The other day I somehow clicked into a news article in which the author claimed that President Obama's federal committee of scientists had determined that the damage from the BP oil leak in the gulf was going to be "negligible". (I don't remember where I read this; I found it by accident while looking for something completely different.) The author made this claim without citing any sources, references, or data of any kind.

It's no secret that misinformation abounds on the Internet. I'm old enough to remember that when Wikipedia first emerged, it was widely flogged for containing inaccurate information. That problem hasn't been solved 100%, but there's still the danger of getting bad information.

One thing that Internet can provide to anyone: inspiration. Usually, the inspiration to do something isn't fact-based. Getting yourself out of a rut you're stuck in doesn't require you to educate your way out. It can be a simple as a single sentence that changes things for you, or a story about someone in the same situation as you who found their way through it. The motivation to push through abounds on the Internet. The information is out there, ripe for the plucking, if you choose to go for it.

The trick is in knowing where to look for it...and if you already have been looking, then start looking in different places.