voting scheme in the U.S. as it goes to the polls tomorrow to replace ex-Representative David Wu, who left amid allegations of sex with a minor.

Election workers will take the iPads to disabled voters who might otherwise have difficulties marking their ballots, the AP wrote.

It will still be a long way from paperless, electronic voting – think of it more as computer-assisted voting. Voters will tap on the iPad screen to choose a candidate, then print out the ballot and send the ballot in through snail mail.

State elections director Steve Trout told Politico that they gave the iPad the thumbs up after also testing candidates including an Android tablet a Windows-based tablet, the Lenovo Thinkpad and a regular laptop.

All of the vendors were willing to donate the devices. In the end, they went with five iPads donated by Apple. The state then paid $75,000 to develop voting software.

“Apple was by far the easiest and most effective for assisting people that have accessibility needs. And that was part of the goal of our test pilot, to find out which devices were most effective,” Trout said.

If the trial run is successful tomorrow and in general elections in January, it will become a regular service for disabled voters in Oregon.

Pretty cool, huh? In Virginia, before I could move easily, a poll worker once brought a tablet to my car so I could vote. It got the job done, but it was a klunky and awkward device. iPads would be much less single-purpose and would probably be much less expensive. And since Oregon is actually taking the device to nursing homes and other places, it could increase participation.

Also heard on NPR this morning.

Much later in the day, Mashable contributed this op-ed on voting by smartphone.