One of my favorite movie quotes comes from "Under Siege 2," a rather obscure 1995 action thriller starring Steven Seagal. During an exchange between the two main villains, one assures the other that our hero (Seagal) disappeared and is presumably dead. Then the other curtly asks, "Did you see the body?" before delivering a powerful line I've never forgotten since watching the movie as a kid: "Assumption is the mother of all f*ck-ups." We've all been there. We (or someone we know) make a choice without doing our due diligence -- perhaps out of sheer laziness or carelessness -- and later say, "I just assumed so and so." Later, we feel a sense of regret and wish we had done our research. For example, my wife often assumes that just because she sees a product being advertised on the website of a given retailer -- say, Macy's -- they're bound to have that very item available at our local store. Such a faulty assumption resu...