Photographer shot outside Britney Spears' home

Via Drudge, dateline Malibu:

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - A photographer was shot in the leg with a pellet gun outside Britney Spears' home Saturday evening, authorities said.

It was unclear who fired the plastic pellet as the photographer was staking out an event at the pop singer's Malibu home, Sheriff's Department Lt. Steve Smith said. He said firefighters bandaged the man's leg and he went to a hospital.

"It could've been somebody driving by, walking by, we have no idea where it came from," Smith said.

The photographer, identified as Brad Diaz, was about 200 yards from the home and outside Spears' long driveway when he was hit, Smith said.

A message left with Spears' publicist was not immediately returned Saturday night.

Okay. When you quit laughing, let's take a moment to examine this story closely. The guy was shot with a plastic pellet gun, and the projectile struck him in the leg. This, poor old Brad clearly thought, was a serious enough event to call 911 (why else would firefighters have bandaged his leg?).

Look, Brad. If you've wound up at the bottom of the journalism tide pool that is candid celebrity photography, I'd say you'd better be willing to put up with the risks involved. Anyone staking out Johnny Knoxville's house, for example, should be ready to put up with being chased around by half-naked men piloting souped-up golf carts with cow catchers on the front end.

The only reason people who write and shoot for those loathsome tabloids you find at the checkout aisle in the supermarket aren't busy having the pants sued off them is because a lawsuit makes whatever lies and unflattering pictures they've published a matter of public record. Celebrities don't want to deal with the hassle of taking these morons to court.

Of course, while Mr. Diaz certainly deserved a pop in the leg with a pellet gun (buddies and I would do the same thing at work to each other with the frighteningly-realistic pellet guns you could buy off-post in Korea), I think Britney Spears deserves whatever happens to her, as well, for subjecting us to years of poppy "noise" that only barely fits the definition of music and which only ever served as vehicle for her pederast-inspiring videos.

They're all just another good argument for nuclear holocaust, as Bill Hicks might have said.

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