Inbar Bakal is a little nervous about the trip to Israel she's making this month. Sure, it's been three years since she's been there. But it's where the Tel Aviv native grew up, where she learned and performed music both in classical choirs and folk contexts, and where she served in the military -- two years as an intelligence officer in the anti-aircraft division (the first female to hold that position) and two doing international relations.

Six years living in the U.S., though, has brought some changes, she says. To her perspective on her identity. And to her music.

On the former, she returns with some deeper appreciation and a sense that maybe she needed to be outside Israeli life for a bit to realize how much a part of her it is.

"Being a Jewish person in Israel, I was taking it for granted," she says, even with coming from a mixed heritage of an Iraqi-born father and a Yemenite mother. "You're not really thinking about your identity. Holidays are holidays. You're with your family. Everyone around you is Jewish. Coming here it was very much, 'OK, I'm without my family, without my friends. How do I fit in my identity?' And finding that was important to me."

Yoko Ono has proved herself a good judge of talent. After all, she did bag (literally!) one of the greatest musicians of all time. With her 100 percent track record on the line, she told Spinner recently that she supports Britney Spears and finds her "very courageous." That endorsement could have something to do with Ono's recent obsession with dance music -- even if Spears is prone to lip-syncing, she's still got the moves.

"I was always third runner-up." --Jessica Simpson

In a recent interview, the blond bombshell discussed what it was like to be compared to ... other blond bombshells. She explained, "I wanted to set myself apart from [Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera]."


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"It was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." --Fred Durst

The Limp Bizkit frontman is still talking about his 2003 relationship with Britney Spears. He added, "It is very interesting [in terms of] how things have been sort of unraveling for her since." Pot, meet kettle.

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On This Date in 2004: Britney Spears weds childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander in a Las Vegas chapel. The marriage is annulled after 55 hours.

The Almanac Advises for January 3: "Marriage between two people who consider themselves soul mates often last longer than average due to the already established bond between the couple."

The folks at EMI are none too happy with Lily Allen now that her cover of Britney Spears' 'Womanizer' is available all over the Web. The British singer is blaming Mark Ronson, however, for playing it unedited on the radio, so it's like, totally not her fault.

According to Allen's MySpace blog, she recorded the track -- which won't be on her upcoming album, 'It's Not Me, It's You' -- because she loves both Spears and the song. "It wasn't my intention for it to have whizzed round the world like it has," she writes.

Even if you don't go there hourly to spy on your friend's friends, it's good to know you can still count on MySpace to bring out the red flags. Case in point? Britney Spears, as part of her comeback campaign, recently submitted a list of her favorite songs to MySpace Celebrity. And they ran it as is. Oops! She did it again!


For starters, she misspelled Sinead O'Connor's first name as "Shanade," when listing the Irish singer for the song 'Nothing Compares 2 U.' Whether or not Spears knows that it is actually a Prince cover remains unknown, however we would like to congratulate her for finally recognizing that 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' belongs to Joan Jett. She did fail to mention that Jett performed it with the Blackhearts, but we're just glad she doesn't attribute it to Pat Benatar anymore.