At a promotional event for her new workout video, Totally Fit, in NYC.

This dude is such a crackpot. Throw him in jail with Joe Francis and let them pop Ambien and poke around each other’s asses all day. Watch me give a fuck. Oh no wait except I won’t.

Four days after the pop star was granted a temporary restraining order against former manager turned meltdown-enabler Lutfi and onetime paparazzo paramour Adnan Ghalib, Lutfi has filed suit against Spears and her parents for allegedly damaging his rep.

While Britney, Jamie and Lynne Spears are all named in the suit, Lutfi claims it was the Spears parents who “began a campaign of slander, libel and defamation aimed at discrediting, destroying and physically and emotionally intimidating Lutfi in order to drive him out of Britney’s life.”

As for the singer herself, Lutfi accuses her of breach of contract and claims she still owes him unpaid management fees for her time under his pill-mashing thumb.

Last Friday, Spears’ conservatorship was granted an order barring Lutfi and Ghalib from having any contact with the singer.

Heh. “Pill-mashing thumb.”

Seriously I am thisclose to a Sam Lutfi ban around here, because I don’t want to help this dude keep his brand of crazy in the spotlight. I’m just worried that a Sam Lutfi ban will make Britney coverage difficult, and I LOVE BRITNEY, but this dude is a douchetard and I hate writing about him.

I don’t know if you guys will find this as interesting as I do, but Ben Stein has withdrawn as the University of Vermont’s commencement speaker because of complaints about his critical views on evolution in favor of intelligent design.

UVM President Daniel Fogel said he chose Stein based on the warm response to a lecture he gave on campus last spring. Fogel said, however, he was deluged with e-mail messages from people offended by Stein’s views of science.

When told about the criticism, Stein — who was to be paid $7,500 — backed out of the May 17 commencement, Fogel said.

“I did not ask him not to come,” he said. “I was not going to let him be blind-sided by controversy.”

The former host of Comedy Central’s “Win Ben Stein’s Money” quiz show, Stein has drawn fire previously for criticizing evolutionary theory and speaking in favor of intelligent design. That view holds that life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

Stein told the Burlington Free Press that he was not “anti-science” as some critics have labeled him.

“I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists,” Stein wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. “I want all scientific inquiry to happen not just what the ruling clique calls science.”

He said the controversy over him as commencement choice was “laughable” and “pathetic.”

Very, very interesting stuff going on here. Ben Stein is NOT a fundamentalist Christian — he’s very much a Jew, and a generally respected intellectual with a Yale JD.

What do you guys think?

Would you oppose a commencement speaker who furthered the idea of some sort of intelligent design?

“Lesbians tell it to me all the time. I’m like, ‘I’m glad it works for you and I wish I liked women like that because often times men are very hard for me, but I happen to like boys.’ I could never be a lesbian. I would never want to date [someone like] myself, ever. I’m a crazy person. I need some kind of stable, quiet man.”

Kelly Clarkson, when asked about rumors that she’s secretly a lesbian.

Kelly’s kind of a notable celebrity in that she seems to never date anyone, and has mentioned in the past that she’s never been in love. “I recently got back from this European promo tour,” she said, “and every interview kept focusing on that … I’m like ‘Well, maybe ya’ll just fall in love too quickly. Have you ever thought about that?’”

Sigh.

Who let this asshole out of jail?

Joe Francis has been put on house arrest until the next hearing in his tax evasion trial occurs on February 11.

Yeah, that’s a real punishment for Joe.

He was arrested yesterday and put in jail briefly after arriving five hours late to a hearing, citing “the flu.”

Well, just in case you do, some folks have rapidly put together the Christian Bale Soundboard, where you can sample all sorts of wonderful tidbits from his rant.

Honestly I’m probably not getting anything else done today. All I want to do is play with this and listen to the fabulous techno mix of Christian’s insane rant that Wendie posted this morning.

I can’t wait until it hits the clubs!

Oh, and the other thing I’m going to do today is wait for Christian to issue an apology.

How has he not said anything yet?