So The Atlantic's cover this month isn't on Iraq or subprime mortgages. It's on Britney Spears, you remember, that sweet girl from the "Hit Me Baby One More Time" video. The editors of The Atlantic don't think they're lowering their standards with the cover; they see themselves as covering an important story seriously (too bad Rolling Stone got there first). But really, there's no need to front. Britney Spears is the new weather: a topic we're all interested in. And if The Atlantic needs to put her on the cover to move issues, so be it. Just don't get so defensive about your identity crisis, guys!

Sesame Street Shoe Fairy and part-time unicorn jockey Neil Patrick Harris was cornered by ET recently, who demanded from the How I Met Your Mother star the inside scoop on news that Britney Spears would be making her primetime TV comeback on the CBS sitcom. Responding with all the expert assuredness of an extremely well-read bathroom-literature junkie, Harris expressed "shock that Mme. Spears" was feeling up to the rigors of a role unlike any she has tackled before (she plays a secretary). He then goes on to advance a fascinating theory:

At last night's Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, Justin Timberlake reignited some long-dead interest in Madonna's sex life by revealing one of her current flirting tactics. And while it doesn't compare with a simulated blow job, it may be more effective in today's health-concerned times. It seems that when Justin and Madge got together to work on her next album, Hard Candy, she dipped into her bag of tricks and fetched a liquid-filled syringe. And even though the injections in question didn't contain GHB or roofies, they did have this desirable effect on Timberlake:

• Singer Britney Spears reunited with desperate paparazzo Adnan Ghalib, who she had ditched after finding incriminating text chats with another girl on his iPhone. Just prior to taking Ghalib back, Spears was photographed bumping her head, hard. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, as Spears surely likes to say.

After hearing from Pink is the New Blog that Britney Spears is slated to guest-star in an episode of How I Met Your Mother, we fear that the CBS producers behind the idea haven't had the pleasure of sitting through her 2006 appearance on Will & Grace. W&G gave her the one role she wouldn't even have to "act" her way through—a perky television personality with a right-wing agenda—and she still made the episodes featuring J. Lo and Janet Jackson look downright Emmy-worthy. And despite sunny reports about the cast's read-through this morning (a source says Spears was "really funny" and "very professional"), TMZ is calling gimmick:

• Actor George Clooney Googled himself in front of Esquire and addressed the various rumors that popped up. On his alleged feud with Fabio: "There is a moment when you are actually in the argument and you're thinking, 'If I do get beaten down by Fabio, that will be far worse than the pain. I wouldn't shake that.'" On being called "gay, gay, gay:" "No, I'm gay, gay. The third gay – that was pushing it." [People]

• Singer Britney Spears, said to be worth around $50 million, has become steadily more sane since her father was placed in control of her finances and other affairs several weeks ago. She parted ways with hanger-on ex-paparazzo Adnan Ghalib and earned the right to see her children more often. Apparently her father is compensated at $2,500 per week for his oversight, and the many tabloids that make money off Spears insanity are incredulous. So is comedian Rosie O'Donnell, who wrote in her Web Q&A forum that Spears' dad's high pay has become "the problem." Apparently these people have never priced rehab, or done some simple math on the scale of Spears' image problem.

The 150-year-old magazine the Atlantic, whose "influential and highly engaged readers turn to [it] for intellectual stimulation," has a very serious and brainy discussion of Britney Spears that necessitated her use on the cover, plus the word "Rabelaisian" inside the magazine. The Atlantic of course is just the most recent and highbrow magazine to take its cover downmarket in the pursuit of Serious Journalism; a somber Rolling Stone earlier this month did a big cover story on the "American Tragedy" of Britney Spears and, with a heavy heart, saw its website traffic double. New York magazine published a naked Lindsay Lohan in an artistic homage to Marilyn Monroe and melted its Web servers because it did not anticipate needing to deliver 20 million instances of art across the internet. For its part, the Atlantic intellectualized tabloid material by applying the term "gynophobic" to a Spears-related website comments section:

After hearing last week that Britney Spears decided to give Sean Preston and The Other One haircuts on a rare visit with them, we worried the next pap shots of the doomed little pair would involve razors, tears, and bald babies bearing umbrellas. Fortunately, our worst fears weren't realized; The Package managed to gift the two with perfectly acceptable 'dos. But the most recent gift from Momma isn't quite as sweet. According to PageSix.com, the boys are so "confused" when they see their mother these days, that SP is having nightmares regularly, and even needs to hop into bed with huggy bear (now perfectly cushion-sized!) Kevin Federline. What is Britney doing that's so frightening? Apparently she sings them lullabies. We'd hop into our parents' bed too, no matter how long the plane ride, if we heard Mommy singing us "I'm A Slave 4 U" while drifting off to Never-Never-Land. [PageSix.com]

• Actor Robert Downey Jr. is about to be in blackface in a movie, but it's totally OK because it's so meta: Downey will not wear blackface to pretend to be black; he will wear blackface to pretend to be a white actor pretending to be black. Totally different. [Film School Rejects via Digg]

• Kate Hudson is, once again, riding the Butterscotch Stallion. She and fellow actor Owen Wilson had a weird double-date in Miami with Jennifer Aniston and Eric Dane the night after Hudson spent time with Wilson at a 10-bedroom mansion, having been spotted on the way in by crafty paparazzi. Their friends are totally against it.

Having fallen victim to an extremely common pitfall for any parent locked in a protracted, anxiety-inducing divorce, closet stress-eater Kevin Federline was captured recently on a local fairway sporting a hefty paunch and a sprouting set of cankles. The implications, of course, are staggering, as the former couchhusband and background krumper will soon find that his newly zaftig frame will overwhelm his garment of choice, leaving this wife-beater-enthusiast with an enormous, virtually useless pile of skewed cotton tank tops. (That is, until a lightbulb moment lands them on eBay, billed as an exciting new line of slightly used K-Fed maternity wear.)

• Jennifer Lopez turned to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for advice on her baby twins, probably after being introduce by close Lopez buddy and crazy Scientologist Leah Remini. So singer Lopez now has a masseuse and trained color therapist specifically for the kids, six new bodyguards for $600,000 and closed-circuit cameras in every room. Also, for that extra touch of crazy, Lopez built a "sterile" baby wing uncontaminated by flowers or presents, filled with relaxing music and painted in "intelligence boosting" colors.

What better way to start the week than with another batshit episode contributing to the American Tragedy that is Britney Spears? According to the always-credible Fleet Street tabloid The Sun, Britney went into (sigh) one of her now-signature rampages after allegedly discovering roughly a dozen "flirty" text messages in current beau Adnan Ghalib's iPhone, a rampage that concluded with Britney tossing the pricy toy into her pool. Apparently, the famewhoriest paparazzo in the world has been photographed canoodling with a waitress, and The Package discovered their illicit texts (described as "pretty saucy stuff with sexual references — certainly not the sort you'd send to just a friend"). And yet, the best is yet to come: in response to his dearest's accusations, Adnan hand-wrote a child-like love letter to the maybe-bipolar "singer," complete with the nauseating phrase "milky bowl of soup." An image of the pathetic apology, complete with scrawled hearts and florist letterhead, after the jump.

• Apple's miraculous iPhone has exponentially increased the productivity of scuzzballs like sometime Britney Spears boyfriend Adnan Ghalib. Though paparazzo Ghalib has his hands full shopping for pregnancy tests with singer Spears, getting uppity with his former coworkers and maybe cutting exploitive photo deals, the iPhone allowed him to also have internet sexytime chats with other women. Britney found the messages and threw Ghalib's iPhone in a pool, then threw the pap out of her house. He wrote a stupid note offering her "milky soup."

[Britney Spears in LA after eating dinner at a sushi restaurant (which is a vaguely, indefinably gross image) yesterday; image via INF]

Thrilled that the Starbucks three-hour company-wide training retreat has made her favored Venti Frappuccinos frothier and more whipped-cream-topped than ever before, Britney Spears headed back to her favorite coffee-beverage emporium for a pick-me-up on this unseasonably warm L.A. afternoon. There, she greeted the increasingly emboldened 600-700 person paparazzo army gathered outside her car with a secret weapon: a new security guard, three-parts Farleyesque motivational speaker to one-part American Gladiator. Unfortunately, the overzealous security detail's photographer-tossing techniques and bellowing voice didn't do the singer's hangover any favors, and she was forced to point out for her employee, "You're screaming in my ear. Will you shut the fuck up?" to the wildly appreciative cheers and jeers of the gathered mob.

Even more disturbing than the chastity belt-like lock and key chain on the front page of Jamie Lynn Spears' website is the fact that it hasn't been updated since June 2007. Well that, and certain images appearing under the tab "Cool Stuff." Such as? A smiling Kate Hudson, a frowning Chad Michael Murray, and...an image of the Statue of David. Way to show your vast knowledge of both celebrities and iconic works of art, Juno Lynn! But is a photo of you showing off your empty uterus in a skin-tight dress at last June's premiere of Nancy Drew really the latest "News" you're offering your tweeny fans?

• Amy Winehouse may have lasted up to nine days clean of drugs before she called herself a "zombie," burned herself and did "cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and booze." Of course the sensationalist Sun spins it negative and says she's "back in drug hell," typical. (Check out the sidebar from their "Bizarre Editor.") [Sun]

One would think that, by now, there would be no more room on the OMG BRITNEY DID ANOTHER CRAZY THING belt. However, this week's Star cover story proves that there is still plenty of space on said belt for another notch or thirty. The rag claims that Britney is pregnant once again with none other than paparazzo-turned-paramour Adnan Ghalib's baby. Yawn! Their evidence? A few pictures of Britney's bloated belly and a sketchy (at best) quote from a member of Ghalib's press-hungry posse who exults that Adnan will "be made for life" if the story proves to be true. Don't hold your breath, homes; we've been down this path a handful of times over the last two months.