How Britney Spears can, improbably, raise my IQ

Maybe it was the change in format, or the reports the Britney sex tape would make Paris's sex tape look "like a Disney film" but, in this morning's post, a distracted panel of judges carelessly overlooked the best part of the whole potentially sordid affair.

According to a source who has seen the tape:

"They (Spears and Federline) were in the honeymoon stages of their relationship and did nothing all day but have sex and play chess."

So now we know what goes on during the downtime of their four hour sexual marathon: Chess.

This could be a spectacular development for me. Flatteringly, people think I would be good at chess. Over the years, I've declined many a chess challenge -- always confidently, but not so confidently as to ruffle any feathers.

Because if I was ever forced to play chess my secret would be revealed: Anyone can beat me at chess. I mean anyone in the world. So could most higher primates. So could an abacus.

I'm OK with this because I believe chess, played at the less than grand master level, is about 98 percent concentration and 2 percent intelligence. Since even thinking about chess makes my foot shake violently, I concede lousy concentration and try not to worry about it.

Yet, as long as people associate chess with big Russian brains defending man's honor against hard charging IA-infused computers, my perceived intelligence remains in peril.

But if the image of America's white trash queen and her former king playing a post-coital game are burned into the retina of the world-- as it surely would be -- suddenly the sheen of chess-as-an-arbitrator-of-intellect doesn't shine so brightly.

If only we could convince a bunch of vacuous celebrities to take up poker. Wait a minute . . .