BRITNEY'S GUM AND BUSH: Ebay nearly forced a seller to drop his auction for a piece of gum chewed up and spat out by Britney Spears, as they thought at first it was an attempt to flog her husband of a few hours; or, rather, the seller was advertising it as a chance to get hold of Britney's DNA. Now that the ad doesn't explicitly state that you could use the gum to clone Britney Spears, they're happy. "We were just worried what happened the last time someone attempted to make a clone of Britney," explained an Ebay spokesperson, pointing at a picture of Jessica Simpson.



Meanwhile, The Republicans have been attempting to get Britney to go and join them down at their convention in New York, to give some light relief from telling protestors they can't go to Central Park because they might "damage the grass." While we hope she wouldn't go and help take part in the campaign to re-elect the president - apart from anything, strict Republican Party values would really screw with our fantasy of making her Minister of Pop in our post-revolution cabinet, and we'd already started making the costume, too - the Republicans themselves are a little pissed off that she's been even invited:

“Through her immature antics, Spears has probably done more to undermine sexual morality than all the misguided legislation introduced in the United States over the last decade,” the Illinois Family Institute wrote in an e-mail to members. “It would be the height of hypocrisy for a party that claims to represent wholesome values to celebrate her.” Citing Spears’ “lesbian” kiss with Madonna, her “general immodesty,” and her annulled marriage to a childhood friend, the group is urging Republicans to call the GOP’s convention hotline to protest any appearance by Spears.

Of course, on this basis, Cheney's support for same-sex marriages and Bush's divorce would mean that the Prez and the VP should both have their invitations to the convention withdrawn, too. We're not sure if it's fair of the IFI to say that Brit has done more to undermine the sexual morality than government legislation - unless we missed the 1986 'Dress teenagers in hotpants' bill or the introduction to the Senate of new rules insisting on all Americans having to sample incest once a year, we'd be tempted to suggest the many years of strict, joyless laws churned out from Capitol Hill have left even Sister Wendy Beckett open to the charge of having done more to promote general immorality and flesh baring.