"once carbon turns to rock it is not going anywhere" -- Couldn't the same be said for coal?

When it comes to plausible, space exploration & sci-fi, I have been impressed with & influenced by the "Academy" series of books by Jack McDevitt (The Engines of God, DeepSix, Chindi, etc.). Of course he allows for the invention of faster-than-light travel, but other than that, McDevitt pays special attention to a future that is both plausible & fascinating ... not easy to do. His stories are a little slow b/c he takes time to explain the technology and how the human race got to where it is. He also pays special attention to the field of xenoarchaeology. Look it up!

Not sure if you noticed, but WE are a country of Christian fanatics: "46% of Americans Believe in Creationism, Gallup Finds ..." http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/01/189220/in-america-46-of-people-hold-a-creationist-view-of-human-origins

You're looking at this backwards. CloudStack IS already a very viable alternative. It was just acquired by Citrix for more than $200 million and is ahead of OpenStack in maturity and go-live users. But OpenStack has greater momentum from the developer & partner community. So the question is ... will CloudStack merge with the OpenStack community as was implied when it was acquired by Citrix, or will it go it alone and pilfer the OpenStack codebase? Note: OpenStack uses the very open Apache License, Version 2.0 while CloudStack is GPU GPL v3.

I believe you have a mistaken impression of Indians today, though you are likely to be correct in the long run

I've traveled through 6 major cities last year (Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune & Mumbai). For the most part, it seemed that the university educated spoke English, but I found that the masses did not. For example, the auto rickshaw drivers rarely spoke English. Hindi is by far the most popular language in the north-central (aka Hindi Heartland) region of India and so the masses don't need English. In the south there are many different languages and dialects, but the uneducated don't travel as much so they don't have much reason to learn English or Hindi for that matter. As Indians become more affluent, I'm sure they will learn a bridge language, but it may be Hindi, not always English.

Its just hearsay, but I've heard time & time again that young kids would rather play in large cardboard boxes, than the toys they came with. And at one point Walmart was selling boxes with dotted lines that showed where to cut them in order to make a cardboard box house.

Just as the writers used Locke in the first 4 seasons to hint they would reveal the purpose of the island, I think they used the Man-in-Black in the last two seasons to warn us they coudn't pull it off. For example, John Locke used to say things like "We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us." Maybe the writers meant that like the survivors, the show had a purpose too, and it would be explained to us in the end, We just had to have faith. But perhaps they got in too deep and couldn't pull of the miracle. Perhaps the writers knew they were 'lost in the weeds' so to speak. And they used Man in Black to say, "Locke was wrong. He is a fool and he had no purpose", just like the show.

The existence of Jesus is rarely questioned. But as the videos below describe, Jesus may have been a composite of many son-of-god characters of his time and before. (each is 10 mins):

Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw
Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qc-mrJf45Hg
Part 3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IjAegPhQOUg