No Shortage of Lazy Journalists

    Greetings. And arghh.
    Your perpetuation (deliberate word choice … hint hint) of this morning's "Oregon Man's Invention: Commute Generates Electricity" in the Bend Bulletin is yet another example of how high energy prices makes reporters and editors stupid. Okay, perhaps not stupid … but certainly it seems to render them so un-critical that they fail to recognize a perpetual motion machine when they see it - or that they simply assume their sources are telling the truth or have a clue what they're talking about.
    Other recent horrid examples: (1) A New York Times reporter's
acceptance without request for explanation of a hybrid land yacht
owner's claim that she goes twice as long between fill-ups as with the
old behemoth, even though the new one only gets 50 percent better gas
mileage. (2) A different Bend Bulletin reporter's acceptance last week
without apparent skepticism of a scooter salesman's quote about
"average" drivers of four-wheeled vehicles spending $120/week on gas
compared to $6 per week for drivers of scooters - when even the most
generous look at the math shows the salesman has assumed for his
audience's sake that the "average" driver gets just 5 miles per gallon
and that the average scooter gets 100 mpg.

    Belgian brewer InBev makes a bid to buy Anheuser-Busch for $46 billion. That's a $46 billion company that was once banned in America for producing a product that a bunch of puritanical religious fanatics touted as evil.

    It is time that people in Bend wake up. I live by the Old Mill District and I have had almost no songbirds around this year.
I live by the canal, yet I have not seen any gold finch. My chickadees that nested last year did not come back to the birdhouse when they should have. Also, the couple of the robins I had around are gone. We are losing our songbirds to cats and windows in this town.
    
  A few days ago, I got up at 5:30 a.m. to put my dogs out. There was no sound; it was complete silence. This is not normal. Songbirds should have been very actively singing by this time. This should raise the alarm.   

    Scott Weber (Letters 6-18) always attempts to present something as science but without scientific evidence! His recent letter (Source Jun.19) pans evolution and supports Intelligent Design (ID).

    Hi Eric & Staff
I enjoyed your article (tSW 6-19). You guys did a great job.