I'm an admitted information junkie. I read print versions of Wired, CPU, and Scientific American -- all cover to cover -- and can never resist a good article from Goggle News, which is my home page. I keep up with SlashDot (aka /.) and a dozen or so blogs and haven't missed a local news broadcast while in town in years. I listen to NPR and Marketplace whenever possible and I'm still looking for more all the time. Lately, however, the feeding frenzy of salacious non-news is getting to be more than I can stomach.

Lets quickly recap --

First, anything related to Viagra is top news. That's a given. We've been living through this for a while, complete with stupid commercials showing people throwing footballs more accurately after presumably taking some. This week, we have two new headline making stories. First, that the stuff apparently can make you blind. Of course, that's not necessarily the drug -- perhaps its the increased activity. Then days of headlines about yet another sex enhancement drug designed to improve -- how to put this -- staying power. If you believe the press, there must not be a properly functioning human male in that all important affluent mid-forties with expendable cash demographic. The second actually reminds me a joke, the punch line of which was "Yellow. I think I'll paint the ceiling yellow."

If the US press and its absolute frenzy of repeated excitement about the mere possibility of talking about male genitals is too much, the UK press seems entirely focused on the thought of its young favorite pop star having an early stage breast cancer tumor removed. While its true that this happens every day and in fact she's expected to fully recover -- the mere discussion of the young lady's medical condition allows all readers to consider the poor girls probably perfect pouty little prize in their minds just long enough to sell more newspapers. gack.

Fill that in with the completely unavoidable Jackson trial in which we are forced to view the alleged manipulations and details and endless wrangling. Double Gack.

What do all these stories have in common? Aside from the prurient baseness of their appeal to the great unwashed masses, they all offer absolutely no value or bearing on the health, safety, prosperity, or comfort of the overwhelming majority of people reading them.