Am I cynical to immediately assume that the "free pennies" are a veiled dig at stereotypical thriftiness? It may be that Mel can do no right in my view, but that's where my mind went the second I looked at that picture.

What did the Scots ever do to Gibson? He owes us big time for the fucking Braveheart atrocity, that MADE him! Why, he ... what?

Oh. Never mind.

What is 98 degrees minus Nick Lachey?

-101 degrees.

Is there any breakdown of that more than half by specific faith/sect

I can probably dig up something on that tomorrow if nobody's turned up anything before then. I'm home now, so I don't have access to the Polling Database Of Dooooom.

I could certainly see myself picking "literally true" in a survey, if there wasn't another description that better fit my beliefs, and yet I'm far from a biblical literalist on a lot of issues

If I remember right the options were, the Bible is the word of god and everything in it is literally true, word for word; or, the Bible is the word of god but not everything in it should be taken literally. Plus don't know, refused, & other. And then the ABC poll had the "literally true, meaning it happened that way word-for-word; or meant as a lesson, but not to be taken literally?" distinction. Would you have picked the first choice in both of those?

I can try to dig up some documentation to confirm this, but in ongoing surveys like this they typically do debriefings to make sure the questions are being understood as intended. That "literally, word for word" phrasing turned up in a lot of polls by different organizations, which makes me think it's been vetted. And that "word for word" was added to make it very clear what "literal" meant.

I think what Strega is getting at is that the questions were very specific; even when questioned about specific events like the time for creation of the earth and the age of the planet, respondents still claimed they believed in the literal truth.

Well, partly. My point is that when you ask "is the entire Bible literally true?" you get 30-40%. When you ask "is this one part of the Bible literally true?" you get 60-70% -- which makes sense, because it's gonna be all the people who think every part is literally true, plus a subset of people who don't. If the numbers went down when you were specific, or even stayed about the same, I'd find it easier to believe that people misunderstood the first question.

Damn. I never get those Jeopardy questions right.

This "literally true" stuff is why I never read the Bible. I just look at the pictures.

Clothing issues: the defendent was wearing a white bubble skirt that barely covered her ass, one of those shrunken-belly baring one button jackets in blue seersucker over a black bra and white 4 inch stiletto slingbacks.

IN COURT. Discuss.

Fashion insanity defense?

Discuss.

She was very confident of acquittal? She's going to a party tonight and didn't have time to change after the trial?

When I went clubbing Sunday, there was a chick there in a backless white dress and a normal black bra. She was pretty dressed up, with a bunch of other women in white, pretty dressed up. The bra thing was horrible.

When I asked what show the krav footage was going to be on, I was told "You know the one--with the crazy blonde lady?" Does this qualify?

Clothing issues: the defendent was wearing a white bubble skirt that barely covered her ass, one of those shrunken-belly baring one button jackets in blue seersucker over a black bra and white 4 inch stiletto slingbacks.

IN COURT. Discuss.

I think I saw that last night on "Project Runway."