Don't Leave Me With the Germans!

I know there's no one out there reading this. That doesn't bother me. There's so much noise on the Internet these days, I don't know why I bother adding to it. I look at it as a way to avoid feeling guilty about not journaling regularly, though this hardly counts as a journal, since there are things I don't care to write down for public consumption.
There are a few things about blogs that make me laugh, though:
Young bucks doing research for school assignments or whatever seem to think anything (and I mean anything) posted on the Internet, no matter the source, is legitimate. Reminds me of the Dilbert comic for the day:

Am I saying they're dumb? Dumb is such a harsh word. Lazy is probably a better way to describe it. I ought to know, because I succumb to laziness myself most days, but the Internet has made laziness infinitely easier to accomplish. Now, I know laziness was around long before the Internet. It's just . . . easier now. Want information on WIC? Just do a Google search and stumble around until you find someone who has some semblance of knowledge on the subject! No matter that there are people who really know the subject you could speak with, the Internet makes things easier because you don't actually have to care if what you're reading is correct. Yes, I'm being harsh. And, yes, I've done this kind of slipshod research myself. But I find it ironic that in a generation that assumes the government is lying about everything in the universe, including about the universe itself, the same generation assumes that the truth really is out there, just a few clicks away. Don't consult the experts who are tools of The Man, but cite the nutjobs and pseudo-experts who pull their information out of who knows where.
Case in point: There's a video on YouTube (a fountain of pure knowledge) featuring some nutter jabbering about a "nuclear accident" in Idaho, back in March. Yes, he has an element of truth: nuclear accident. But he launches into a sweeping assumption that the accident is on a massive scale at the Idaho National Laboratory and that the government and media is covering it up, when, in fact, if he had bothered to Google anything but a public description of the INL on the web, he would have quickly discovered the accident was a broken gauge at a private facility in Idaho Falls. So, the basic truth (nuclear accident) was true. But the treatment (NUCLEAR ACCIDENT!?!?!?!?!!!!!) is patently false. And he's praised for "getting the truth out there."
Yes, it's an extreme example. But I look at it as evidence that the Internet, in many ways, is dumbing us down, much like Aldous Huxley predicted in Brave New World.
And while I'm ranting: Yesterday I read a report on the BBC that visitors of Knut the polar bear in a zoo in Germany were shocked, shocked! to see their favorite cuddly little carnivore pulling fish out of the water in his cage and eating them. They were shocked that a CARNIVORE was doing its job, and questioned why the zoo would allow such an effrontery in public. These are, of course the same Germans who come to Yellowstone and are shocked when the buffalo gore them rather than stand placidly still while they get their pictures taken. (I know. Blanket attack on the Germans. But I'm with Basil Fawlty on this one.)
Another example: This was on Digg a while back. Somebody sent in a picture of a test on which a student had given an "incorrect" answer. The test was on opposites. The word (in this case, a suffix) was "pro-". The answer given: "Noob." As in newbie. Internet newbie. An answer given by an Internet moron.
Call me a nitpicker. Please. Because that's what I am.