Okay, in a word…NOOOOOOOOOO.

First of all…I don’t have anything personally against Faith Hill, I just don’t care for her singing.  And have I ever mentioned how I hate it when people sing, “Gaaaaaaawd blessssssssss [big breath]  HUH-Merrrica…”  Listen, sweetheart, it’s a patriotic song, not your next single.  It isn’t about you, so save the vocal gymnastics for the albums.

And speaking of vocal gymnastics…I think it is at this point I am supposed to say how much I loved Jennifer Hudson’s version of our National Anthem.  But, sorry…I just can’t.

Before everyone starts in on me, let me clarify…I like Jennifer.  I think she’s a beautiful girl with a lovely voice.  And I think it took a lot of personal courage and strength to get up there and sing tonight.  I’m sure she was thinking of her murdered mother, brother, and nephew while she was up there.  I admire her for doing what she did, and I wish her nothing but the best.

But one of my personal pet peeves is when singers butcher our National Anthem.  I just can’t stand it.  It isn’t supposed to be a bluesy, R&B-inspired song.  It isn’t a showcase for vocal stylings and runs up and down the scale.  That doesn’t show patriotism or feeling or passion, it just shows that you know your scales and can hit high notes.  It’s supposed to be a reverential moment to honor our country and those who have fought and died for our freedoms.  Again, save the vocal gymnastics for the love songs.  (But Kat DeLuna is the worst in recent memory, IMO…at least Jennifer can sing, and at least she wasn’t trying to be all sexay thang, for which she has my everlasting gratitude)

[Just my personal opinions, not anyone else's here]

…here’s the sport I look forward to every Summer Olympics.  Table Tennis!

No, I am not kidding.

Why yes, I do also watch curling in the Winter Olympics.  Why do you ask?

Happy Friday, everybody!

And might I add, it’s about time, although it sounds pretty anemic.  “Launching a probe”?  Sounds like a medical procedure.  Maybe they need a headoutofbuttectomy.

The International Olympic Committee, that bastion of all things Olympic, has finally decided that perhaps it was time to stop taking China’s word for everything and try to figure out what is really going on in women’s gymnastics:

An IOC official told The Times that because of “discrepancies” that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals.

The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed yesterday to have uncovered Chinese government documents that he says prove she is only 14 – making her ineligible to compete in the Olympics – rather than 16, as officials in Beijing insist is her age.

Mike Walker, a computer security expert, told The Times how he tracked down two documents that he says had been removed from a Chinese government website. The documents, he said, stated that He’s birth date was January 1 1994 – making her 14 – and not January 1 1992, which is printed in her passport. [...]

[...] The ages of two other team members have also aroused suspicion: Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin. Time magazine reported that government records, that have since disappeared, showed both girls to be 14. Gymnasts must be 16 to compete.

The controversy has been swirling aroud even before the games began, giving the IOC and FIG plenty of time to act before the first competitor took to the apparatus; however, blind eyes were turned, as Dawn has said, presumably to avoid offending the host country of China.  Because, after all, people will let you break the rules if you totally have a tantrum if you get caught.

And despite what anyone wants to claim, the documents that were found were posted on a state-run website, by the General Administration Of Sport Of China, not on some rinky-dink page by a pimply-faced geek:

The man who uncovered the allegations about the underage athlete told The Times that he was not even a sports a fan, but decided to investigate the issue to determine if Chinese authorities were lying. He eventually discovered that two Excel spreadsheets on the Chinese government’s official sports website – www.sport.gov.cn – that mentioned her name had recently being removed.

“There was a conclusion here,” Mr Walker said. “These documents existed, on a state-wide website, and now they don’t exist, and this change has taken place recently. I was interested because these were documents that no-one could find. If there’s information to be found on the internet I’m a citizen journalist – it was a challenge.”

He turned to a Chinese search engine, Baidu. In its cache he found both documents. “The listing in there, quite clearly, is He Kexin’s birth date, January 1, 1994,” Mr Walker said.

Plus, for all who claim He Kexin is unaware of the duplicity:

He insists that she is old enough to compete. Asked by journalists about the debate, she said: “My real age is 16. I don’t care what other people say. I want other people to know that 16 is my real age.”

Now, I want to make clear, she may in fact be forced to say this by her government, because she is in fear for some reason.  We don’t know, because like all things from China, it is shrouded in mystery.  Quite honestly, I feel for the girl…to be used as a pawn for nationalistic pride.  Unlike our gymnasts, she has to say what is put into her mouth.  And this is not bigotry against the Chinese.  So understand, this is in no way a personal attack on the young lady or her nationality, but on sport in China, subtle cheating and bold-faced lies, and the censoring of news.

Not only have there been questions about the age of some of China’s gymnasts, but there is also controversy swirling around the judging of the competitions, with on-air commentators openly wondering at how gymnasts who fall and who do not stick landings were still awarded high scores.  If judging in ice skating is algebra, judging in gymnastics is trigonometry…also, it is wildly subjective while at the same time being tightly controlled.  It has been suggested that the judges in question did not have the experience required to judge gymnastics at an Olympic level, which could account for some of the marks…but even I know that certain errors are certain tenths of a point off, even accounting for the difficulty rating.  Perhaps they blinked or had something in their eye and missed crucial moments.

And I have to point out once again that this is not a question of being sore losers because we took the silver medal.  This is a question of following the rules as they are laid out by the IOC.  All competitors and coaches take an oath that they will compete fairly and will follow the rules.  So that is all out the window if you’re the host nation with a history of atrocities against your own people?  It seems to me that if you are underage, then you are ineligible to compete, and a tenth of a point deduction for a mistake should be for all teams.  All anyone is asking for is for each and every team to follow the rules as they are laid out.

Was the Chinese gymnastic team better than the other teams?  Possibly…but then again, they did have a bit of help from the judges, receiving higher scores for routines that should have had deductions.  Yes, the US team messed up big on some things, but so did the Chinese.  This isn’t a question of who is better…we have a junior high football player who is better than some of our high school players, but he can’t play on the high school team because, say it with me, it’s against the rules.  We have to wait until he is eligible to play.

This is also not about how “young” or “old” the gymnasts look, although I will once again point out that there are certain characteristics to the bone structure of preteens, teens, and adults, and it is pretty obvious that some of these so-called sixteen-year-olds are not sixteen based on this criteria.  They can appear young in the face, but there are certain other marks of age you just cannot hide or have a harder time covering up.  And this is also not about whether one agrees or disagrees with the age rule…some think fourteen or even younger should be eligible to compete, some think sixteen is just right (I personally would move it up to eighteen, but then I am all for children having a childhood and not frittering it away in a gym).  You can disagree with the rules all you want, but the fact is that disagreeing won’t change anything.  In high school sports, if you have one ineligible player play in a game, and it is found out after the fact, the whole game is forfeited and the entire team is punished.  So this is different how?

I can disagree with the rule that tells me I have to go a certain MPH on a certain stretch of road, since my car is super cool and faster than my neighbor’s, and I can surreptitiously break that rule every chance I get.  But sooner or later I’ll get caught and punished.  Why?  Because I broke the rules.  Rules are rules whether we agree with them or not and if we break them we will pay the consequences.

The IOC asked Paul Hamm to return his medal after their judges made a mistake.  The IOC made Sale and Pelletier share a gold medal with the Russians when a judging scandal was unearthed.  The IOC was going to take the word of China (well-known for their openness and truthfulness) and hope this all blew over.  Yeah, fat chance.  Way to underestimate teh powah of de internets!

You can follow GlossLip’s continuing coverage of this story here.

The uber-awesome Michael K at DListed points to a blind item run on Rush and Malloy, implicating two Olympians are bitter-rivals with one doing something nasty to the other. Michael implies it’s gymnastic champs Nastia Liukin and teammate Shawn Johnson. I say NO WAY. Here’s the blind item:

Which two perky Olympian teammates are really bitter rivals? One spiked the other’s protein shake with laxatives before a big competition, but her plan backfired when her nemesis not only powered through the competition but beat her so-called friend anyway.

In all fairness, we don’t even know what sport they are referring to or even what team, it could be those cheating Chinese gymnasts for all we know, but I highly doubt it’s Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin.

First of all, Nastia isn’t what you would call “perky”. Brooding, focused and serious, yes, but perky? Hell no. I watched virtually all of the coverage of the Olympic Gymnastic competition and Nastia is a no-nonsense kind of person, and her father Valeri Liukin, a former Russian Olympic gymnastic champion himself, would deeply frown on any kind of shenanigans of this nature.

While it’s true, the two girls, Nastia and Shawn stayed together during the Olympic competition, I doubt they are “bitter rivals.” Gymnastics is notorious for high drama, and we absolutely would have heard something by now if there were any issues related to these two young women. In a wonderful NYT article about the two gymnasts, the writer points out the obvious:

The two friends are now setting out on their post-Olympic adventures. The question is which one will capitalize the most on her Olympic success?

Johnson’s agent, Sheryl Shade, contended that there were no worries about one of them stealing sponsors from the other. She said that Liukin, 18, and Johnson, 16, appealed to different demographics. Liukin has the elegance of a ballerina. Johnson is perky.

In truth, they both performed admirably, despite having to deal with a blatant and unrepentant Chinese team of cheaters. If we removed the underage gymnasts from the Chinese team, Nastia would be up at least one gold medal, and in all fairness, the U.S. Women’s team would likely have won the team gold.

That said, I wouldn’t put this kind of thing past another U.S. gymnast, Alicia Sacramone – she’s both perky and has a ‘tude. Just kidding Alicia. Well, sort of. Please don’t punch me.

You know, it really makes you wonder where the heads of the IOC and FIG are.  Oh wait.

I don’t claim to be some sort of computer guru, and I don’t have epic haXX0r skillz, but I can read and do simple math, and even I recognize that 1994 from 2008 is not 16.  Deceiver found a great page…it seems a blogger/hacker found some pretty damning evidence that He Kexin is not sixteen after all, as China so desperately wants us to believe:

In the Baidu cache, which apparently has not been hit with the scrub brush (yet), two spreadsheets published by the Chinese government on sport.gov.cn both list He Kexin’s birthday as 01-01-1994, making her 14 years old. For as long as these links work, you can access the documents directly, either using the directions and screenshots above, or these links: cache1 cache2

I do not even pretend to understand some of the technical stuff (although I am learning…I’ve taught myself things that surprise people).  But even I can grasp that the Chinese government is working feverishly to remove any traces of He Kexin’s true age from the internets.  The country of China is behind both athletics and news organizations, and everything that comes out of China is monitored.  This is not an accident or a series of typographical errors.  They know what is going out, before it goes out.

As Dawn has so astutely pointed out, there is something major wrong in the sport of gymnastics and the willingness of the Olympics to look the other way in this.  There’s a problem, as she has said again, when one country is expected to adhere to the set rules, but another country can get by with breaking them just because they are the host.  Oh, and then there’s that whole terrorizing your countrymen thing if they don’t toe the party line (no pun intended…well, maybe a little).

Not only is the age of more than one Chinese gymnast in question, but the subject of the judging must also come up.  It was suggested during the broadcasts that some of the judges do not have the experience needed to judge gymnastics at this level, and that could account for the Chinese team receiving points even when they did things like fail to stick the landing or falling off the apparatus.  Personally, I think that is a diplomatic way of saying that the Chinese team was favored in the points, because who wants to offend the Chinese?  Yes, we made big mistakes…so did the Chinese.

It also occurs to me that another indicator of the young age of these girls are the mistakes in question.  If they were truly of Olympic age, that would mean they would have one to two more years of national/international competition under their tiny belts than they actually do.  Perhaps the mistakes were simply competitors who are unused to competing at this level.  Having said that, I realize mistakes happen, even to the best and most seasoned competitor.  It’s just my theory.

So many say this is just “sour grapes” because we lost so many medals to China in the Olympics.  And I would repeat that this isn’t about who won what, but about following the rules as they are set forth.  If the rules state that you have to be sixteen in an Olympic year, then them’s the rules, and you have to follow them.  If the rules state you deduct so many tenths of a point for a mistake, then that is what should happen.  Period.  All athletes AND coaches (even those who’s teams are run by the state) take an Olympic oath that they will follow the rules.  All anyone who truly loves sport asks is that all compeitors be subject to the same rules.  What, when we solemnly swear to uphold something, those words are meaningless, as long as we do what we do in the name of national pride?  When one censors the internets, claiming one thing is truth and now the corrected thing is truth, forget that first thing…where does that leave us?

What is this post really about? I don’t really feel that it’s about the gymnastics age limit, or even really about whether fraud occurred. At this point, I believe that any reasonable observer already understands that age records have been forged. This story now is really about Internet censorship, the act of removing evidence while at the same time claiming that the evidence is wrong. For the first time I watched search records shift under my feet like sand, facts draining down a hole in the Internet. Will this stand?

A bunch of bloggers and hackers have found what the IOC and FIG swear do not exist.

You can follow GlossLip’s continuing coverage of this scandal here.

UPDATE:  The IOC has ordered the FIG to investigate this matter further.  ‘Bout time.

The above video from MSNBC gives us some more insight into the age controversy surrounding the Chinese Women’s Gymnastic team, which as of this posting, seems to be picking up some steam as more documents surface pointing to shady actions on the part of the Chinese.

While it might seem petty to complain about these “minor” details after the fact, I stand by my original assertion that it’s not about the number of medals any team gets or doesn’t get, but about overall fairness and ultimately, the integrity of the Olympics. As k so eloquently explained in the previous post, there is a major advantage to being younger and smaller when it comes to competing in a sport as difficult and dynamic as gymnastics.

I have zero complaints with how our own U.S. Women’s Gymnastic team performed and medaled, they did a tremendous job and really made their country proud. But then, they played fair, didn’t cheat and showed an amazing amount of grace despite knowing all along they were competing against cheaters, albeit very talented and cute, but cheaters none the less.

Who knows how this will all pan out in the end, but after watching Nastia Luikin lose gold in the uneven bars to China’s He Kexin, who may very well be too young to compete, it begs the question as to what’s right, what’s fair, and what do we do to fix what’s clearly been broken in the system.

As the old adage goes, winners never cheat, and cheaters never win — except, apparently, in Beijing.

I didn’t need a commentator telling me that there was a question of age to realize, as I was watching the female gymnasts compete earlier in the Olympic games, that I was looking at girls who definitely were not sixteen years old.  Look, I was a teenager once.  I have a teenage daughter.  I have kids who have teenage friends.  Some of these girls in question are definitely not sixteen…but the problem has been that nobody can prove it.  The Chinese have produced the girls’ passports and apparently that is all the IOC needs, because China has such a long history of being completely open and trustworthy:

Just last week, questions were raised about the ages of two of Yang’s teammates. The New York Times reported that online records listed the gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, as being too young for this Olympics, perhaps as young as 14.

A national registry of gymnasts, which had been blocked online but was viewable through Google cache, listed He’s birthday as Jan. 1, 1994. That date was also listed for her on a registration for an intercity competition in Chengdu, China.

Jiang was born on Oct. 1, 1993 and is not yet 15, according to a listing of junior competitors from the Zhejiang Province sports administration. The list of athletes included national identification card numbers into which birth dates are embedded. Chinese officials have produced passports showing that He and Jiang are 16, making them old enough to compete at the Games.

Well, the IOC may want to take a look at moar web documents recently found that show the age of some of these girls is definitely not sixteen:

Olympic gymnastics title contenders suddenly have one more thing to worry about other than the eight gold medals China claimed at the Tianjin World Cup last week. Her name is He Kexin.

The 14-year-old newcomer to the national team, who was recruited last year, has raised a lot of eyebrows recently after she broke two world records on the uneven bars in as many months. She will be just one more weapon on an already star-studded Chinese Olympic squad.

Yeah, so?  Well, this article was posted on May 23, 2008.  Yep, this year.  Ineligible to compete in Olympic gymnastics.  And worse, China has “cleaned up” the article to now read that she is sixteen years old.

Plus, in a translated page (from the original Chinese), an article from November 2007 says she is thirteen years old, which means she turned fourteen sometime between November of 2007 and May of 2008, making her fourteen years old as of now.

You can see the full article with other photos here.  There’s this great thing called the World Wide Internet Computer Web, and the IOC and FIG might want to join the twentieth century and use some updated methods to fact-check.  A bunch of bloggers (including our own Dawn, who did a write-up on this very scandal earlier) found the information that the IOC and the FIG can’t seem to locate.

The question of age was raised before the Olympics even began, giving anyone in charge plenty of time to act:

Yang Yilin, a top contender for gold in the all-around and the uneven bars, could be 14 instead of the minimum age of 16, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

She is the third of six Olympians on the Chinese women’s gymnastics team whose age has been questioned in the lead-up to these Olympics.

Registration lists from 2003 to 2006, previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China, said Yang was born on Aug. 26, 1993, which means she will turn 15 later this month. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the year of the Olympics to be eligible to compete in the Games.

On the 2007 registration list, Yang’s birthday changed to Aug. 26, 1992, suddenly making her old enough for the Olympics, The A.P. said.

Chinese gymnastics officials have not yet addressed the question of Yang’s age. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said in a news conference Saturday that age eligibility was not an I.O.C. issue, and that the International Gymnastics Federation, known by the acronym F.I.G., is in charge of making sure gymnasts are old enough to compete.

But perhaps more controversial than an underage, ineligible competitor is the news that China may, in fact, be stunting the growth of their gymnasts to make them smaller, lighter, and more limber:

A 2005 book called Operation Yao Ming suggested that Chinese sporting authorities may be engaging in borderline-eugenic practices; it is no harder in principle to select the very young, and even informally “breed”, for small size than it is for superhuman height. And once you’ve got your candidates, it is frankly far easier to stunt their growth than it is to hasten it. [...]

[...] The whole reason for age limits in gymnastics is that smaller performers are inherently capable of more difficult flips, flexes, and flimflamadoos than larger ones; their centre of mass is less far from the physical centre of their bodies, allowing them to achieve a higher rate of rotation in gymnastic manoeuvres.

But this shouldn’t be surprising when you take into account China’s history.  They are about the collective, about national unity superceding individual feelings.  It doesn’t matter if you’re tired, injured, hungry, lonely, parentally deprived, or underage, you drag your behind out there and tumble for the pride of your country, and God help you if you don’t.  A fine attitude for the military, perhaps (taking out the underage part), but hardly conducive to the emotions of young children.

I realize that gymnastics creates athletic girls who, if they rigorously train, can be smaller and leaner and even less developed than their peers, but you can’t hide bone structure and baby teeth.  There are certain characteristics to the bone structure of children, preteens, teens, and adults, and no amount of passport tampering can change that.  Yes, the Chinese gymnasts outperformed our girls (albeit with a few questionable calls).  This isn’t a case of USA sour grapes.  This is a case of wanting peers to compete against peers and following the set rules of the competiton, and when you have children competing who are ineligible because of age then that is clearly against the rules, regardless of talent or skill.

So should China give their gold medal back?  Will there be another Olympic scandal on the level of Salé and Pelletier?  Thus far, it doesn’t seem like the IOC is going to do much of anything.  Way to cheapen the Olympic spirit.

If you’ve been watching the Beijing Olympics, by now you are well aware of the controversy surrounding the women’s Chinese gymnastic team and the alleged use of underage athletes. According to Olympic rules, a participant must turn 16 within the same year as the Olympics, so they can still be 15 at the time of competition — but even this does not explain the inexplicably young looking women/girl Chinese gymnasts, some of whom are missing baby teeth.

Bela Karolyi, the most famous gymnastic coach in the world has made it clear in color commentary and interviews that the Chinese women’s team had girls who were well under the age limit but there was nothing that could be done about it. China issues the passports for its athletes and clearly, being a fascist state has its privileges.

The question for me isn’t that these girls shouldn’t be participating, because clearly, they are stellar athletes. The real issue is that the Chinese are breaking the rules and as the host country, their flagrant disregard of the rules compromises the overall integrity of the entire competitive spirit of the Olympics. But again, without proof, it’s all just hearsay and conjecture, and few will have the temerity to make an issue of proving these girls are underage.

Dominique Dawes, who won bronze in Barcelona and Atlanta, may be better known for her infectious smile and composure than her Olympic performances. That said, Dominique (seen in the above video) does the familiar dance of saying the Chinese cheated (they won the gold in the overall team competition) without saying they cheated. She should win a gold medal in diplomacy.

The age controversy is just the tip of the iceberg of failure by the Chinese government in relations to the Olympics. Far worse than the the Chinese cheating by entering underage girls into competition, is the nation’s history of FORCING athletes to participate in the Olympics against their will. And China knows as a country, it values nationalistic pride over individual rights:

Being little is a big advantage in women’s gymnastics, where controversies over undersized waifs and child abuse forced a change in the minimum-age rules. But being Chinese is an advantage these days too. “The Chinese race knows how to endure hardship,” one Chinese gymnastics coach told Time magazine in 2004. “Our job is to push these kids to their limits, so they can perform gloriously for our nation.”

Unlike the voluntary sacrifices other nation’s athletes make in order to participate at the highest level of competition, there is something so deeply and inherently wrong in making these young people force their bodies to contort, bend and develop in ways against nature without their consent from the age of THREE.

The Beijing Olympics have been executed beautifully, and the spectacle of it all is tremendous, but this human rights violation AGAINST CHILDREN, is above all a stain on all of humanity.

Though many will argue that the children’s participation is a windfall for the entire family, many of whom come from abject poverty, the overall dullness of joy in their faces, compared to the young athletes who are there because they WANT to be there, is evident to me.

Depriving people of their free will not only diminish the competitive spirit of the Olympics, but also the human spirit. China still has a long way to go before they can feel genuine pride in competing in the one race that really matters; the human race.

That appeared to be one of the questions facing the courts yesterday, as they met again to discuss Brit, legal fees, visitation, and money:

A Los Angeles Superior Court has approved a request to allow the star, who is worth an estimated $US100 million, a $1,500-a-week allowance on a credit card to “enjoy herself”. [...]

Commissioner Goetz said she had received two petitions for a permanent conservatiorship – one for Britney’s person and one for her estate – which will be dealt with at a hearing on July 31.

After making the request for Britney’s credit card, lawyer Geraldine Wyle, representing Jamie Spears, said they also wanted to enlist the help of “entertainment counsel” to assist them with the singer’s affairs.

She said they had found a “local counsel” who would do it for a fee of $15,000 a month.

The Commisisoner Mr Wallet if the conservators “bond” was still enough.

He said they were currently using Britney’s periodic assets to pay her bills and had a sum of $135,000 to use. “For now we are probably Ok,” Mr Wallet told the court.

Britney could have appeared…but then again:

“My client has been inconsistent with her possible attendance at this hearing,” he said.

“The last word I had from her was that she did not attend to appear.

“I have discussed this date with her repeatedly. I would categorise her as unwilling to appear.”

And word is also that her counsel wants babydaddy Kevin to pay his share of his legal fees:

Britney’s new lawyer, Stacy Phillips, argued that K-Fed’s lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan’s fees are excessive, saying that four months of fees for both sides added up to a whopping $900,000. Additionally, she argued that Kevin has the ability to pay for his own lawyer (the current agreement stipulates that the pop star pays for all of her ex-husband’s legal fees), saying, “Ms. Spears is not an open checkbook.”

After Phillips said that Kaplan’s fees should be in the “$150,000-$175,000 range,” she attacked Kevin, saying he has not separated his personal and business expenses, and revealed that his ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson has use of his business credit card and is using it for personal purposes. She went on to say that K-Fed recently spent $20,000 on jewelry, went out to dinner and left a $2,000 tip on a $365 bill.

Well, let’s take this one thing at a time, shall we?

I personally think the $1500-per-week allowance on a card is a great idea.  It keeps a record of what she’s spent her money on (which I think is undoubtedly seriously lacking in her household accounts) and it gives the conservators a good idea of where some of the money is going that probably just disappears from her bank accounts every month.  Hey, I’d love it if someone gave me $1500 a week to blow!  Assuming venti Frapps to be around $5 a pop, that is 300 Starbucks beverages!  (I kid, I kid)

She also needs to have some sort of counsel advising her and taking care of her business.  Sadly, she has not had anyone around her for a long while now to help her…she’s pretty much been in charge of herself, and look where that has gotten her.  Unfortunately, in the business called show, one must have “people”.  There is just too much going on for one person to go it alone.

As far as Kevin goes….well, if he has enough money to leave a generous tip, he has enough money to put some towards his legal fees.  It isn’t like he’s broke or not working (he’s had his spots on One Tree Hill, such as they were, and he has apparently been doing some producing work).  I’m not saying he is as well-off as Britney, but he can set some aside to pay towards his own legal fees.  However, the argument could be made that without Brit’s antics, there would be no reason to have all these legal gymnastics, so I do think she should pony up some of the cash.  And perhaps MVK should fess up as to why his fees are so exorbitant.

And lastly…a permanent conservatorship?  It would seem that Britney is a lot sicker than the public at large has been led to believe, which is what we at GlossLip have been saying for a long time now.  I think once they get her medication straightened out and at a correct dosage, her emotions, mental state, and life in general should straighten up considerably.  But if she truly does have bipolar disorder, much will depend upon her taking her medications regularly and not thinking she is better just because she feels better.  But she does need someone to help her in this area…if she continues spending as much as she has been, and bringing in very little, she’ll have no fortune left.

In some personal news, Brit was photographed in tears last night, supposedly when she learned sometimes-boyfriend Adnan was turned away from her home.  I’m not a big fan of Anon Brazilianwax, and I’m wondering if Britney is just pining after him  because she’s been told she can’t see him.  Dad Jamie had better tread lightly, because things like this have a way of backfiring.

Regardless, I hope she continues to receive the help she needs to learn how to live a productive and happy life.  I just wish she would learn that true happiness doesn’t come from spending sprees and childish behavior, and I think that is something she needs to deal with outside of her mental health.  True maturity comes from knowing you can act however you like, yet choosing not to act in ways that are detrimental to yourself, and regardless of her mental state she is a very immature person.  I genuinely hope that as she sorts out her mental health, that she can emerge victorious within herself.