The current date format is: mm-dd-yy. This is only commonly used in USA and Canada. It would be better to use a more verbose date format than this as the default one.
Using something like: 08 Sep, 2009 or Sep 02, 2009 would make a lot more sense for most people. Especially with the confusion current date format can create.
A short example of this would be: 06 June, 2009. It would currently be written as 06.09.09. This will be read by "most" people as 06 September, 2009. I say most because it's the date format used in a vast majority of countries.
A great example would be
this thread.