Idle threat of the week

Last week the legal bureaucracy of Los Angeles was all about deciding who gets to keep Ellen Degeneres's dog and Britney Spears's kids.

But the tales of a lesbian, separated from the pooch she had already discarded, pale in comparison to the human -- or any other species -- drama of a mother being ripped from her young children.

Britney will have to cede either 70 or 100 percent of little Sean Preston and Jayden James's custody to her ex-husband.

While it is always difficult for a woman to lose a custody battle to a man -- especially when that man is public ne-er-do-well Kevin Federline -- Britney was able to pull off the trick with an array of parental sins ranging from naked drug use to neglecting her progeny's dental hygiene.

Britney has the opportunity to get back into the good graces of the courts, and regain some alone time with her kids, by submitting to bi-weekly drug tests and attending parenting class.

Let's say she doesn't -- and there is nothing in her recent biography to suggest that she will. Britney might lose her two current children, but, at 25, she has the resources and the opportunity to knock out at least ten more of them. Given her history of mixing her professional life with pleasure, it will likely be a brood fathered by a motley parade of drug dealers, bodyguards and pizza delivery boys.

Which is why the court's well-intentioned attempt to force Britney Spears to clean up her act is the idle threat of the week for October 15-21.

Although the damage that could be done by a Britney scorned -- and her hyperactive uterus -- constitutes a very real threat indeed.