Google has a reason to keep Flash around: Android.

Selling Flash as part of a "premium" experience is not entirely unexpected given that Google and Apple are locked in battle over the mobile device market. Google has a client that supports it and a huge web property that makes use of it.

In a parallel universe, Windows Phone 7 is rapidly growing market share and Microsoft is blogging about how Silverlight is the premium experience, but nobody is surprised by the motives.

I'm not sure which states you consider 'North' versus 'South', unless you're using strict Civil War terminology. My family is from New England and I would strongly disagree with your assessment of the North. My anecdotal evidence - to offset your anecdotal evidence - is that the rest of my family moved to Virginia, married Virginians, yet they've all spent significant time up here. All of them say that race is more significant issue in Virginia than it is in New England, at least within the past few decades. They describe the situation as separate cultures that do not often mix, in stark contrast with their Northern experience. (Full disclosure: I do have some ex-in-laws that privately harbor racist attitudes, but I consider their ignorance the exception and not the norm.)

I'm guessing a Texan doesn't think Virginia qualifies as 'South'; but this New Englander doesn't consider Virginia 'North'.

You say you can't 'educate away' racism, and perhaps that is true. But look at the progress gay Americans have made. Attitudes have changed, and a lot has to do with younger, more accepting folks changing the landscape while the old, well, die off. I can't say it's been educated away, although I'd like to think so. Almost all of New England has legalized gay marriage (and don't forget Iowa!). This acceptance of gays is not built upon secret homophobia. So the portrayal of the North as being politically correct on race but secretly racist and "sad" doesn't wash for me.

Tangentially, African-American is term that gets misapplied to so many people who are not of African heritage (e.g., Haitians, Jamaicans, etc.) in the name of political correctness. I am perfectly fine referring to someone who self-identifies as an African-American as such, but I generally find these terms divisive instead of informative or enlightening.

There are two variables here: cost and revenue. People are suggesting raising costs, but I haven't seen many people focusing on reducing revenue.

When a domain is dropped, Google and the rest should pull the records from their search engines. Or derank them, or something equally damaging. Once the ad revenue starts drying up, this stupid business model will end. Or instead of deranking, pull any AdSense ads on sites that were just dropped and that don't meet certain quality/traffic standards.

I can imagine it might cause some problems for people who accidentally allow their domains to lapse. But that seems like a very small price for the rest of us to pay.

In the manual for the original SimCity, the designer, Will Wright, stated that he preferred to call SimCity a toy rather than a game.