But I went back and searched every kindle and cranny to set every instance of the word back to kindle to fix it.

I'm only human.

I don't understand this logic at all. From the summary:

Uh so it looks like Google is calling attention to China's censorship and giving users a nod ahead of time that their search is going to be censored. This is far from "hiding" anything and, conversely, lets the user know about the censorship. The other good thing this does is that if I'm interested in censored terms and my IP hits the great firewall with these censored terms, the government might build a dossier on my entire histories to see what else I'm interested in and have dirt on me if they need it. But if Google is warning me ahead of time, this never hits the firewall and China doesn't get to profile their citizens based on search queries. Google will enable you, if you so choose, to appear to keep your nose clean.

Well, let's see ... would Obama be the kind of person to do this? His track record so far:

Now considering all that, um, I think ordering a speed up of cyberattacks on Iran where no one dies might be something he does on a whim over coffee on a given morning.

That's what I don't understand. Everyone has this notion that Obama is some peace loving hippie. At his Nobel Prize announcement, he basically justified going to war with anyone who gave USA the stink eye. He has been more aggressive (albeit more subtle) than George W. Bush and will probably cause problems for Romney who wants to paint him as an indecisive leader that let Libya and Syria happen. But the funny thing is that for all everyone sees him as a harbinger of peace, he sure hasn't been acting like it. And it's probably going to be obvious come this next election when people start looking at his track record ...

I think your cause and effect logic is deeply flawed.

The government does not propose to pay for abortion because people should be able to have sex. The logic arises from studies conducted that suggest that legalized and subsidized abortion results in fewer unwanted children and therefore less crime. While you might debate that, the reasoning is that it's cheaper for society to pay for an abortion than it is to have a criminal interred on and off for life. Are you against taxpayer dollars being used to teach contraception in schools? What about tax dollars to hand out free condoms to those most at risk? Subsidizing abortions is a step further in that direction. It is not designed to give people the ability to have sex without protection.

Are you aware of what a "dependent" is on a tax form? Again, it's cheaper for society to issue welfare and food stamps than to deal with the societal harms that come from malnourished children and the state assuming control over a child. What exactly is your ideal scenario in this case? That we have street urchins that occasionally die in our streets? That we have social services taking care of tens of thousands more children?

Again, you seem to imply that the government is being lobbied by the addicts. Instead it is the cost/benefit of dealing with addicts that have already developed dependencies on illegal addictive substances. You implement awareness programs with taxpayer dollars and the final unfortunate step is helping these people control their addictions so they're not mugging or killing people for money. A lot of these people have to support their habits with crime. Our jails are already overcrowded so the alternate step is to try to treat them and keep them from engaging in such behavior. Again, what is your ideal scenario? That you shake your finger at an addict and say "Welcome to the school of hard knocks, now go beat someone for money for your habit so you can spend the rest of your life in jail where I can pay more money for you to live."

Right, because everyone who is poor is poor because of shitty life choices and they should starve for those choices. We have the ability to provide them basic food and subsidize their housing but your ideal scenario is what exactly? You do know that they do not live like kinds and queens?

If the alternative is crime ridden neighborhoods, I'll take a little bit of a nanny state. You people that demand one extreme over the other are really annoying and short sighted. Did you know that buildings have to make fire code in order to be constructed? God, what a nanny state we've found ourselves in! Why aren't we working to remove any sort of building and safety codes? PROTIP: A happy medium exists somewhere in between the extremes. When society's total cost is drastically lower to implement a nanny state law, we start to weigh the pros and cons.

It's simple, we solve that problem with the solution. Our first online vote will be on a bill that will solve this very problem. Interestingly enough, over 100% of the population turned out to vote on this particular issue with a surprisingly large number of referral clicks coming from 4chan. As it turns out, the resolution is to grind up individuals who do not have internet connections (like your father) and feed them to the web savvy users and their "lulled cats" in a nice pink slurry. I'm sorry for your loss but the populace has spoken in so strong a voice that it was statically impossible.

I didn't see anywhere in the article where they called that a fact. Conversely, the article seems to explain it to be a correlation and, if this concerned me, I would be more worried about the overall growing trend regardless of social status. From the article:

Perhaps people of a lower social status feel the need to escape more so than people who have an easier life? If you live in a crappy environment, are you surprised that you want to spend 10 hours a day pretending you're a valiant knight in Skyrim or being swept up in "Adventure Time" where anything can happen?

The funny thing is that if you look it as dollar spent per hour enjoyed, it's not a waste of money. It's actually much more affordable than taking your kid on a field trip or sailing or even to the movies. Hell, football pads and gear probably cost more than a Wii with games. I agree that the kids should spend more time visiting the library but as someone who grew up underneath the poverty line, I feel like this interpretation of this study was pretty shallow. I mean, if you're concerned about poor people spending money on video games, why aren't you demanding we outlaw the lottery and gambling? Numbers-wise it's not rich people who enjoy those stupid, expensive habits.

At the prospect of going from a professor of deterministic systems to someone who will be a part of and responding to an inherently chaotic and non-deterministic system?

Why would someone who feels that their important issue views are a minority ever vote for you? Clearly an opponent of yours could approach the LBGT community and say "Hey, Hansen's going to ask the population if you guys can get married and you're the minority so don't plan on that ever passing." Or the Atheists, the rich businessmen, the greens, the unions, any very specific religious group, etc (the list goes on). And by the time they're done pointing out how the majority are going to "oppress" the minority for all these interest groups, they've covered a large part of the population. How are you going campaign against something like this? Surely you can't even run on a position in response to any of these questions? Your answer will always be "Whatever the most people want." So how will you combat such a strategy?

Throughout history many leaders -- Abraham Lincoln, Harry S. Truman and even George W. Bush -- have made decisions that they felt were "right" but were definitely unpopular. Post hoc, we can see the effects and judge those actions. Now these were all high level actions but similar things do happen at the state and county level. Example: Your county's schools are failing horribly and need money but the only place you have money is vehicle tax that is supposed to go to your roads. You propose (if you are even going to take such actions) to move some money from the road fund to the schools -- sacrificing potential traffic problems in the name of education and staying above backwater Mississippi standards. Your populace (who have completed high school and already make long commutes) disagree with you when their vote fails to pass the proposition. What do you do? Maybe an example closer to home: With soaring copper prices, someone proposes to reopen The Elizabeth Mine but the EPA warns you that clean up from 150 years of abuse hasn't even concluded yet. Unfortunately your populace votes for their jobs and temporary income over the environment, what do you do?