The mindset that motivates people to make those kinds of remarks is an extremely depressing one because -

(i) it seems to arise from arrogance - the specific meaning of which, in this context, is a tendency to claim the right to make assumptions about OTHER people's states of consciousness and the deliberateness of their intent;

(ii) it seems to go along with a tendency to want to bully everyone else into sharing that mindset by calling them "retards", "deluded", "weak", "sheep" and "naive", accusing them of "making excuses" and so on... and to refuse to accept that anyone else's viewpoint is a valid one;

(iii) their position doesn't actually LEAD anywhere, except to a load of frequently baseless assumptions. Some people seem to have difficulty understanding this point, so let me explain. Once you have pointed your finger at someone and decided they're guilty of something ("it's her own fault" etc. etc.) you really don't have anything left to say because you've already acted as judge and jury and found the accused guilty of whatever it is you think he or she has done. The case is over. You've said all there is to say, apart from passing sentence;

(iv) people who think like this see EVERYTHING in terms of "guilt", "fault" and "who's to blame". It's a tabloid journalist's (or celebrity blogger's) mentality. The former editor of one of the UK's biggest-selling tabloids once articulated this activity as follows: "We give everybody somebody to hate every day". He seemed proud of it, but this encouragement of tabloid readers to make judgments on others has led to a cynical, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, "I would never do it" attitude. To me, the old "there but for the grace of God go I" attitude of humility seemed a lot healthier.

(v) the "guilt allegers" and "fault attributers" don't leave the discussion with anywhere to go. While most of the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" are actually trying to find out what really happened and pick the bones of reality out of the morass of speculation, they're being lambasted by these judgmental bullies for "making excuses" and not rushing to judgment themselves.

But what's worse, the "judgmentalists", by their "she's to blame and that's all there is to say" attitude, also have the effect of distorting and inhibiting discussion of how their "blame figure" (in this case, Britney) should take positive steps to get herself OUT of the mess she's in. By insisting that "it's her own fault and she should take responsibility for her actions" they don't seem to be leaving her with many options other than to confess her guilt.

But THEN what? Their position seems to imply or assume that everything she has done has been done consciously, deliberately, and either maliciously, recklessly or irresponsibly. Society usually considers that when somebody has "fessed up" to a bunch of that, punishment is in order.

So is the problem for "judgmentalists", and the cause of their bitterness and frustration, their unease that Britney (or Jamie Lynn or whoever) has somehow managed to ESCAPE punishment and that the "retards", "sheep", "deluded fans" etc. etc. seem content to let her get away with it by "making excuses"?

The whole "judgmentalist" mode of argument seems to hang on the twin assumptions (whether conscious or unconscious) by the people who take that attitude that (i) THEY know what Britney (or whoever) is REALLY thinking and why she REALLY did what she did (and anyone who disagrees is deluded, dumb or insane - or all three); and (ii) that everything that's happened was because of her own deliberate choices.

The fact that she's turned out to be mentally ill has thrown some of them into disarray but the more determined "judgmentalists" are now trying to rewrite history. The latest twist is that the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" didn't want Britney to get help. They wanted her to drive around Hollywood forever with Sam, Adnan, Alli and her 50 personal paparazzi. They didn't care if she never got her babies back. They didn't care if her career had hgone to hell. Apparently THEY were the ones who believed that she wasn't mentally ill.

Judgmental people seem to be an irony-free zone but to the rest of us it seems ironic that they've tried to hijack the very reason why the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" were "making excuses" for her in the first place. Now it's not an "excuse" - it's an explanation. Ironic too that the entire judgmentalist case ("she's to blame" "it's her own fault" etc. etc. - remember?) has always been based on a firm belief that all of her actions were conscious, but reckless and irresponsible, and that's why she was fully liable for "blame".

That's the problem with psychiatric facilities. They often confuse a tendency to occasional manic episodes with an overall mental incompetence that includes an inability ever to think clearly and thus to take important decisions concerning a patient's own life.

To make matters worse, mental health professionals acknowledge that people admitted to these facilities become "institutionalised" in only 3 weeks. That means in effect that they surrender responsibility for their lives to their carers. And that makes full recovery to independent living and decision-making a very lengthy process. In some cases the institutionalisation becomes permanent.

Most tests of psychological competence focus on consistency, "joined up thinking" if you like, to show that a subject's mind is functioning in a way that allows for competent decision-taking and the assumption of responsibility. If a person's consciousness seems to present itself as a series of disconnected episodes, it would be judged that his/her cognitive functions were significantly impaired.

But Britney's brain has worked like this for a very long time. After considering the behavioristic evidence, I wrote in 2005 that throughout every waking hour...idea after idea rockets into her mind. But it's like she's a radio receiver auto-tuning over a hundred wavebands. There's no real consistency or continuity or logic. The same idea may occur more than once, or many times, but it's like finding the same song playing on several stations. There doesn't seem to be a central, co-ordinating mechanism that pulls everything together and turns it into one coherent history or story or personality. She changes her mind with breathtaking frequency, and sometimes she tries too hard to make harsh reality fit her fairy tale. The only thing that ever made a consistent thread in her whole life story was her intense focus on her career. But now that has gone.

Can the psychiatrists treating her now do their work so well as to give greater consistency and continuity to her cognitive function than she had before anyone even had suspicions that she was mentally ill? It seems unlikely. So how are they going to decide that she's competent to take decisions? Already it appears that Britney has lost the battle to convince the authorities that she's competent to make her own choice of lawyer! It seems that she's already being taken down the long, dark road towards loss of her independence. Yet bipolarity - if that's what's wrong with her - is usually associated with emotional problems, not with loss of reasoning ability. Could it be that her strange way of thinking is already telling against her?

My fear is that, if we don't see her released from psychiatric care after the present 14 days, we may not see her again as an independent adult for a very long time - if ever. And as for seeing her again as Britney Spears, megastar......?

Now I'm wondering if these were early signs of bipolarity, before the condition took such a hold of her. It's probably no good looking for causes among the many adverse things that have happened to her. The breakup with Justin is said by many to have left a permanent scar on her, and her behavior seemed to degenerate gradually into craziness after that. Yet, following her wedding to Kevin, she seemed calm, approachable, articulate and blissfully happy.

The divorce from Kevin must have had its reasons. I can't believe Britney, having witnessed her parents' divorce, would have ended her marriage lightly. So she must have experienced some more bad times there. The stress and trauma of divorce can break a lot of people and it could do severe damage to someone who's already mentally fragile.

Then there was the question of Post Partum Depression. Almost every media outlet, in consort with Rent-an-Expert, diagnosed this for Britney, and later claimed that SHE thought that was the problem too. Maybe it was. And it's a very serious condition. But all these sources of stress aren't the causes of bipolarity, even though they could make her mental state a lot worse in her depressive phases. Bipolarity is a problem arising from chemical imbalances in the brain and it has to be treated with medication. It can take a while for the precise prescription and dosages to be established.

Now! Cast your mind back to Britney's Dad's comments around the time of rehab. He said that she was a sick little girl and that what was wrong with her wasn't what everyone thought. He didn't go into detail, but I think he may have been more insightful than we realised. I think he understood the problem when nobody else did. I think some of the things that have been reported over the past couple of years can now be seen as Jamie's frustration at the way his elder daughter's life was heading and the fact that NOBODY seemed to be recognising her problems and NOBODY seemed to be in control, including Britney.

And that's one reason why I'm glad he's taking charge at the moment. Jamie has been involved in some of the biggest decisions in Britney's life. It was Jamie, not Lynne, who wrote the letters recommending her to agents, etc. when she was a child. I think he has the courage and sense of responsibilty to take control now.

I'm a bit confused about what's going on between Lynne and Britney. I don't think she can have been unaware of her daughter's mental health problems, but I think she was anxious not to get even further on to Britney's bad side and bring about an animosity so bad that it could never be mended. She has always said she loves Britney, without reservation or qualification. But she probably felt that trying to intervene again in her life (when she saw what happened after the rehab stint) would just make Britney madder and more alienated than ever. I think she wanted Britney to come back to HER, rather than make an approach that could be rebuffed, or risk sticking her nose in. But lately she must have seen that there was no alternative.

I'm very reluctant to criticize Lynne. I think she's a genuinely nice woman and a very loving mom and just about everybody who knows the Spears family personally, or worked with them before Britney became a star, has said that she was supportive of what Britney wanted and was never pushy. She wasn't a Showbiz Monster Mom. And I think that has become clear in recent months, even while so many fans have been taking her to task for not intervening.

Sam Lutfi may have been Britney's pal and confidant, and I do actually believe that he had the best of intentions towards her, but I think he ended up acting as an enabler. He got too close to Britney, too close to see that there was something wrong inside the little bubble that he and she inhabited. He listened too much to what Britney said and what she asked for - and we all know how charming and irresistible she can be. So I don't blame Sam. But I think it's for the best that Jamie Spears is in charge now. Goodness knows how Britney feels about it.

It seems to me, picking my way through the morass of hysterical reportage, that the sequence of events was as follows: Britney thought that because of the time she spent on giving her deposition earlier in the day, she was entitled to keep the babies for another two hours in the evening and refused to hand them back when Kevin's bodyguard turned up.

The bodyguard then called Kevin, who sent his lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan to exert some legal leverage and "lay down the law" with Britney. He didn't get an instant compliance from her, and called the police. The police mistakenly thought that she was under the influence of an "unknown substance" and could under the circumstances be a danger to herself or others. So they had her carted off to hospital under a compulsory restraint order.

The media immediately jumped on the story and fantasized all kinds of things. Most of them printed it as truth that she was under the influence of drugs, threatened to kill Jayden and/or herself, had a gun, bit somebody, trashed her hospital room, etc. etc. etc. As the days go by, all of these juicy fictions are unravelling. But the damage was done, and almost everybody now firmly believes that Britney is clinically insane and should be involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

Anyway, the hospital carried out tests, but found that she was clear of drugs and alcohol and had no other reason to detain her, so they released her with the minimum of delay. In the meantime, Kaplan had seized his moment and put the wheels in motion to remove her visitation rights.

On her release, Britney was therefore faced with a period of loneliness and heartbreak. And she realised that the only thing that ever calmed her down when she felt that she was going crazy was male company, cuddling, comfort, caring and sex. So she hooked up with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib.

The hysteria with which this relationship has been met has been nothing less than unbelievable. And the reason is purely that completely unproven and probably untrue stories were published alleging that Adnan had been hawking some compromising pictures of Britney around the media, looking for millions of dollars. It was claimed that the pictures showed her "semi naked", "wearing only a shirt", "wearing only a bikini bottom" or "naked".

But, as with the regularly-reported yet mythical Britney "sex tape", none of these pictures has actually appeared anywhere. The snide little follow-up in some UK tabloids that Adnan had finally agreed to sell the near-naked pix to an Australian tabloid for $25,000 is beyond ludicrous.

The latest situation is that Britney seems to be spending most of her time with Adnan. Are they in love? Who knows?! Is he using her? Maybe!! Most guys do, and she probably knows that. But, at the moment, what she needs most is a relationship with a boyfriend. Before she met K-Fed she was going crazy, as the "Chaotic" TV series showed. But after she met him she entered one of the most serene periods of her life.

It could be that the same is going to happen now. I'm not convinced that we should be making a long-distance, remote-control diagnosis of bipolar disorder. She does have some strange episodes, but we only seem to see manic ones and I've neither seen nor heard any evidence that she experiences the depressive end of the spectrum.

AND it's hard to deny that, based on pap pix and videos, she seems to function in a fairly mundane fashion most of the time. She eats, shops, drives her car... we haven't seen her foaming at the mouth yet, nor going around on all fours barking like a dog, nor trying to fly off the roof of her house. I'm not saying she's normal - my article "Shadow - the elusive personality of Britney Spears" on this site pointed out her abnormalities away back in early 2005.

What about her babies? Is she not trying her best to get them back? I have no idea. Maybe she's just concentrating on getting herself into a better place emotionally and mentally before she tries again. Maybe she's just filling the days when she can't have her babies with Adnan rather than be lonely and end up doing something foolish.

I may be the only person who thinks this, but I'm actually glad she's with Adnan. This is a girl who CANNOT be on her own. If he can see her through this awful time, keep a watch on her through the nights and be a calming presence in her life, then that's fine with me.

In fact, if Britney was a maker of bubblegum pop, her career would have already been over - and it would have been over in 2003/4. Before “In The Zone” came out, almost every newspaper carried an article on her imminent comeback and speculated that she would never be able to make the transition from Tweeny Star to young adult audiences. And they were right in saying that if she hadn’t been able to do that, there was nowhere else for her to go.

However, it turned out that “In The Zone” was NOT bubblegum pop. It was cool, smart, bang-up-to-date, chilled out, highly clubbable dance-pop and Britney’s audience followed her willingly. At that time, industry analysts noted that her demographic was now the 18-26 range. Pop “experts” and kewl-as-f@ck DJs - who blamed her for the turn-of-century pop revival - had wanted her demise soooo badly, but she confounded them yet again.

None of this had anything to do with her having an excellent media image. As far back as 2003-4 people were talking about her having gone “off the rails” following the Justin debacle and media talking-heads were already commenting that she was more of a celebrity and gossip-magnet than a musician.

Anyway, we all know what has happened since. The only person she falls short of in popular estimations of the runners and riders in the “wacko” stakes is Michael Jackson and he doesn’t get 5 percent of the stories written about him that Britney does. So anything she does to sell product is now faced with considerable and unprecedented levels of consumer resistance.

In that situation, if “Blackout” had received bad press and equally bad word-of-mouth it really WOULD have been the end of her career. But this time, the critics seemed to remember the leap in credibility and change in audience demographic that came about with “In The Zone” and treated her like a relatively significant, influential pop musician. The vast majority of reviews have been excellent, with “her best album ever” assessments flying around. Word-of-mouth too has been highly favorable and almost everybody who has heard the album a few times seems to love it.

Yes, sales have been disappointing so far - although there is the chance of “Blackout” being a slow-burner. But what is more important is that almost everyone agrees it’s a great album. It’s complete rubbish to give all the credit to the producers. Artists like Kelly Rowland and Jennifer Lopez have had the best of production too, yet their recent albums have flopped - not because these girls had a bad public image but because their albums were below-par.

If “Blackout” had sold twice as many copies but gotten bad reviews and a lot of fan disappointment, I’d have been a lot more worried. It would have looked as if her time was coming to an end, she’d had a good run but didn’t really have what you could call a CAREER in front of her. But the quality of “Blackout” and the great reception it has had ensure that she DOES genuinely have a career now. A career based, not on the “best PR in years”, not on being beautiful and sexy, not on being America’s sweetheart, but on musical excellence. People, including critics, have set the bar high for her. They EXPECT good things from her albums - good ADULT things - and she is delivering.

How to build on this highly favorable climate, step up to the next rung of the credibility ladder AND make new fans is the true challenge facing Britney. It’s all in her hands now.

Well, it's taken week-after-week of decreasing sales, but Blackout has dipped out of Billboard's Top 50 albums. This gradual collapse of Blackout's sales is no surprise, but it's a real shame. Her finest work to date is being left completely out in the cold from every angle, and has been for weeks. We're in the midst of the ultimate lull in activity. Gimme More, after an excellent run worthy of celebrating, has peaked and already begun its tumble down the charts. Piece of Me has yet to see its release and subsequent push. Britney has been largely out of the picture, beyond the obligatory shots from paparazzi doing whatever it takes to shove a camera lens up her skirt. Things are quiet. Blackout has been left for dead...momentarily, at least.

There's little doubt that Blackout's 2nd most important week (after the debut week) will be the week of Piece of Me's biggest saturation...when the video is released, the single purchases start coming in, the radio spins increase, the buzz it will surely generate starts pulsating around the music world, etc. If Blackout can respond well to that, it'll show that this bad boy has enough legs to put forth a solid effort despite the very unconventional means with which it's being handled.

But if it whimpers through Piece of Me's biggest stretch, it'd just cement how unfortunate it is to know that the same person who unequivocally played the most significant role in this album's amazing quality in the recording process (the legendary Miss Britney Spears) is the same person whose circumstances likely play the biggest role in it not enjoying the commercial acclaim it so truly deserves.

Not to knock at all knock Britney, because a lot has to be said for the strenuous life-altering personal circumstances that have surely been the single catalyst for her choosing to stay out of the spotlight as of late...and the fact that she's been participating in music video shoots also shows that she's not 'turning her back' on Blackout, as some tabloid pundits have speculated through this extended lull in activity for Britney.

This is a situation people in-the-know, Jive and Sony BMG included, likely expected when they opted not to delay Blackout's release. Comments came from those camps during the release window and pre-release window acknowledging the aspects of Britney's personal life that would make this project challenging. But they made a business decision, one that I'm grateful for as a fan, to ride Gimme More's worldwide smash status with an October album release, rather than pushing it back until things had calmed down in Britney Land, as many expected. So I don't think Blackout being Britney's first studio record to start fizzling out so quickly would play a role in any label's future promotion of Britney Spears releases, because the environment surrounding Blackout is not one conductive to an album's commercial (mainly not having an artist available for any promotion beyond music videos, plus the unprecedented negative buzz that has yet to be completely flushed out), and it's not a situation representative of what a conventional Britney Spears release will face in the future.

The only real shame about Blackout's commercial performance thus-far is that if ever a Britney album deserved the recognition that commercial acclaim can garner, it's Blackout...and if ever a recording artist could have used that positive buzz to help reestablish their relevancy to the public-at-large, it's Britney Spears. All hope is not lost for Blackout, though. Piece of Me is on the horizon: the song is hot, the video has a well-established director (unlike Gimme More), and Britney is looking incredible. There's room for a major boost, and such a boost could spark future singles to continue the train of positivity for Blackout. But if things never really significantly pick up and the subsequent singles coast unnoticed through the sea of pop music in 2008, we should all shake our heads at what will have been a major lost opportunity for an amazing album.

Through it all, there's one factor to keep in mind: Britney Spears proved with Blackout, no matter if it would have ended up only selling 100,000 copies or if it ends up selling over a million copies, that she's still the same eternally-relevant force of a recording artist that she's always been. We'll always have an amazing album to remember this era by, and even though Britney's personal situation has hampered her ability to participate in this era after the recording studio, it proves to us that there's a hell of a lot left in Queen B. This is only the beginning for this 26-year-old phenom, and as entertainment history has proven time and time again, speed bumps as minor as Blackout's tumble won't derail a bona fide icon.

Nate 'Danja' Hills (and his usual team of collaborative writers) undoubtedly had more behind-the-boards influence on Blackout than any others involved in the project, only second to Britney in terms of the significance to the project as a whole. So let's take some time out to give major props to the guy for being a key co-pilot with whom Britney could instantly reach musical relevancy in 2007 pop music.

Danja needed Britney and her vocal flair to bring songs alive that might've otherwise felt rather lifeless and forced (see Duran Duran's Red Carpet Massacre, which has his fingerprints all over it, as an example of when Danja's prowess and signature sound go wasted on incompatible recording artists...and there are other examples). On that same token, Britney needed a producer who could take the essence of Britney Spears and bring it to today's pop landscape - a very different animal from even only four years ago. Britney was up to the task, and the end result is one of her finest albums to date (in my opinion, THE finest, most cohesive, and most easily accessible in her entire catalog...but I'll leave the 'final word' on Blackout to Karen's terrific review).

Before I completely smother him in praise, I've got to say: the Danja collaborations from the Blackout sessions were very hit-or-miss for me. Gimme More and Get Naked are each now in my all-time Top 3 favorite Britney tracks...I'm talking her entire catalog! They're cut from the very same cloth as her early Max Martin hits: huge sound, dramatic hooks, fresh crisp production, truly epic productions...except these songs allow Britney's portfolio to evolve to a level more-adult than ever...borderline raunchy, in a good way! But then, he and his team churned out relative duds like Get Back and Outta This World (to no fault of Britney on the latter, she sounds simply divine on it) that I'd rank among my least favorite songs in her catalog. 'Team Danja' has a tendency to sometimes forget about having an epic melodic hook and instead allows uneventful bars to plod along through an entire song - and while that can certainly work, it feels underwhelming compared to some of the more epic contributions he made to Blackout.

However, as always, I appreciate the positive things more than I do dwell on the negatives...so my memories of Danja and his involvement with Blackout will not be the repetitive bores he conjured up, but rather I'll forever look back on the epic, thundering, oozing-with-emotion-and-sensuality tracks that could have not possibly better-suited Britney Spears! Because of that, the fact that his works meshed so well with not only Britney's vocals but also her very persona (things that sometimes get lost in other producers/writers' efforts), he'll always get a big pat on the back from me for a job well done.

I know it sounds paranoid, but would this have happened if the No.2 artist had been one that the industry likes to get behind, like Beyonce or Alicia Keys? Doesn't it sound like some big players got together and said "We just CANNOT let Britney Spears get a No.1 album with HER reputation! The whole business will be tarnished forever!"

The problem is, it's a disastrous decision with horrible long-term implications. This is the green light for every kind of marketing scam in the world. You'll see tricks now that you never dreamed of. Every artist and every label will be looking for exclusive deals with a powerful general-purpose retailer.

A lot of people seem to be accepting that this has happened simply because the Eagles are popular with middle-age people but have you asked yourself WHY they SUDDENLY broke out and made numbers no artist has been able to achieve for YEARS through normal music retailing? As one exec was saying yesterday, albums selling in these quantities in their first week is something that happened 10 years ago.

It's because the whole Eagles operation is outside of the normal parameters of music retailing. They're selling, basically, to as many supermarket customers as they can get their hands on through the magic of impulse buying.

And that means "middle of the road" artists with grocery-shopper appeal will be able to dominate the charts from now on, any time they can hook up a deal with WalMart or (in the UK) Tesco or whoever. You'll see albums by all kinds of has-been dead-beats from the world of "MOR" and country music making No.1 and after a while that's ALL you'll see at the top of the charts. Influence will shift even further away from specialist music retailers.

From today onwards, the whole music business will change from being artist-oriented to marketing-oriented. Just about every music biz exec will be sitting down tomorrow to see how their products and their artists can be sold like commodities to compete in this new environment. Supermarket chains will have the power to give a thumbs-up or down to anyone hoping to be the big artists of the future. And you can be sure they won't be ready to promote anyone who doesn't have a family-friendly image.

And It WILL be to the industry's disadvantage long-term. Maybe it hasn't been recognised yet, but this is a very sad and tragic day for new, younger and edgier artists, artists who would previously appealed to kids but NOT to their parents. It massively reduces the chances of someone like Britney ever getting a No.1 album again.

Three days after all the media, including the UK tabloids and BBC’s celebrated Ceefax, reported that Britney had lost visitation rights, hardly anybody - including Ceefax - had mentioned that she had regained them. (Ceefax did eventually!) Again, only people.com seemed to believe in balanced reporting.

Within days of Kevin requesting a court hearing to prevent Britney from even SEEING her kids, LOOK Magazine was reporting that he still loves her, always has, and - gasp - wants her back!

The day after I read that “sources close to Kevin” say he believes he can fulfil all parenting requirements himself and Britney is no longer required, I read that his lawyer says he DOES want her in the babies’ lives, and wants her to spend time with them.

In the same week that Britney was reported as having passed at least two random drug tests, Heat Magazine was claiming they’d spotted her licking drug-filled lollipops!

Heat Magazine also claimed she was using an asthma inhaler as a dangerous and irresponsible slimming aid. Did nobody ever point out to them before they layed into her yet again that Britney actually does have asthma?

A few days after she was reported as saying she didn’t want to be at the VMAs but just wanted to be home with her babies, OK Magazine was saying she didn’t want the babies anyway.

In the same week that OK Magazine was telling us that Britney was happy, smiling and didn’t have a care in the world because she’d gotten rid of her unwanted babies, the National Enquirer observed that her family was desperately worried because she had plunged into depression and was an extreme suicide risk!

A few days after OK reported “a source from the Spears camp” as saying Britney had declared she would never set foot in the LA custody courtroom - there she was, in person, in the LA custody courtroom.

A few days after a court official described her demeanor there as “polite and respectful”, the ever-reliable Sun was claiming she had been rude and disrespectful to the judge. I wonder which of those sources I should believe....

And to finish it all off, Dr Phil spent an hour discussing Britney’s “case” and declared she was so far gone she should be committed against her will to a mental hospital - even though he has never treated her and indeed has never even spoken to her. In the UK a doctor could be struck off the medical register for that kind of behavior.