We aren't missing the point. We got the point, almost chuckled at the silly joke, and moved on to a topic with real meat to discuss. Quit trying to be clever.

Your use of the word douche would not be considered incorrect. To be more specific 'douches' are people who have a sense of un-based superiority. Your definition fits under that umbrella. You may also come across 'douchebag' which is the full term. It references a feminine hygiene product that is anything but hygienic.

The failed to predict the mobile phone camera. They focused on the lower end of the market, and smart phones with their 5-15megapixel cameras blew them out the market.

As someone currently learning traditional Chinese and finding it personally easier, I agree that overall the roman alphabet is superior. The roman alphabet is tied to sound only, and therefore can be used with any spoken language. Minor discrepancies in pronunciation aside, once you know the sounds you can sound out a word you don't know. You can't do that in Chinese. That feature of the alphabet makes it infinitely more adaptable than the character system, where your main choices are memorization and more memorization. It literally is the difference in learning 30-odd characters and 1200. (the 30-odd number is leeway to reintroduce some characters that American English doesn't have at this time, such as one for the 'ch' and the 'sh' sounds.)

And just so you know I personally like the character system better, and I think it is due to my rather severe dyslexia. These roman letters are used over and over again and it can be hard to tell what it is supposed to be. Easiest example to give is 'p', 'b', 'd', and 'q'. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I sure have. They are all the same fucking letter.

Why do you think we should get rid of other languages, specifically? Is it only the inconvenience of translation? And why do you chose English to be the 'standard'?

Here's the pony: http://youtu.be/qAxeOBomNME The guy who did it has done many of them.

Data is not the plural of anecdote.

I agree, it is the parents responsibility. Not the governments. We should limit freedom because you are not comfortable with the choices other people might make for their families? Laws should not help parents parent. And it's none of your or anyone else's darned business what anyone else decides or (like the example you gave) doesn’t decide to do. Limiting others freedom for your personal comfort is wrong.

The responses sound canned not because of auto generation, but because they have be repeated so many times without the people they are aimed at actually listening. Hence the repetition. You cannot filter the internet in a way that will make everyone happy. It's too big, too much, and the requirements for filtering are too diverse. No one can do this for you. The parent has to do it themselves, just like picking out schools, acceptable playmates and so on.

And even the argument that everyone can agree that porn is bad is false. I don't have kids and I'm fairly young, so I won't go there, but I will honestly say that my parents never censored me. I watched R-rated movies, without the hands over the eyes at the sex scene. This did not create a traumatized little girl, it created a woman who is comfortable with her sexuality and everyone elses. Think back on history, on families of 4, 6, 8 or more all sharing one room or one bed, and the babies kept coming. I doubt Mom and Dad were renting a hotel room. Children have always been exposed to the harsher lessons in life early on until very recently in history. And you can't really argue that its any improvement.

Porn and sex are just an example here. This argument can be moved to any of the bad ideas out there in the world. Prejudice, violence, hate, suffering and cruelty can all be applied.

It's not law but the Declaration of Independence says:

...that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence....

Again, it's not law but it is one of the documents on which our country is based.

Because the fuel is literally free? Of course there are infrastructure costs, but those exist with any power system.

Because what we have *isn't* acceptable, that's the whole point. What we have now, coal/oil/gas, is destroying the very environment we need to survive.

I'm going to address these at the same time. You can not disregard infrastructure costs or maintenance fees. Plus even if we switched to solar and it became cheaper to provide electricity, I highly doubt that prices will drop. Consumers are used to the current prices so companies will continue to try and extort those prices from us. As for the second statement about the system being acceptable, I was playing devil's advocate. The infrastructure is in place. They only have to pay for maintenance. Since corporations goal is to make the quickest, biggest money that they can, sometimes spending more now to make much more later isn't an option.
As for your fifty cars...cars need oil changes, tires, belts, coolant and a thousand other things that I don't know about. Infrastructure maintenance is a constant cost that cannot be disregarded.
Now to elaborate on my opinion that lowering consumption is the way to a greener future. If we lower the amount of infrastructure needed to support our needs then the cost on putting it in becomes more viable to the corporations. We have to make it appealing to them.

2 billion Chinese might beg to differ with you. Yes you can lower your usage 30%, but if population goes up 50%, it's still a net increase in usage.

Higher population density = less transmission loss.