I really thought abut titling this post, “Why America Is In Decline” and then talking about our abysmal lack of ability to do simple things like count. Or perhaps we could talk about how the news media fails to report the news in a way that makes sense — and we forget to call them on it.

Or it could just be one more stupid cop.

“There was somewhere between six (million) and 16 million of them running around out there,” Officer Steve Merchant of the California Highway Patrol told CNN. — CNN.com, ” Now, that stings! Escapee bees swarm a.m. commute” (last visited March 17, 2008).

Anyone who reads the story will soon realize that either the cop is wrong, or there were more bees present on Highway 99 near Sacramento than exist in the entire United States.

In the United States, the honeybee, the world’s premier pollinator, experienced a dramatic 40 percent decline, from nearly six million to less than two and a half million, in the last two decades. — CNN.com, ” Now, that stings! Escapee bees swarm a.m. commute” (last visited March 17, 2008).

The story, however, reported the cop’s statement as if it were true, without pointing out this discrepancy.

This type of reporting wouldn’t really be so bad, except that we often see the same sort of thing in other, more important stories; stories that might cause us to feel the need to take action — or not — on some important issue. How often have we been encouraged to abandon our civil rights because our secretive government says doing so is what has allowed them to thwart further attacks since 9/11? I wonder what prevented terrorist attacks in the 200-plus years prior to 9/11?

*sigh*

Maybe I just need to stop expecting the news to make sense.