AwakeEnergyScouter

@Armymutt To answer your question directly, my personal NSHO is that if it was a requirement for a previous rank you still need to know it going forward. Other the intuitive sense that this should be so when it comes to skills, if scouts could forget how to pitch a tent, knots, cook at camp, pack a pack, etc it would make high adventure dangerous. The whole enterprise requires building and adding skills to the ones you've already got. It's like math, you never get to forget the commutative property or multiplication tables just because you're more "advanced". Part of "more advanced" is having the basics completely down.

Adding to DuctTape's suggestion, also start doing a lot of bystanding (neutrally voicing what is happening in order to offer perspective for the group) on the subject of the skill level of all troop members with a special diligence for the 11yo and the scout in question. Saying what everyone but the SM and CC see out loud makes it harder to ignore and sometimes "makes it real" for people. You may not be able to stop it, but you can shine a bright light of group attention on what they are doing (without voiced judgement) they will have to do what they are doing without being able to face that they're doing it. It might be enough for them to see through whatever mental formation is driving them to make this mistake.

It is 100% accurate that right now, Scouting America is the WOSM member from the US. None of the organizations you mentioned are going through the motions to try to force a federation and at least two do not abide by the WOSM constitution or are otherwise ineligible (size), so there is nothing suggesting it's about to become inaccurate, either. It would seem that you agree with me, despite your first sentence, or am I missing something?

We disagree on this issue, but arguably us both being involved and running units makes Scouting America stronger and more able to serve all interested youth. Families that like your unit on this issue won't like ours and vice versa - but the result is that all families can find a unit they feel welcome in. When there is a single NSO in a country (as opposed to the WOSM NSO being an umbrella organization for several scouting organizations with separate leadership, uniforms, etc), that NSO needs to contain a lot of different kinds of units or be content to serve only a small part of the youth. So, having units with different approaches (sometimes in quite sharp disagreement) is the only way forward unless one is ready to accept niche status, which I imagine no one here is.

I notice you got no reply, probably because you have a good point. Especially because this forum is full of complaints from many people who refused the Kool-Aid on various points. Once a scout, always a scout. If everyone started a new scouting organization every time they disagreed with something in an existing NSO or MO, there would be no movement left. People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front kind of stuff. The Scouting America Scout Law even has Loyal in it - you don't go splinter off in a huff just because you see a problem. No, you go fix the problem instead, which starts with defining and talking about it. Clearly not everyone even agrees that pressuring non-Christian scouts and scouters to be Christian or at the very least accept second class citizen status and stop complaining about it even is a problem in the first place, so there's obviously a need to talk about it.

You missed the fine print - Scouting America explicitly says that they mean nothing in particular by the word "God" in the Declaration of Religious Principle. And the reason they do this is that they can't require what it says if "God" means the usual everyday interpretation in US context of the Christian god and still stay in the Scouting movement. Either the statement can't mean what it seems to say, or they have to exit the movement. TBH it seems like a setup - they want it to be read as the usual everyday meaning but rely on a legalistic trick of not meaning anything in particular with the word "God" to stay in the movement. I balked at the statement because I knew this immediately and therefore read the fine print associated with the asterisk on the word "God" - and there it was. God can be your cat if you like, Scouting America means nothing in particular with the word in that declaration. But that's of course not what most readers will take away from it. It sets up this very situation.

Sure, the Swedish Scout Law is very clearly broad, but the Scouting America version lends itself very, very easily to the misunderstanding demonstrated above. Retaining the original phrasing "Duty to God" with the g capitalized to boot is practically an invitation for certain Christians to interpret it as that being Christian is required when that would actually antithetical to the scouting movement has has been for many decades - as previously pointed out, one can easily quote BP on the subject, the current WOSM constitution defines Duty to God as “Adherence to spiritual principles, loyalty to the religion that expresses them and acceptance of the duties resulting therefrom,” there are religious awards for polytheist and non-theist religions in Scouting America already, and millions and millions of non-Christian (and non-theist, including atheist) scouts have existed for again many decades. It's a faît accompli. In fact, you can't be part of either WOSM or WAGGGS if you require a religious "purity test". It's a pet peeve of mine because it's so patently absurd that it's happening from my POV, having grown up in a non-Christian scouting organization, especially when other scouters get aggressive about it and even start telling me that having signed that religious declaration means I have to believe in a single god, as again demonstrated above. It comes off as gaslighting or crazy disrespectful at best. Should it be happening? Of course not. Does it happen anyway? Yes, yes it does, as demonstrated above. What floats my boat is being left alone to pursue my "Duty to God" in peace and having other scouters respect my beliefs, and to never again have scouters telling my scout to practice Christianity randomly in a crowd at a scouting event. I do not want them to be a Christian and I don't appreciate other adults taking over religious instruction of my child.

Being told that I have to believe in the Christian god, or at least be a monotheist, because of the legacy phrasing of the spiritual duty Scouting America uses. The Law I have made the Promise to do my best to follow many times as a youth starts "A scout seeks their own beliefs and respects that of others." I have to do no such thing (be a monotheist), thank you very much, and you don't get to tell me what my spiritual beliefs are.

Nope. Current AOL patrol advisor and Cubmaster here, good personal friends with last year's AOL patrol advisor who got the pleasure of flying by their seat of their pants when the program dropped so late. Last year, when we had virtually no notice, the AOL patrol advisor hustled to get every AOL a camping experience even though they couldn't make it to the regular campouts due to scheduling conflicts. One late joiner camped out in another leader's back yard, but they camped. That was our idea of their best. This year, we have several opportunities to cook with camping equipment scheduled (not just campouts) and three campout opportunities we're providing before crossover - not counting all the troops that are courting them by inviting them to campouts. We divided and conquered at the first den meeting - I went over how the AOL year is different and what it's preparing them for with the Cubs, and the former AOL patrol advisor did the same thing for the parents. We would not accept not camping at all as anyone's best either, that would be doing them a rotten "favor".

I agree with you completely. If it helps, you can truthfully say that Arrows of Light do what what the SM suggested. I asked my AOLs to complete assembling a first-aid kit as homework for this reason, but the suggested activity from the program for that requirement is to do what the SM suggested. Presumably you should do more for Tenderfoot than AOL.

I forgot a category - National Historic Trails! They often (always?) have Junior Ranger programs, and create engagement with the land as well as local history, and hiking sections of them for all the outdoor adventures that require hiking (so everything except Outdoor Adventurer) doubles up on activities and requirements. Our pack has hiked trails that were prepared on top of El Camino Real de los Tejas and made a stop to complete the Junior Ranger booklet, and we've also used the booklet as a trailhead gathering activity. Since many modern roads in our area started as part of El Camino Real, the cubs get reminded regularly by road signs that we are now driving the same paths that Caddo once created. The trail is still very much here, we have just built on the work of our local predecessors/ancestors so that it doesn't look like a trail anymore in large sections.

Two years ago, our pack started actively providing opportunities to earn the NPS Resource Stewardship Scout Ranger patch. In the process, we've discovered a number of Junior Ranger programs that can be done outside a national park on topics that I thought others might find useful to have a list for as well. We do have a national historical park nearby, but we want to provide more variety of experience and learning for the cubs than doing the entire ten hours just in that one park, and probably few packs have easy access to several NPS parks in the first place, so perhaps some of these will come in handy for others pursuing the Scout Ranger patch as well. Junior Cave Scientist - limestone/karst cave geology and ecology, conservation in karst landscapes. This was a perfect companion for a pack summer limestone cave visit to Cave Without A Name in Texas, and I imagine it would work well in almost any show limestone cave. If you happen to be near Cave Without A Name, you can email them ahead to time to request certain topics on the tour and had I done that, they would have just walked through the Junior Ranger booklet for us. Passing that on for someone else to plan a smoother outing. Getting the badge in the mail requires sending in the completed booklet, so you will need one printed booklet per cub. Some show cave tours may be too fast to allow for the booklet to be worked through, though - Natural Bridge Caverns might not work well here for example. Even without trying to do the booklet, the cubs didn't have time to ask all their questions and linger as long as they wanted. Wildland Fire Junior Ranger - what it sounds like. Pages 3, 8, and 9 connect to Into The Woods re: fire-adapted and fire-aversive ecosystems. Page 16 and 17 relate to wildfire emergency preparedness, potentially useful for the My Safety Be Prepared For Natural Events activity. There is a patch as well as a badge for this, although since I got my cub's patch at a national park I don't know if one can get them in the mail. I don't see any instructions for that in the booklet, but there is an email to email for the badge through the mail. Because you don't have to send in the completed booklet, you could work out of one or a small number of booklets for the group for this one if you wanted. Junior Ranger Night Explorer - connects to Sky is the Limit, the Let's Camp Tiger Flashlight Tiger Hunt activity (importance of red light instead of white), and Leave No Trace for Kids point 6 (Respect Wildlife) in terms of light pollution. Junior Ranger Let's Go Fishing! - all the fishing adventures, of course. There is a list of all of the themed junior ranger programs that aren't focused on a particular park that you can find a few more in - my cub did a few more based on personal interest, and while they didn't do them all, these were the ones out of the ones they did that make sense to do as a den/patrol and/or pack because of the program tie-ins. Happy Junior Ranger training!

You're welcome, @Chisos! I thought there might be some people not currently in the council who might be wondering. Glad to have helped.

Maybe it's that I was a scout, maybe it's that I'm from a country with high accountability expectations for politicians, maybe it's because it was my job for many years to foresee and prevent problems so that we delivered to spec on time... But it blows my mind that people keep doing this. Both that the government allows it and that people don't learn and so many act like this came out of left field. It absolutely did not. It's one thing to not know. Even if perhaps you should have been more curious or critical or something. It's something completely different to know and not act. And it sure wasn't the responsibility of children to do floodplain management.

We have a summer camp in the area that flooded badly last weekend called Bear Creek. The only people up there were the Ranger and his family, because the camp is shut down for repairs this summer with all Alamo Area Council activities moved to McGimsey Scout Park in town (and a lot of folks going out of council this year). The eponymous Bear Creek is a tributary to the northern fork of the Guadalupe and it did flash flood, but in the wider context the camp just needs some cleanup. Images council sent out attached. Debris in the Order of the Arrow ring (amphitheater-style seating for campfires) and on the wires for the slides. (We have a swimming area in front of the boathouse (on Bear Creek itself of course) with waterslides and zip lines and a floating dock, but the water slides themselves are only on the river during camp sessions, so they weren't in the river when the flood came.) Our floating dock has been lost. Water entered the Dining Hall from runoff coming down the hill; cleanup will be required. (The dining hall is pretty high up on a hill, where the campsites are also located, and it's a pavilion with rolldown closures of openings rather than real walls.) The Eco Pavilion appears unaffected, and all canoes and kayaks remain in place. The road below the Dining Hall has been washed out, exposing a water line and currently preventing vehicle access to the Valley View campsite. Water also entered the Main (storage area behind a novelty facade of an Old West town at the entrance) and the Ranger’s porch, though thankfully not the Ranger’s home itself. Some fencing is down, including a fence belonging to a neighbor near the rifle range. (The rifle range is located in the creek valley.) I think a lot of us in Alamo Area can't help but put ourselves in the shoes of the parents who lost campers on and off. And in those moments, other than working with other unit leaders to make sure we're Prepared(TM), I often become very proud of Scouting America and scouting. As you may know by now even if you're not in the area, Hunt is geologically very prone to flash flooding and is part of an area colloquially called Flash Flood Alley. Just like heat, severe flash flood risk is baked into the experience of camping there. (This is not the first time campers have died in flash floods outside Hunt.) So, this requires Being Prepared. And all the campsites as well as the staff housing is located near the tops of the hills. The entire valley below would have to fill for campers to be washed away in the middle of the night. That's good, because cell phone reception at Bear Creek ranges from none to text messages only at the hilltops. Had Bear Creek itself risen as much as the entire Guadalupe did at its worst, scouts camping at Bear Creek would probably have had their camp week ruined but they would be alive. Camp Mystic (not accredited) had cabins in not just floodplains but floodways, and we have no people sleeping in even floodplains other than (for some inexplicable reason) the Ranger's house. Source: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/projects/2025/texas-camp-mystic-guadalupe-fema-floodplains/, for reference Bear Creek is really close to Camp Waldemar which is marked on the map. The floodway that goes upwards to the left left of Camp Waldemar is Bear Creek the creek.) Apparently FEMA and Camp Mystic argued about flood plains and cabin locations repeatedly, including when they last expanded Camp Mystic in 2020. (Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/12/camp-mystic-flood-plain-FEMA/) And we didn't even get close to needing to do anything like that - we just put our campers well away from flash floods and make them all hike up and down hill instead. Good for the folks who planned this camp! Is it irritating to have to hike up and down steep hills in the heat when you're down in Program Valley and realize you forgot something you really must have at your campsite? Yes. Does "Cardiac Hill" deserve its nickname? Maybe not. We are in the physically fit business, after all. But is all the up and down worth knowing that you and your scouts aren't going to die in a flash flood? Absolutely. Safety rules are written in blood, let's not forget. May we all learn to respect the power of nature and be mentally awake enough to recognize when advance planning is the difference between life and death.

Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but that sounds like someone in your council fighting the success. It could just be poor job performance, of course. But the kind of stiff, emotional resistance to girls and women being a full, authentic part of Scouting America that some people in the organization have doesn't just evaporate in a year or even in the face of evidence. For them, it's not about success for the organization, it's about forcing the world to be a certain way. In this case cooties-free. It could definitely be that your council's policy is a result of an internal struggle between people who wanted coed and people who didn't. Did you see Scouting Maverick's take on postponing coed in Scouts BSA earlier? https://scoutingmaverick.com/2025/01/21/celebrating-a-sexist-scam-linked-troop-wood-badge-highlights-sas-cultural-rot/ Your example of a CC who is so invested in no girls that he's going to de facto let his unit die rather than go coed isn't the only one I'm sure. Actually, you mentioned several such units, so... They're going to keep shrieking until it stops working, which seems to be roundabout now or soon. But some won't stop shrieking because they realized it's actually fine, they will still sabotage what they can. Meanwhile in my corner of my female-friendly council, many leaders are working together to build out a coed pipeline from Cub Scouts into Scouts BSA. Not coincidentally we're about equal numbers of men and women. And it's working - all of our units are growing. If we keep working, Scouting America is going to come back from cultural oblivion in a decade or so.

Off topic now, but I certainly hope that's what's going to happen. In a generation, GSUSA is going to have a real struggle on their hands if they don't open up membership to boys. Gender segregated scouting is niche, and once enough time has passed for everyone to know off the top of their heads that Scouting America is coed and the girls growing up in Cub Scouts now have kids of their own, there will be as many moms as dads who fondly remember their scouting youth and want to share scouting with their kids based on what I just saw at cub resident camp. I think that's what we're all doing as parents - whatever experience we had in scouts as youth is what we want to share with our kids. Right now, moms who were Girl Scouts with daughters want to share Girl Scouts with them, and often do. My cub and I are usually the only mother-daughter pair with no boy siblings in the family at events. Moms who were Girl Scouts but who have boys have to put them in Scouting America if they do scouts; but dads who were Scouting America scouts can now share that with all their kids. Once both US-born moms and dads were Scouting America scouts... I predict the same fate for GSUSA as other girl guiding organizations - niche. The vast majority of people want coed scouting and Scouting America now has first-mover advantage in the US. The longer GSUSA delays in letting boys in, the harder it will be to make up the time for all the reasons Scouting America has just gone through. Or, I suppose, they can just experience what our single-gender units are experiencing now.

I have to apologize, I didn't want to type the whole phrase "family packs, linked troops, and coed troops" every time and made the assumption that readers would know that cub scouts has family packs (coed), but that there is a range of coed-ness among troops, depending on whether they're in the pilot or not and how closely linked troops operate. Some operate completely independently, others have meetings and outings at the same time. To supplement the troop information above, coed packs have been around since 2022. I was surprised it was so recent when I looked it up, but I suppose that's because we joined a pack in the pilot in 2022 and I didn't realize it was new. I was so relieved to find my normal I didn't think about it further. https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2023/06/22/cub-scout-family-dens-what-they-are-and-how-they-could-work-for-your-pack/ The relative newness is perhaps also why so many people seem to not have thought about the choices AOLs have to make about troops and friendships. It's been obvious to me from the start, and I've wondered why I keep running into people who seem blindsided or surprised by that if AOL friends choose to stick together, then that rules out a single-gender troop that operates independently. But it may be because most US scouters truly haven't thought it through from the perspective of AOLs crossing over from coed packs because it's so new to them. At a troop fair last year, I was a little surprised that several single-gender units schmoozed me up without announcing that they were single-gender or checking to see what gender my cub was. I assumed that if they didn't take half the cubs they'd say that up front so parents and cubs would know the limitation before wasting time. But now I realize that this may literally be the first years of cubs from coed packs that have been together from Lions on up together crossing over.

Apologies for the late response, but you have your answer (or at least a big part of it) yourself to what happened in just 10 years hyperlocally right here. It's not that nobody is interested in scouting, it's the interest in single-gender scouting that's declined. It's the same in my council - coed units are doing better as a whole than single-gender units. This matters because if you did manage to boost interest in scouting in your community, it wouldn't necessarily result in a surge of new members for you if what's happening empirically is that coed units are healthy and single-gender ones less so. Also, think about crossover friend group and family dynamics - friend groups from family packs have to choose between splitting up the group or choosing a coed troop. I see this happening in slow motion for the AOLs in my pack now. Because of older siblings and tight den friend groups, the coed troop AOLs crossed over into three years ago is going to get at least three years of AOLs from us, and us adult leaders with them. The core AOL patrol friend group is tight and wants to stick together, so no single-gender troop had a chance no matter how well run they are because there are well-run coed troops that they can choose. If you want to solve this problem, you're going to have to figure out who does want single-gender troops and how to reach them. I'm the wrong person to have guesses, but you know your community better than strangers on the Internet anyway. Who in your community might share your reasons for wanting single-gender scouting? Articulate the value proposition clearly and go tell those people.

Definitely not. The word 'forest bathing' may have been coined in Japan, but the observation that people in general feel calmer and more connected to the Universe in nature is old and universal. This is also why some of the old ways linger around even today, despite centuries of attempts to get rid of them.

I almost included 'reverent' from the US Scout Law, but since it seems like there is a large contingent of people here (including in scouts) who don't feel that nature is sacred it may well not resonate generally for Americans. But I agree completely with what Kate is saying here, and at least in Sweden I am typical. We seek and find spirituality and sacredness in nature. That's also why we have no problem with atheist scouts - feeling the spiritual connection to nature and all things doesn't require belief in deities. That's part of why that works for us. (Presumably some scouts' and scouters' difficulty in imagining spirituality not centered around deities is why the WOSM constitution needed to be clarified a while back also.) This is also why I want to be out there and why I want to get more kids out there. They should get to know and protect nature, this generates right view and right action grounded in reverence. 🌍Happy Earth Month! Remember, this is the month to launch your Scouting for Clean Waterways project! Let's trash own trash and be water protectors! https://www.forskning.se/2020/05/28/naturen-har-blivit-svenskarnas-kyrka/

From WOSM's web site https://www.scout.org/who-we-are/world-organization/about-organization : "A Global Educational Youth Movement Scouting's mission is to contribute to the education of young people through a value system based on the Scout Promise and Law. Through Scouting, we are building a better world where people are self-fulfilled as individuals and play a constructive role in society. To be the world’s most inspiring and inclusive youth movement, creating transformative learning experiences for every young person, everywhere." Point six of the Swedish Scout Law is "A scout gets to know and protects nature." The sixth point isn't above points 1-5 or 7, of course. But having made a promise many times to do my best to follow the scout law, I certainly feel obliged towards environmental activism when the need arises. Point six of the first version of the Scout Law was "a scout is kind to animals". That's not necessarily pointing to environmental activism taken literally, but we as a movement have clearly committed ourselves to being Earth protectors. See for example everything at https://www.scout.org/what-we-do/young-people-and-communities/environment, or more locally https://www.scouting.org/outdoor-programs/scouting-clean-waterways/ "Now more than ever, we need young people to stand up and take action around the challenges facing our communities and our planet. To promote human rights and act against injustice, to tackle climate change and promote gender equality, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals." Ahmad Alhendawi Secretary General, World Scouting (2017-2024)

I will absolutely not be participating in this phenomenon. Facts exist and they matter, period. You ignore them at your own peril. Pretending that things are one way (pravda) when they are plainly another (istina) is the root of the rot that always ruins whatever our (Swedish perspective) only remaining enemy to the east does. Just look at Karelia, and inversely the Baltic countries now compared to USSR times. If you want things to work in your country, citizens need to know what is actually happening in it and how things work on a nuts and bolts causal level, not what some high-level politician wants to be true or wants you to pretend to be the case so they can defraud your state. I can't control other people, but I will absolutely not pretend that the sky is green because it's inconvenient to someone else that it's blue. I don't care how out of touch or elitist that might seem to other people, for me that is a basic act of patriotism and cultural identity. I am of a people that doesn't operate on parallel political and factual truths. One of our defining cultural traits is that we operate on factual truth only. This might sound a little harsh, and in a sense it is but it's not directed towards you. I just grew up knowing that I would be the target of political propaganda and that a country that did not wish us well was trying to convince citizens that they should give up resistance so that they could take over our country and suck all the resources out of it too, like they already have the territory they control. I've thought about the importance of seeking and confirming truth for a very long time, in several political time periods and in different countries with and without political censorship and repression. In addition, I have a religious obligation to never give up trying to see reality as it is in order to help other people. If you give up truth and respect for the equal intrinsic value and dignity of each human being, it doesn't matter how slick your talk is, it's all going to go sideways in the end. Convincing other of something is all fine and good, but what's the point if you don't make sure to be right first?

Mine is cub-age as well, and I didn't think anyone would bring up current events/politics during this adventure until I realized with some shock that my child's probably entire class discusses US politics and their opinions of parties and individual politicians on the regular, including speculating or sharing who their parents voted for in the 2024 election. (Before the election, it was "was going to vote for".) Evidently we had done a good job of not voicing our political opinions in front of them (thinking as you did, that the time was later and that we ought to start somewhere nuanced and thoughtful), because they came from from a sleepover last year and asked us to vote for a particular candidate because they didn't know who we were going to vote for. The kids at the sleepover had made a pact to get their parents to vote for that candidate! The young age at which they did this really took me aback. But then again, at the Webelos-AOL overnight camp our pack attended last summer a Webelos yelled out "To elect Trump!" as an answer to the question "what do we have an election for this fall?" during that same adventure. The answer the staffer was looking for, was, of course, "president". I don't know if this is typical or unusual, but wanted to pass on the experience in case it's more in the common side. I know we definitely weren't discussing politics when I was their age. But since they seem to be, I wanted to prevent political shout-outs like the one we saw at camp. When it comes to reliable media, everyone has offered good observations already, but I wanted to add a general strategy for cross-checking and/or finding higher-quality reporting: public service media. It's never behind a paywall, and since the funding doesn't depend on advertising and the mission is explicitly to educate and inform their citizenry the quality is much higher than many private media these days. In Swedish public media, I regularly see reporting that forces politicians and civil servants to take action to fix problems, such as that 2/3 of the train delays in a certain region was due to the same five malfunctioning switches that had been due for exchange for years. Poof, those switches got exchanged real quick once that reporting was published because who wants to seem incompetent? If you only speak English, your options are more limited, but the BBC is excellent. France 24 also publishes news in English, as does Deutsche Welle. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also publish public service news in English. https://www.bbc.com/news https://www.france24.com/en/ https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097 https://www.cbc.ca/news https://www.abc.net.au/news https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world

I just scheduled the "talk with an elected official about whether they were elected using majority or plurality voting and why" requirement of My Community, and decided to add this to the invite. "Note about scouting and politics: The scouting movement is nonpolitical in that in our roles as scouts and scouters in uniform, we do not express support for any particular political candidate in any particular place. We are a civic movement that recognizes the inviolable human dignity of each human being, freedom of thought, religion, assembly, and expression; democracy, equal rights under the law for everyone, rule of law, and human rights. We encourage our members to take an active role in creating a harmonious society that is consistent with our value foundation, but also encourage each member to reach their own conclusion regarding which political candidates have the best suggestions for how to do that in the country in which they live, consistent with freedom of thought. Given that we have over 50 million members worldwide, our fellow scouts and scouters are almost guaranteed to be mixed political company, but actively voicing support for the importance of human dignity, civic freedoms, democracy, equal rights, rule of law, and human rights is not considered political as far as the scouting movement goes, even if they are contested in a country with a scouting organization." I also agree that advising youth on not getting their news from social media is a good idea. "I read it on the Internet so it must be true" is the new "I saw it on TV so it must be true". Being able to evaluate the source of information and knowing how to cross-check it is a key skill in an information society.