Dear editors

I know: the 'Opinion' page is made up of opinion, not reporting. I know that it's an important journalistic tradition, and that the free press demands a free opinion page.

I'm cool with that.

I do wish, though, that the Star and every other news paper in the country would just ask their columnists- at the very least- not to lie. That would seem to be a pretty minimal standard, asking opinion writers to opine on fact, rather than calculated partisan fiction.

Take, for example, Terry Paulson.

In his column this week (Energy Independence Now), he makes some pretty dubious claims:

While politicians demand more oil from overseas, we sit on oil reserves that are the envy of the world.

Really? The envy of Saudi Arabia? Of Iraq? Of Canada? Venezuela? US oil production reached peak in the '70s, and while we certainly have more reserves, even untapped reserves, there isn't much evidence indicating that tapping them now would lead us to energy independence.

What would lead us there is getting off our addiction to a finite resource. But since people like Terry must support the line of the current administration ("Conservation is a personal virtue" and "So long from the world's biggest polluter"), even when giving alternate energy resources a nod, they must press the delusion that the oil is there, and it is ours for the taking.

All of that is just opinionating, though, so of course it has a place in the editorial pages. What I really have a problem with is this:

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita roared through the Gulf's 3,000 offshore oil and gas platforms, no major spills were recorded.

Now, if you're going to let someone write something that easily disproved (in fact, the oil spill could be seen from space), maybe just a note from the news bureau at the bottom of the column?

It just tears my hide when lies are published without challenge on the pages of a newspaper.

Oh, and although this isn't a lie, I can't pass up commenting on

France generates 80 percent of its energy needs through nuclear power and safely handles the waste; so can we!

France has a significant regulatory structure. And as this government can't seem to figure out how to keep e coli out of my food, and refuses to address weaknesses is chemical manufacturing and transport, I'd prefer not to complicate their to-do list with enforcement and protection of nuclear power plants.