With vaginas, pathos, bathos, umbrellas, breasts, infectious hooks, infectious diseases, blood, sugar, sex, magik, two cute babies, lust, caution and greed the story of Britney Spears may yet be the parable of our time. For paparazzi and the media in general, it's also a financial boon. The AP recently surveyed the mini-economy Ms. Spears spiral into sordid titty-flashing has created. She's bumped up ad sales rates for print media. She's routinely causes spikes in web traffic. By the US version of OK! she's been featured on the cover 54 times. More than half of the magazine's covers ever.

Right, so, it turns out that exposing your breasts to a paparazzo is a poor way to start the night, and Britney has learned this the hard way. Spears went on to have some sort of apparent fight with Sam Lufti, her manager and the guy who accompanied her to the dance studio where she flashed a cameraman, the same cameraman who said "thanks Sam." She ended up, sensibly, with Adnan Ghalib, the pap who she disowned, like, last week because he was pimping her to photographers to make money. Also, paparazzi were allowed to prey freely in her driveway for some reason, which makes about as much sense as everything else.

If Britney Spears' desperate ploys for attention are not quite transparent enough for you yet, check out the latest incredibly unintended exposure of Mouseketeer flesh — and nipple! — in the video after the jump. The cameraman didn't even bother to edit out the bit at the beginning where he thanks Spears' manager Sam Lufti as Lufti and Spears head into the building. But no consequence: obviously the photographer scored this lucky shot on his own, and Spears' breasts just happened to fly out of her clothes as occurs regularly at dance studios across the country, while she was facing toward the camera, the camera she totally didn't know about! Also, professional wrestling is real. Totally unscripted video (with, yes, actual Spears breasts, jiggling) after the jump.

· Take heart, Britney fans: On today's The View, one of the upstanding new people in Spears's life told Barbara Walters she's getting the help she needs for her "treatable" mental "issues"; Walters wants to believe him, though she admits she's not as reliable a lie-detector as the ones they use on The Moment of Truth.
· Eugene Mirman sets the standard by which all subsequent Tom Cruise parody videos will be judged. Sorry, Jerry O'Connell, it's going to take more than adding some outtakes to unseat the new, turtlenecked king.
· A jubilant No Country for Old Men's Josh Brolin dances upon the grave of the big studios who signed his paychecks.
· The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi helps explain the WGA's often-confusing strike rules.

Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo who sleeps with Britney Spears while snagging footage to sell to the tabloids, may be one of the sleaziest characters to emerge in the celebrity industry in recent years. But one has to admire the former Afghan refugee's desperate skill in walking the tightrope between his troubled popstar lover and the media that feeds on her. According to Showbiz Spy, the mercenary pap wants a $2m payoff for video of Spears at her most vulnerable, weeping, and speaking in the third person. "When Britney was a child, she had to work really hard. When she was 13 years old, she won all the beauty pageants," she mumbles to the camera. "Britney has an angel looking out for her, don't you, angel?" Of course, Ghalib's paparazzi rivals are delighted to expose his double-game, in the hope of breaking his access to the tabloid-selling popstar. Meanwhile, lawyers for Spears' former husband have been investigating a deal between pap agency X17 and another Britney confidante. (Tough game, celebrity journalism: these people make the warlords in Ghalib's native Afghanistan look like saints.) After the jump, a bonus, a scene from Sweet Smell of Success, the best ever cinematic treatment of the vicious world of celebrity gossip, in which Sidney Falco, the press agent played by Tony Curtis, is turned against his own client.

After hearing the news last February that Britney Spears had shaved her head, most of us reacted with shock, quipped to a friend ("that bitch crazy!"), clicked on a picture or two and went on about our lives. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, on the other hand, immediately began thinking about ways they could squeeze the moment into their annual low-brow pop culture mash-up to-be. Judging by the trailer for the duo's Meet the Spartans, inspiration never truly came, but that didn't stop 'em from using the moment anyway. In the trailer, a Spears lookalike shears her locks and begins cooing in her breathy baby voice, only to be — wait for it! — kicked into the pit from 300 by a Gerard Butler clone. Hilarious, right?

Portƒolio magazine brings a new angle to the Britney Spears story, asking, in their report "The Britney Economy," just how much money the singer and unfit-mothers'-rights activist produces annually. Beyond record sales, Wal-Mart scent exclusives, and canceled concert tours, the mere act of Britney being Britney, indulging each and every one of her increasingly unpredictable whims, winds up putting cheesy-bread on the table of countless paparazzi, gossip magazine editors, hair-extension technicians, and coffee-blending artisans, to the tune of a whopping $120 million per year:

I know you've been dying to know what Britney Spears has to say on the whole Heath Ledger hullabaloo. Well, she's finally weighed in and her statement is as sad, telling, and oddly beautiful as one could hope. When asked about the young actor's death she says, while sitting in her car and lighting a cigarette, in a strange British-ish accent, "He's still here. No one ever really dies." If you care to, it's about a minute into this TMZ clip. The rest of the video is pretty existential too. Sigh. [TMZ]

· The only way that Casey Affleck could've been more adorable on Oprah would have been to do his interview while completely covered in newborn kittens wearing tiny cowboy hats.
· Actress Dani Miura tells LAist about what it's like to work as To Catch A Predator's pedophile-bait.
· Real therapists lament the media's obsession with inaccurately diagnosing Britney Spears' mental problems when a simple, effective "batshit insane" would get the job done without sullying their field.
· The Daily Show and Colbert Report's writers went to Washington to fill in Congress on this whole strike deal: "'I ask you,' one writer noted, 'which is more important to a movie — a script, or half of Reese Witherspoon?'" The studio suits thought for a second. 'Which half?'"

Breaking! Publicist pitch reveals Britney Spears' love of reasonably priced, delicious Argentine cuisine! "Britney Spears Loves Gaucho Grill! Two Days In A Row Last Week Britney Spears Was Spotted With Her Paparazzi Boyfriend At The Popular Chain's Studio City's Location. Once Was Even Right After Her Brief Stay At Her Mandatory Deposition. On Both Occasions Britney And Adnan Dined In A Private Room Away From The On-Lookers. The Two Shared The Sautéed Mushrooms, Empanadas, And Steak Salad. Gaucho Grill Is Owned By Famed Restaurateur Adolfo Suaya Who Also Owns LA Eateries Charcoal And The Lodge."

At this very moment, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline (and Steve Carell, but let's not needlessly complicate things) are back at the L.A. County Courthouse for yet another custody hearing to determine what contingencies are to be placed on access to her own children. (You'll recall visitation rights were revoked following her recent Van Halen 5150-hold hospitalization incident.) Wait! A shocking development has played out in the time it took to type that last sentence:

We all occasionally enjoy the work of the paparazzi, but do we know the history behind this blood sport? Or that many of these camera-wielding ambulance-chasers are foreign gang members, illegal immigrants, and kids?

Trendwatch: The AP's decision to draw up an advance obituary for 26 year old Britney Spears is being replicated for many other young, at-risk stars. The AP got caught without pre-written death stories for Anna Nicole Smith and the recently deceased Brad Renfro, but now the wire service is preparing canned obits for a bunch of 20-somethings. But why bother? After the jump, New York Sun obit guru Stephen Miller says that the AP should just calm down:

Whether a drug-addled woman in the midst of an apparent complete mental breakdown should be really held personally responsible by her exploiters for her complicity in her exploitation is a matter best left to Dr. Phil or blog commenters, but it's clear to all who've followed the travails of Britney Spears (and they're hard not to follow, with each nightly travail conveniently illustrated by paparazzi photographs immediately disseminated to USWeekly and TMZ, not unlike that amazing cyber-lebrity episode of CSI: Miami that was repeated last night) that she is a quite willing participant in her own liveblogged downward spiral. And hell, when the Daily Mail reports that (estranged paparazzi ex of Britney) Adnan Ghalib's auctioning off of "intimate" photos is "her worst nightmare," we are not entirely convinced. Still, it's a bit unseemly that one "lensman" would go to Page Six to defend the honor of his tribe (or pack? swarm?).

If you're anything like us, even breaking news on Kiefer's freedom, Oscar noms and the snoozefest that is Sundance still leaves us aching for our guiltiest pleasure: Brit Brit updates! So when we heard Mr. Romulus von Stetzelberger, designer of the hat Britney wore in our all-time favorite shot of her, musing on his 2006 Emmy swag suite run-in with The Animal on Jonesy's Jukebox, we had to dig up more dirt just for old time's sake. To hear the tale behind the hat, including cameos by ex-bff-turned-traitor Alli Sims and Felicity Huffman (!), a classic diva-like performance by our girl, and gruesome details about her struggle to shimmy into a tight velvet jacket while knocked up, read on.

Amy Winehouse—the London soul singer and most musical Jew since George Gershwin—is having severe severe problems. While we in the States are obsessed with Britney Spears' breakdowns and troubling life decisions, nearly every British tabloid today is featuring a video of Amy Winehouse smoking crack in front of a picture of her wedding. Her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is in jail. Also in the video, Winehouse snorts ecstacy and cocaine and claims to have downed 6 pills of Valium. The Sun led with "Amy on Crack." The Daily Mail with "Nosedive to Oblivion." This all to say, is Britney is still in pretty good shape! More from the Sun after the jump.

The internationally respected and always credible news source The Hindustan Times is reporting that the latest Britney Spears rumor is that she may soon fake her own death, embrace Islam, and move to Pakistan with her paparazzi lover Adnan Ghalib. Then, and only then, will the terrorists win.

Britney Spears dumped her paparazzi boyfriend, possibly destroying Finalpixx's business model. She's taken up instead with the entirety of rival agency X17. Spears' manager, enabler, adviser, and occasional romantic partner Sam Lufti engineered the breakup, the restraining order, and the obligatory meeting and all-night drinking session with an X17 photog. Then Spears bought the Amy Winehouse album. In the attached clip, Spears announces the official end of America's newest, briefest Camelot. [DailyMail]

To watch an actual doctor actually do something towards curing non-actual celebrities with actual drug problems, we refer you to the goings on over at VH1's Celebrity Rehab, with board-accredited, medical-degree-holding Dr. Drew and his ragtag gang of Z-list addicts. (And a constantly-moaning-in- withdrawal-symptom-agony Jeff Conaway. Seriously—shit's fucked up. We don't think the I Love New York 2 people really realized what they were getting into.) For all your other TV quack needs, we refer you instead to Mr. Phil, who apparently now regrets breaching Fake-Doctor/Someone-Else's-Patient confidentiality laws by blabbing all about Britney Spears to those guys over at Entertainment Tonight:

Never content to rest on their laurels, it appears that the Associated Press has put the final, Strunk & White approved flourishes on their obituary for pop princess Britney Spears. No, you didn't miss anything — Britney is still alive. Usmagazine.com spoke with AP entertainment editor Jesse Washington, who calmly and objectively asserted that if Britney were to pass away, it would be "easily one of the biggest stories in a long time." You can't put one by that Jesse Washington cat! We applaud both him and his organization for their ghoulish resourcefulness. [USMagazine.com]