Idle threat of the week

Having been in a news blackout the last couple days, I completely missed the MTV music video awards. I read that Tommy Lee and Kid Rock had some sort of sissy slap fight over rapidly aging lab creation Pamela Anderson and that Kayne West, after losing in all the categories he was nominated, threw his own hissy fit and suggested MTV's ambivalence towards black people rivaled that of his old foil George W. Bush.

But the big news was the comeback attempt of Britney Spears. Britney decided the best way to distract people from her poorly disguised lip syncing was to appear barely clothed and a little heavier than usual. The strategy worked wonders. Unfortunately most critics didn't see it for its genius, and compared Britney's less than svelte physique to lard. Totally unfair to lard, which, unlike the new Britney, has pretty good rhythm. (Take out the sub woofer and try it out sometime.)

Seriously though, while I'm not going to pretend Britney's performance was anything less than awful, she still looked better than 99 percent of the world's population would in a shiny black two piece.

I know it's part of Britney job to be in shape and sexy, and to call her out on not being all she could be on those fronts -- fair enough. Especially when she was the one who insisted on such a revealing outfit.

But the next time a person, place or trend spotter tries to claim that anything more than thin is in, remember what they said about Britney after the 2007 VMA's.

It's probably a good thing, because if Britney with an extra 15 pounds freaks people out so much imagine how upset they would become if we started parading normal shaped people on stage. Luckily, I think it's now safe to say, we can call the chance of that ever happening the idle threat of the week for September 3rd to 9th.