You know all that garbage that your teachers and professors tell you to avoid on the Internet?

All the useless, misinformed junk that is just floating through cyberspace waiting to mislead you? The talking heads, fake sources and meaningless opinions that have added fluff to your papers for years?

Well, get ready to embrace all of it: past, present and future. Because soon, really soon, the Internet is going to be the source for news and opinion. Forget Fox News and CNN. Turn off Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Put down your New York Times and your USA Today -- you don't need any of them anymore.

Traditional sources of news media are officially on their way out the door, in favor of the "blog."

Blogging (short for web-logging) is becoming an increasingly powerful piece of news distribution and consumption here in the U.S. and in other countries. In the election, for example, blogs were everywhere -- at the conventions, on the streets and in the offices of powerful politicians, feeding the 24-hour non-stop network of political information. If you wanted a piece of juicy info, chances are a blog somewhere reported it first, and by first, I mean hours before the major news networks.

Because of these public triumphs, blogging has officially stepped out from the shadows of the geek dictionary and into the spotlight. It is not longer a "LiveJournal," teen-angst derivative.

Blogging has become a tool for corporate leaders to communicate with their shareholders, scientists to share research and discoveries, and a public soapbox for anyone to voice their opinion.

Now...OK, do we really want Larry (the guy who draws male-members on the drunks at the party) informing us about the economic climate of the Middle East after the war in Iraq?

The answer is probably no. However, the thing that has the potential to completely discredit blogging (namely, people like Larry feeding the public a line of BS) is exactly what empowers it.

Blogging is a public, distributed network of pundits and professionals, which means that, yes, Larry gets the same share of the pie as, say, Bill Joy (CEO of Sun Microsystems), but if Larry's blog is not supported by the blogging community around him, his information will be instantly discredited.

That is the beauty of the blog. The information is distributed all across the Internet in record time, so if someone gets it wrong, everyone will know about it. There is no need for letters to the editor or call-back bashing -- it is a (to use the cliché) "web" of information available to the public at no cost and no safety glasses needed.

Bloggers are not afraid to reveal biases and viewpoints, unlike some of our cherished "news" organizations, so you don't have to speculate if someone is just spinning everything to one side or the other.

That is why, over the last few years, the Internet has grown to provide more than 15 percent of the news people read on a daily basis, according the BBC. And this thing is just getting started.

Most everyone in our age group (and younger) has grown up on an Internet with journals and diaries and blogs of every size and shape. We understand the technology and have all seen it, if not used it.

So it is easy to imagine what the next 10 years are going to be like. The informed public is already shifting away from traditional outlets such as newspapers and radio and into the blogging realm. What will happen when the blogging community grows to provide 30 percent of our information. How about 50 percent? Or 75 percent?

What will our politicians and pundits rely on when voices are no longer just given to the loud and boisterous, but to the thoughtful, talented individuals of every-day America? To you and me?

And there is nothing stopping it from happening. We can all start right now. There are all sorts of free blog services on the Internet, from Blogspot (www.blogspot.com), Typepad (www.typepad.com) and Xanga (www.xanga.com).

You can write about anything: food, pets, astronomy or even pornography. There is a niche available in the blogging community for every subject and every student here at Penn State.

Even if you were always that kid who never had anything worthwhile to say -- go out and say it anyway. In the least, your friends will read it and get a kick out of it. At the most, hundreds and thousands of people might find your unique voice a worthwhile addition to their news, information and entertainment sources.

Make sure you are part of it.

This is most likely the only chance you're going to have at giving yourself a place to be heard. You aren't going to make it to television or radio, and no one reads about the traffic accidents that you'll be reporting to the Central Podunk newspaper. Your one and only shot at stardom could come from the infamous "Funny Squirrel Pictures" blog you began right here at Penn State.

No one is stopping you. No one can stop you. The blogging revolution will take place, and there isn't going to be a grace period.

Get to work. Give yourself a voice. You won't regret it.