To the average layman/Joe/Jane "knowledge" of the truth of the Big Bang and Evolution is really tantamount to believing that they are true (that is, valid explanations of our reality). If you go off of a high school education, what do teachers really tell you aside from a few weeks' lecture (at best) and showing some pictures in a book? How does that equate to knowledge of these things aside from "my teacher told me it was true". Perhaps we're just doing a horrible job of managing our credibility on topics such as these. People in all walks of life both deny and affirm the validity of these two theories, yet they seem to appear everywhere (and are wildly [un]successful at their pursuits). Widespread belief in the (in)validity of these two things does not denote the working value of a high school level education, if not even a higher education outside of the areas relevant to these theories. In my opinion, of course.

If people only choose from the top 10 or so results from any search engine, and they make fairly generic searches, search engine choice shouldn't matter to much. For popular things, they all return approximately the same thing (in my experience, not in the same order, but they're mostly all there on the front page). People who are persnickety and make special searches a lot likely have a favored engine and will change the settings to match their needs. Most people want to configure their computer to do things about as much as they want to change the oil in their car.

There, fixed that for you. Also, the animals appear in the creation story in approximately the same order that evolution stipulates they would. Does it mean anything? I don't know, but it's not a flat out contradiction by a long shot. The contradictions exist in peoples' minds. The book you're talking about is too big and complex to contradict all but a few things.

I use ISO-8859-1, you insensitive clod!

Here's a good quick read on the topic. Martial Law in the USThe Supreme Court ruled Lincoln's declaration of Martial Law unconstitutional, by way of Milligan, a Confederate dissenter (funny how that works). It was martial law, though. I'm not sure how much weight the Supreme Court has at that point...

Incorrect. Open your history book to the Civil War.

President Lincoln declared a congressionally-approved martial law during the Civil War (along with suspending Haebus Corpus by himself two years earlier) and suspended the Haebus Corpus in the entire US with Congressional approval. You can argue whether or not it was the right decision, but I'd say we're still here, slave free, and a little less morally bankrupt today than we were then. Though, honest Abe might have been an exception to the rule when it came to the corrupting nature of power...who knows?

I think it's more of the fact that the people working at these organizations don't play hardball with contractors and make them finish on time and in budget. We need accountability measures that make these firms liable for budget overruns and late deliveries, especially ones that are so egregious.

Sure, but he means human in the humanistic sense, not the biological sense.

Why are you saying that math skills and people skills are mutually exclusive?

By the prophet Ayn Rand in her prophecy Atlas Shrugged! The glorious Rearden Metal has come to save us all!!

You said the Internet was its own society, and I immediately thought of this.

The only thing that happened to me when I read this summary was that when I saw the word "Calabria" I immediately thought of this song. And now I have it stuck in my head for the read of the day.

I fly first class.

You answered your own question. Proof of purchase is the CD and or the receipt from where you picked it up.

No, he didn't come out and say that. He said that the prices of CDs have dropped because they are an inferior medium (decidedly by the consumer's purchasing habits). Inferior because they take up space and aren't portable relative to an electronic copy. You could follow that your books are an inferior medium to ebooks, but there are a few kinks with ebooks left to work out, namely how the reading feels with books v ebooks.