Google and its Dutch map provider told the UK Telegraph they have no idea how the fake town got onto Google Maps. "There are occasional errors," a Google spokesman told the paper. But the paper points out cartographers often insert fake minor features like "trap streets" to catch people copying their work. If Google and its partner don't know anything about the town, that leaves a possibility the Telegraph was too polite to bring up: Perhaps the data in Google's maps was, itself, purloined from an offline source.

Time to start asking this Dutch company some tough questions, Google. Either that, or you can risk that some aggrieved British mapmaker might see the coverage of "Argleton" and starting asking the tough questions for you.

(Top pic: Adam Burt)

Google has a squad of drivers who drive specially equipped cars down the streets of most cities in America. The ostensible purpose: Snapping streetside views to help Google Maps users find local businesses. But it's beginning to look like Larry and Sergey are secretly working on a real-time documentary of Americana to rival anything the Works Progress Administration funded in the 1930s.

Via the Smoking Gun, a Harley-Davidson lover shows off his purchase at a Rapid City, South Dakota gun store:

The scene after a Google Maps driver ran into a baby deer on a street called Five Points Road in upstate New York:

Google apologized for killing Bambi. So much for "don't be evil"!

Google has plenty of business in Washington these days, from the Federal Communications Commission to the Department of Justice. Convenient, then, that CEO Eric Schmidt endorsed Obama weeks before the election, joining his board of economic advisors and appearing in Obama's primetime infomercial. Schmidt doesn't need a government job — he's clearly volunteering to be America's CTO in his spare time.

Schmidt is savvy enough to realize that YouTube's growing prominence as a media outlet could help the company become a larger political player — which is why the site sponsored two campaign debates. Traffic? Come on. YouTube hardly needs the help. Schmidt — who attended one debate with a mistress on his arm, like an old-school power broker — orchestrated the events to maximize Google's political influence.

The outgoing administration has not been friendly to Google, whose management team tilts strongly to the left. The Department of Justice's threat to sue Google if it proceeded with a deal to sell search ads for Yahoo may have been, at least in part, politically motivated.

Google mostly wants a free hand from Washington to cement its lead in online advertising — but it also wants help bullying telephone and cable companies into letting its services and ads flow unimpeded on high-speed broadband lines and cell phones, a cause it has dubbed "network neutrality."

Network neutrality is an abstract issue. But YouTube, helpfully, makes it very concrete to politicians, who have long understood the power of the moving image to influence the public. It's easy to picture Google lobbyists pulling up a politician's YouTube videos, and asking them, "Now how would you feel if Verizon slowed down your videos? Wouldn't it be wrong if AT&T didn't let customers view them on their cell phones?"

Even in its copyright enforcement, Google can club politicians. The McCain campaign complained about YouTube's takedown policy, which has a mandatory waiting period before videos whose rights are disputed can be reposted to the site. Will Democratic politicians — or any politician who votes the right way on network neutrality — find that a YouTube account manager is glad to make that kind of problem quietly go away?

It's a symbiotic relationship, to be sure. Google helps politicians reach young voters on YouTube and hosts their videos for free. YouTube benefits from the free content and the traffic political videos generate; even if it doesn't sell ads directly on the pages, it's estimated that it could make $1 billion a year on search ads — and in that business, merely cementing YouTube's traffic lead helps Google make money.

In that light, isn't there something that stinks about handing the president's weekly addresses to a single commercial outlet controlled by a political ally of the president? Obama's YouTube chats amount to a large, unspoken, behind-the-scenes government kickback. Every election has something dirty about it. And there's no question Google won this contest.

And who can blame them? Google coddles engineers, but it also suffocates them. With the free food, massages, and laundry come a quirky set of in-house technologies and an increasingly bureaucratic, insider-driven culture. A favored clique of Google-IPO lottery winners rule over what's supposed to be a meritocracy. Marissa Mayer, Larry Page's ex-girlfriend, rules with an iron fist over what features see the light of day in Google's all-important search engine.

Google used to pitch startups on the notion of selling to them rather than give a stake to VCs; Chris Sacca, a former Googler expert in peddling empty promises, led this effort. Not surprising that it didn't work out. Google is now getting into the VC business itself — a tacit acknowledgement that it is no longer an attractive destination for startup founders. As an investor, Google gets a look at new technologies and talents. Entrepreneurs get to keep their freedom. Funny, freedom is exactly what Google used to promise the companies it acquired — and what it no longer has to offer.

(Cartoon by Pepper & Salt/WSJ)

• The environment, burning enough fuel to power a car for a year in just one hour.
• Public safety: Even though private planes incur the same air-traffic control costs as commercial airliners, commercial planes pay for 95 percent of FAA air-traffic control costs in $2,015 in taxes per flight, while just accounting for 73 percent of air control capacity. Private planes only pay $236 per flight in taxes.
• Tax revenues: Private plane buyers can take a larger deduction their first year owning a new jet.
• The war on terror: The Department of Homeland Security IDs private planes as a particular risk.

"Don't be evil" is misunderstood. We don't have an evil meter ... the rule allows for conversation. I thought when I joined the company this was crap...it must be a joke. I was sitting in a room in first six months ...talking about some advertising...and someone said that it is evil. It stopped the product. It's a cultural rule, a way of forcing the conversation especially in areas that are ambiguous.

In 2006, Schmidt actually talked about an "evil scale". But now? Nothing even that hard and fast. See, it's not a rule like "no blade scooters in the hallways." It's more of a guideline. Or a punchline.

They say that it isn't a coincidence that a week before Scientology began its YouTube campaign, YouTube banned Scientology critic Mark Bunker because, using a previous account, he once posted a copyrighted clip to the site. Perhaps it makes since that banned users shouldn't allowed to rejoin YouTube, these critics say, but then Scientology itself — once banned from the site for posting videos that revealed other users' private information, including[pictures, names and locations — shouldn't be allowed to create a new account either. Bunker, commenting on a Blogoscoped post on the subject, writes:

I don't expect YouTube to turn away the cash cow of Scientology and ban them from their service the way they banned me. YouTube will allow Scientology to say it was a subsidiary or a file clerk who opened the canceled account and not the same corporate entity as the paid channel but that is just crap.

He told the gathered he agreed with the spirit of the proposals, just not their wording. Then, in the traditional way of voicing support for a cause without taking any real action, Brin abstained from voting them up or down. Lesser spin doctors would have stopped there, but Brin managed to get another couple good ones in before the meeting wrapped: "I'm pretty proud of what we've been able to accomplish in China," Brin said."Google has a far superior track record than other Internet or Internet search companies in China."

I don't think that we should be held to a lower standard. I think that what we're doing is very meaningful, it's very important, it's serious, it has large-scale ramifications for people in their lives and as a result we need to take it very seriously and we should be held to a very high standard regardless of whether it's self imposed or imposed through public scrutiny.

8. Covenant Regarding Competition. I agree that for a period of one (1) year after my employment with the Company terminates, I shall not (a) engage in any employment, business or activity that is competitive with the Company's businesses; or (b) solicit business from, do business with or render services to, in any capacity, directly or indirectly, any entity that is or was a Company client or customer within the last twelve months of my employment with the Company, for a purpose or in a manner that is in any way competitive with the Company's business. If, during or after my employment with the Company, I seek work elsewhere, I agree to provide a copy of this Agreement to any person or entities seeking to hire me before accepting employment with or engagement by any such person or entity.

9. Solicitation of Employees. I agree that for a period of twelve (12) months immediately following the termination of my relationship with the Company for any reason, whether with or without cause, I shall not either directly or indirectly solicit, induce, recruit or encourage any of the Company's employees to leave their employment, or take away such employees, or attempt to solicit, induce, recruit, encourage or take away employees of the Company, either for myself or for any other person or entity.

The layout is the same, the tabs at the top of the screen are the same, the right-side sidebar listing participants and file uploads is the same. It even copies Campfire's trick of formatting a message as "code" if it contains literal newline characters.

A co-worker of mine just left the Google campus in Mountain View and reported that there's a single protester out front with a picket sign that reads "Google kills babies". Can someone investigate?

Google PR flack Gabriel Stricker told Fox News Google banned Inner City Press because a reader email claimed Lee ran a one-man operation, which would disqualify it as a Google News source. Lee says he employs one full-time employee and that Inner City Press can claim at least five volunteers. Appeased, Google said it will reinstate the site to Google News, though the process will take several weeks. Lee remains upset:

There's something a little skeezy here. I think that Google got involved with the U.N. on these Millennium goals and thought, this is the United Nations, if they tell you some small website is a thorn in their side and there's a credible reason you could remove them from your news service, you do it.