Man About Murfreesboro - blog - funny - politics

Stupid is as stupid does. That's the lesson we were to take away from "Forrest Gump." Around Tennessee, the big stupid story of the day involves at State Trooper and a traffic stop that occured last May. Highway Patrol Trooper James Randy Moss stopped a pink Honda Accord for going 92 in a 70 mph zone.

The driver, Justis Ellen Richert, was caught in possession of prescription drugs. She told the trooper that she makes "dirty movies" for a living. The two of them went to the patrol car and watched some explicit video on his laptop computer.

Then he agreed to forget about the drug possession charge in exchange for an oral favor. He poured the pills out on the side of the road, took her to a secluded location for the exchange (which he photographed and videotaped) and sent her one her way.

Bad move all around. It turns out she is a porn star named Barbie Cummings. She posted the story and the video on her website and got instant national attention -- ABC News, Howard Stern,

Like I said, stupid is as stupid does. It was a series of really dumb moves, beginning with watching sex videos on his company computer and ending with giving her a recording of the incident. Along the way he tossed his career and possibly a marriage (the stories don't say if he has a spouse) out the door.

Whe benefits from this? Ms. Cummings. Her career gets a huge boost and she gets more of the attention she obviously craves. She still got a speeding ticket, but the drug charges were never reported.

But there is still more to this stoy. This morning's Tennessean reports that the trooper faced a complaint in 2000 from another woman who was stopped by the trooper. The details aren't in the story except to say that he wasn't disciplined.

As long as we're discussing stupid moves, look at the case of Joya Williams. She worked as the secretary to the Coca-Cola global brand manager at the Atlanta headquarters. She attempted to sell company documents and samples of unreleased drinks to PepsiCo for $1.5 million.

Pepsi, to their never-ending credit, warned Coca-Cola who alerted the FBI. The feds set up a sting and arrested Williams. She's been sentenced to 8 years in federal prison and ordered to pay Coke $40,000.

The Bush administration was warned as early as 2003 that invading Iraq would help al Queda. Bush ignored the warnings. Now we're told that Iraq is the main source of funding for al Queda. It is judgments like this that make me really worried about Bush's decision-making process.

Then there's the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. On May 9, Bush signed a a presidential directive which essentially gives him control of all government and private activities in the event of a nationa emergency. It also gives him the sole right to decide when we have a national emergency and when that emergency is over.

Spineless Democrats have a logic all their own. Oooooh if we confront Bush on the Iraq war spending, he might criticize us! Well guess what? You backed down on the bill and he's still criticizing you! He was on TV today saying there was still too much pork in the bill. He didn't say whether the extra $6.4 billion in hurricane relief or the $3 billion in agricultural assistance was the pork.

When are you people going to learn that the Republicans don't play from the same rulebook as you'd like them to? The public is behind you on this issue. 67 percent of the American people want a timetable for withdrawal. More than 70 percent do not like the way Bush is handling this war.

And Bush isn't done. He's already authorized the CIA to set up covert operations to weaken the regime in Iran.

David Gregory, NBC's White House correspondent, asked Bush today why he should be considered a credibile source for intelligence on terrorism. Bush responded that terrorists "are a threat to your children, David." That's not actually answering the question. Bush really hates to be questioned, but the fact is that we can't trust him to do the right thing. He's stated more than once that he feels he got the job through divine intervention and that he governs by his gut, rather than facts. It's hard to reason with someone who is convinced that God is on his side and therefore he can't make any mistakes.

Took Max to see "Spider-Man 3" last weekend. We sat three rows from the front and geeked out together. It was a bit of a struggle to get him to agree to that instead of "Shrek the Third," but since I was buying the tickets, I had the final say.

I had heard some mixed reviews and this movie wasn't as strong as the other two, but for the real Spidey fan, there were some great moments. Thomas Hayden Church's Sandman was nicely done. He's always been a third-tier villain, right down there with Hydroman, Shocker and Scorpion.

Critics have complained that there were three villains and therefore none of them got as much screen time as they should have. But if you've read the books, you know that Spidey usually deals with several badguys at once. DeFranco's portrayal of Harry Osborne was terrific. The change in the character after he hit his head was wonderful.

Plus, the film introduced Gwen Stacey with her ever-present blonde hair and black headband, as well as her father the police captain. Gwen Stacey's death in the comics was a huge turning point in Spidey lore – one that cannot be handled in the films the same way because they already cribbed it in the first movie.

Green Goblin dangles Gwen over the Brooklyn Bridge and drops her. Spidey chooses to rescue her and let Gobby escape, but when he webs her leg, the jolt snaps her neck. Spidey loses it for a while and the death has haunted him ever since. It's powerful, epic stuff. It forever changed comics because up until then (1973) heroes just didn't make those kind of mistakes. In fact, it was in response to Gwen Stacey's death that the character The Punisher (and two terrible films) was created.

Gwen actually pre-dated Mary Jane as Peter's first love and her death is responsible for much of the distance Peter put between himself and Mary Jane for so many years.

But the movies don't deal with any of that. I have some minor nits to pick -- Dr. Curt Connors tells Peter at one point that he's a physicist and not a biologist, but in fact Dr. Curt Connors is a biologist in the comics (it is his biological experiments to regrow his arm that turn him into The Lizard).

The origin of the symbiote was handled poorly. There was no explanation as to where the black goo came from and Peter's unquestioning acceptance of the new black suit seemed out of place. When the symbiote left Peter and took over Eddie Brock, Max got a little scared.

He stuck it out and watched the film. Later, there were no complaints about bad dreams or scary thoughts. So, I think he handled it well.

We took the family to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival for "Pirate Invasion Weekend." Rozzy was staying with Granny Franny for a couple of days so it seemed like the perfect time to plan an outing. She's a wonderful little girl, but given the slightest discomfort (such as a day in the woods) and she becomes a wet blanket very quickly.

The Watts' joined us that afternoon and we wandered around gawking at the public. I'm amazed at how far into this some people get. You can tell that some of these people wait all year just to put on their tri-corner hat and knee-high boots.

A Liberty University student was arrested at Falwell's funeral with a trunk full of homemade bombs. He said he was going to use them to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral. I'm sure whatever disruption the protesters had planned, it wasn't going to be as big a several bombs going off.

I know I wrote that I would leave Falwell alone and I will, I promise. But I wanted to mention that none of the 10 GOP candidates for president came to the funeral. The White House sent a mid-level flunky. Do you need any more proof that Falwell's influence was on the wane?

The Republican's Monica, the former Justice Department Liasson to the White House, Monica Goodling, testified on the Hill today. She admitted to repeated criminal acts, namely hiring prosecutors based on political criteria. But the Republicans are still praising her for her testimony, which she only agreed to give under an immunity deal.

I'll make one more point about Falwell and then let him rest in peace. The conservative pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are quick to call liberals and Democrats the "blame America" group. They say that, because we occasionally bring up the idea that maybe we were attacked on Sept. 11 because of our policies in the Middle East and not because they hate our freedom, we are blaming America and siding with the terrorists.

But I believe that Falwell and his cohort and rival Pat Robertson are the real "blame America" folks. They are the ones who claimed that 9/11 happened as divine punishment for our secular-progressive society. They blamed liberals, doctors, homosexuals and a host of evangelical bugbears for 9/11.

I'm not a fan of Christopher Hitchens, as he strikes me as a pompous windbag who earns his coin by profaning the dead, but the points he makes about Falwell are worth reading.

Oh, and "Rev." Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church (the group who protests with vulgar signs at the funerals of vets, homosexuals and anyone else where they might get a little camera time) has announced his flock will protest Falwell's funeral because of Falwell's long-time support of "Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, Etc. All for lucre - making him guilty of their sins."

I've written here before about human papillomavirus (HPV). It's a virus that can cause cervical cancer. There is a vaccine that is available for young women, but there are controversies surrounding it's application. The HPV vaccine is most effective when administered before a young woman reaches sexual maturity (11 or 12 years old).

Studies have shown that it is nearly 100 percent effective at controlling cervical cancer, which kills 4,000 women a year.

The Christian Right is against the vaccine because they are afraid it sends the message that pre-marital sex won't kill you. They are very big on fear and abstinence. Then there are the critics who see conspiracy at every turn. In Texas, HPV vaccinations were declared manditory by Gov. Rick Perry and the state lege overturned the order because it was seen as a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical company that owns the vaccine.

Lost in all this is that women are dying while the jerks play political football. Now comes news that will change the debate. I study just out in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that HPV can also lead to throat cancer in women AND MEN.

See how that might affect the arguments?

	The study found that people who have had more than five oral-sex partners in their lifetime are 250 percent more likely to develop throat cancer than those who do not have oral sex. The cancer at one time was thought to be caused only by alcohol or tobacco. "This study provides clear evidence that the human papillomavirus is a risk factor for throat cancer," said Dr. Maura Gillison, a Johns Hopkins oncologist and the study's senior author. "Health care providers need to know that these cancers can occur in people that don't smoke or drink." Gillison stressed that the immune system usually clears HPV on its own. She said that just as few women with HPV in their genital tract get cervical cancer, most people with an oral infection probably will not go on to develop throat cancer. But Gillison and others noted that the finding could explain why throat cancer, which includes the tonsils and back part of the tongue, is on the increase in nonsmokers in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Historically, it has occurred among heavy smokers and drinkers in their 60s and 70s. Those numbers are down.

Take oral sex off the table unless you get an HPV vaccination and lets see how long it takes to make it mandatory for the entire country.

In completely random news that doesn't matter to anyone:

Badger dropped by last night for some video fishing. He enjoyed the game. I won a tournament right before he showed up, which was kind of cool. I caught a 99 lb. flathead catfish, but had to throw it back because it wasn't a game fish.

The Times of London published a list of 167 books all boys should read. Going down the list, I've read . . . uh . . . 12. Harry Potter was nowhere on the list, but Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaimon, Calvin and Hobbes and Captain Underpants made it. Heh.

Got my last prom pictures back. I'll post one as soon as I get around to getting it scanned.

Last weekend, I attended the Iroquois Steeplechase. Dollie came along and we worked the media tent, handing out lunches to the working media and making sure people got to where they needed to be. I got a radio, golf cart and a badge that let me go pretty much anywhere I wanted.

Dollie and I watched the second race from the Steward's Tower. This is where I discovered that there were actually three Steeplechases going on. One was the actual race, in which virtually no one paid attention. The second was the hoy palloy in the box seats sipping champagne and eating watercress sandwiches. I heard a snippet of a conversation as I passed by:

The conversation went downhill after that. The photo above really doesn't do the place justice. It was a wild scene.

So the boss and I attended the board of director's meeting of a client yesterday. We were to go in, give a brief summary of the marketing report we'd completed and get out. Fine. That's certainly the way I'd prefer to deal with boards.

We go in and these crusty faces are sitting around the table. Their portraits all hang on the walls, so you can see the effects of time on them. There was only one seat available at the head of the table, so I pulled up a chair to the corner to sit on my boss's right and hand out copies of the report. That puts me beside one of the elder board members. His cane was laying against the table, not a foot from my arm.

I looked over at it and realize that it is a cane made from a bull penis. So I try and concentrate on what is being said, but all I can really do is keep glancing over at this bull penis sitting next to me. It even had a little plaque on it that let anyone who cared to read it know that it was made from a bull penis.

Why is that popular? I've seen them in catalogs alonside candy dishes made from bull scrotums and cow chips covered in lucite. Why? What am I missing?

Watched "Smoking Aces" with the Watts' the other evening. Not a great film. It's very violent, bloody and kinetic. There are some solid performances, but in the end, not something I would recommend to . . . well . . . anyone. I like Jeremy Piven. I really do. I watched every episode of "Cupid," but this wasn't his big breakout role.

A highlight of the evening was playing Rapala Tournament Fishing on the Xbox. I rented it as a goof because Roy is an angling enthusiast. While I don't much care for fishing, the game is actually kind of fun. Who knew? Max has really taken to it. He's been reeling in the big ones for a few days now and suddenly he has a jones to go fishing.

"That's great, Max," Dollie said. "But you know it won't be quite as exciting as it is in the video game."

"You mean I won't just cast my line in and reel in a 15-pound king salmon?" he asked.

Not in Tennessee, he won't.

You basically get to pick any gear from the Rapala catalog and fish in a bunch of different locations. It's surprisingly entertaining. I saw online where one player caught an 96 lbs flathead catfish.

Badger is coming over tonight to try it out. I know what he will say: why don't you just go fishing? My answer is easy. Enjoying the game doesn't mean I'll like fishing, no more than enjoying Madden 07 means I'll like playing football. I like playing Battlefield 3, but I don't want to fight in WWII, either.

Rev. Jerry Falwell died yesterday at 73. I've never been a fan, because it seemed to me that his narrow version of Christianity was devisive, rather than inclusive. He like to play at politics and use his pulpit to rally his flock to the Republican cause. I took a little tour of some liberal and conservative sites to see what the reaction was. It was, by and large, about what you would expect.

We owe Rev. Falwell a debt of gratitude, not for his political or religious views, but because his dogged pursuit of a lawsuit against Larry Flynt led to a landmark Supreme Court cases which codified our freedom of expression. The decision in Hustler Magazine vs. Falwell paved the way for art of parody and satire to flourish in this country.

It was a unanimous decision in which William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor sided with a pornographer over a preacher.

Up until this case, the courts relied on New York Times vs. Sullivan, which set the standard for libel of public figures to statements that were meant to cause "actual malice." Hustler Magazine vs. Falwell expanded that test to include false statements of fact and willfull disregard for the truth. That means that if the parody or satirization of a public figure is such that no one really believes it to be true (such as the fake Campari ad that started the whole court battle) then it is protected speech.

I can't say that I will miss Rev. Falwell. He said some mean, hurtful things about people that I know and love.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey went before the Sentate Judiciary Committee for more testimony about the ineptitude of the Gonzales Justice Department. There was some devasting information there and it's looking worse and worse for Gonzales.

The most recent outrage: Gonzales and Andrew Card went to see Ashcroft in the ICU to get him to re-authorize the NSA's domestic wiretapping program. Ashcroft and Comey had already decided that the program was illegal, so the plan was not to re-authorize it until changes were made.

When Comey, who was acting AG at the time due to Ashcroft's illness, refused to re-authorize the program, he got a call from Ashcroft's chief of staff saying Gonzales and Card were on their way to the hospital despite doctors orders that Ashcroft have no visitors.

So Comey rushes to the hospital to get there first and prep Ashcroft -- who was crtically ill. Gonzales and Card rushed in with an envelope and tried to get Ashcroft to sign off. Ashcroft refused. They left.

	Comey got an urgent call from a "very upset" Card, demanding an immediate meeting at the White House. Comey said he was so upset by what he'd just seen that he wouldn't meet with Card without a witness. He wanted Ted Olson, then solicitor general. (I know, I know, it's like a Brat Pack movie about the DoJ). Card said he didn't know what Comey was so steamed about. He and Gonzales had just "been there to wish [Ashcroft] well." Comey disagreed. "I had witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," he testifies. Later that night, Card refused to let Olson into his White House office when he and Comey discussed the program again. The next day, March 11, the program was "reauthorized without certification by the Department of Justice," Comey said, and "I prepared a letter intending to resign."

He didn't resign, however, because eventually, the White House backed off and allowed the Justice Department to change the program. Not that the new version was any better than the old, in my opinion.

But it begs the question, who sent Gonzales and Card to the hospital to browbeat a sedated John Ashcroft into authorizing a program that he was prepared to resign over? It has to be the White House, but was it Bush or was it Cheney?

Meanwhile Sen. Chuck Hagel has called for Gonzales to resign.

Also, Gonzales ignored a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee for any emails relating to the scandal. This is getting good.

The thing is that when you get down into the gooey center of this story, the glaring fact that is being glossed over is that the president personally authorized a program that the Justice Department said was legally indefensible and Bush allowed it to go on for at least two weeks.

That, my friendlies, is what's known in the real world as "an impeachable offense." Marty Lederman over at Balkanization says it better than I.

Today, Dollie is registering Rozzy for kindergarden. She's very excited about going to "big girl's school" which is also the same as "Max's School." Max was giving her advice yesterday.

Max has issues with Ms. Whitfield because she insists that he write his name "Maxwell Reed" on his papers. But Rozzy is way ready for kindergarden. She knows her letters and numbers, has been reading some single-syllable words and can write her name legibly enough to actually read. She practices writing all the time, having Dollie write the letters for her to copy.

I still remember my first day of kindergarden. It was in Florence, Ala. at the church my family attended. I don't remember much from that year except for the time I got in trouble for rushing through my coloring page by simply scribbling across the entire page in blue, instead of trying to make the bird look pretty.

Oh, and I got in trouble for calling the teacher's daughter (who was in the class) a "fool." As I recall that incident, the class was taunting her for some long-forgotten reason and I established what would become a pattern in my life -- I went over the line and cut her a little too deep. I still remember her storming out of the room to get her mother.

The teacher came in and, despite the entire class taking part, I was the one who got in trouble. She marched me and her daughter to an ajoining room and got in my face, asking me what I'd called her. I was terrified and refused to speak. Here it is 32 years later and I can still see her face, just a few inches from mine, trying to calm me down enough to simply say the word.

No dice. Eventually, she gave up and sent me back to my seat. I don't think Rozzy will have that kind of trouble because, frankly, I can't see a modern kindergarden teacher leaving a class full of kids alone for any length of time -- let alone long enough for an argument to turn into a name-calling free-for-all.

Speaking of name-calling free-for-alls, media researchers at the University of Indiana have been studying Bill O'Reilly's show. Their conclusion: Bill O'Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.”

They watched 115 episodes and, using propaganda analysis techniques pioneered after WWI. They found:

	Fear was used in more than half (52.4 percent) of the commentaries, and O’Reilly almost never offered a resolution to the threat. The researchers identified 22 groups of people that O’Reilly referenced in his commentaries, and while all 22 were described by O’Reilly as bad at some point, the people and groups most frequently labeled bad were the political left — Americans as a group and the media (except those media considered by O’Reilly to be on the right). Left-leaning media (21.6 percent) made up the largest portion of bad people/groups, and media without a clear political leaning was the second largest (12.2 percent). When it came to evil people and groups, illegal aliens (26.8 percent) and terrorists (21.4 percent) were the largest groups.

This stands in stark contrast to O'Reilly's claim that "I don't do personal attacks here." A claim he repeats almost as often as the one where he claims he almost never tells anyone on his show to "shut up."

The researchers compared O'Reilly's rhetoric to propaganda techniques and found:

The US Department of Veterans Affairs has finally relented and allowed Wiccan soldiers buried at national cemeteries to have the pentacle on their markers. There are 11 families who have been waiting and fighting for the right to have their religion recognized alongside the 38 symbols already allowed by the VA.

On the surface, this is ridiculous. What should it matter to the VA what religion a soldier is? Why, after allowing 38 other "emblems of belief," would you seperate the Wiccan pentagle as somehow not appropriate? And why would you fight it in court?

Speaking of symbols that get people riled up, the Texas State House voted to remove the signs adorning highway "Welcome to Texas" signs that say "Proud home of President George W. Bush" after he leaves office.

I have no idea if that's what happens everywhere (as every Tennessee schoolchild is taught, we are home to three presidents: Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson and James K. Polk none of which are listed on the highway signs) but it still strikes me (and I bet Natalie Maines) as funny. I would like to see Connecticutt fix their signs to read "Proud birthplace of President George W. Bush."

What's also funny is that TIME left President Bush off it's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Heh.

The schools are into finals now and graduation is approaching rapidly. At Palm Beach High School in Florida, it will be a short ceremony. 87 percent of seniors failed the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. 72 percent failed the math portion.

The House just passed a Federal Hate Crimes bill 237-180. This will federal officials to work with state and local officials to investigate hate crimes. The best part was Rep. Steny Hoyer, House majority leader, who took the Republicans to task for their cynical ploy to defeat the bill.

Republican after Republican got up and denounced the bill because it didn't have protections for U.S. servicemembers and senior citizens. They railed at the heartless Democrats who don't want to protect our soldiers and elderly.

Then the Republicans voted against it. Right there on the floor of the House they were shown to be the cynical bunch of hypocrits they are.

A group of scientists have been trying to prove a couple of predictions that are part of Einstein's theory of relativitiy -- specifically, they have been trying to obeserve the geodetic effect and frame dragging. This is where the science geek in me wrestles the rest of my personality to the ground and steps on it's neck.

Einstein theorized that the mass of the Earth actually bends space-time around itself. That's the geodetic effect. Frame-dragging is the rate at which the Earth's rotation drags space-time with it. But how do you demonstrate either of these effects?

In 2004, NASA launched Gravity Probe-B, a satellite laboratory designed to test Einstein's predictions. The experiment required some highly unusual conditions and some of the most impressive feats of engineering ever accomplished.

GP-B contains four highly sensitive gyroscopes -- near-perfect spheres rotating at high speeds in a container of superfluid helium chilled to minus-271 degrees. These gyroscopes are the most perfectly spherical objects ever made by hand. The surface is so smooth that if they were blown up to the size of the Earth, the tallest mountain would be 8-feet tall. At least that's the hype, who can really tell?

So you've got a probe, pointed to a distant star that serves as a guide. The gyroscopes are suspended in a frictionless medium spinning at high speeds. probes measure the movement of the spheres within the medium to determine the degree and direction of the effect of the Earth's mass on the objects.

Nearly four years later, the first data is back. It will take some time to crunch the numbers, but it appears that the geodetic effect is confirmed. Frame-dragging is about 170 times smaller than the geodetic effect, so it will take longer to see those results.

Here's the thing. GP-B was conceived at Stanford in 1959. It was funded by NASA in 1964, making it the longest running physics experiment in either institution's history. It took more than 40 years to develop the technology necessary to actually launch the probe. 79 doctoral students at Stanford and 13 at other universities did their research as part of this experiment. It has spawned dozens of technological advances in engineering and we're finally getting some answers.

I've been playing through "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" again. This will be my 3rd time through and I'm really enjoying it, but on the 360, it is a little buggy. I've looked around on the various forums and that seems to be the consensus. I don't mind the occasional jittery screen or frame lag. But the bug I ran into recently forced me to change my gameplay.

I took my team out into the sand dunes on Tatooine. As we approached the sand people base, we changed into sand people clothes and brought along a droid that could translate for us. We managed to walk past all the sand people and the laser turrets to enter the compound.

Once inside, you're supposed to be able to talk to the guards and have droid translate for you. If you're following the light side of the Force, you negoiate an end to hostilities and get a map to the Eastern Sand Dunes. If you're following the dark side, you kill everyone and take the map.

The bug in the program didn't allow me to talk to the guards. As soon as I walked in, they started attacking me. So, I was forced to take the kill 'em all and let Obi Wan sort 'em out route. Up until that point, I was playing strictly light side -- giving up rewards, helping everyone, negotiating rather than fighting when possible. Now I've got the blood of dozens of tuskan raiders on my virtual hands.

I'm reminded of the game "Civiliation III." Badger and I both played the game for a while. Badger was a scorched Earth player who pumped up war tech and killed everyone in his path. I, on the other hand, tended to use culture and religion as a means of turning my enemies into allies.

The first time we both played through, he won quickly and his civilization didn't even reach the industrial age. I won by winning the space race and using trade as a means of keeping the more hostile elements in line. Not only did I not fight any wars, but no one ever declared war on any other civ.

Over at The Politico, I voted for three questions to be asked at the first Republican Presidential Debate:

Should the President have power to imprison U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime and without providing them a judicial forum in which they can contest the accusations against them, as the Bush administration did to American Jose Padilla?

Do you think the process of waterboarding -- where the U.S. takes prisoners, straps them to a chair, and pours water on their face so they are in terror of drowning to death -- is a practice consistent with America's moral credibility in the world?

A recent worldwide poll showed that under the Bush presidency, America has become the third most unpopular country in the world -- right behind Iran and just ahead of North Korea. Why do you believe that has that happened?

I would encourage everyone to visit the site and vote on questions for this debate.

Britney Spears made her triumphant return to the stage recently, if you call lip-syncing for 16 minutes at the House of Blues "triumphant." For some reason, the media reports talk of her "belting out" the songs and this being a "good step" in her career. I'm confused. If I'd lined up for hours to buy tickets to this thing, I'd be angry. But then, I'm not a fan.