The Brits are lovely blokes, I have discovered in my time in London: a down-to-earth, pint-devouring, lively bunch. As far as I can tell, they possess only one collective flaw: their royalty fetish.

They are obsessed with William and Kate, so much so that pasty pictures of them on their honeymoon are everywhere right now. A society that has David Beckham and Gemma Atkinson* and opts for shirtless photos of William instead seems doomed to me, done in by silliness. Haven't the Brits evolved beyond admiring bloodlines rather than, say, actual achievement?

Even the French offed with Marie Antoinette's head and eventually this ridiculous idea of a country paying for a family to wear silly outfits, give themselves silly prefixes like The Earl of . . ., live in fancy palaces and throw very Vegas-sounding parties like The Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Yes, we have our own version of royalty in the States — athletes and entertainers — but they at least have to have a marketable skill-set like dunking a basketball or hitting a curveball or just being hot. This it would seem is a far better way of determining royalty. And as I determined when comparing their royal family to ours, well, just like the Revolutionary War, we win. Again.

— Jen Floyd Engel

* Brit males pointed me in this Gemma direction. I had to look her up. I say this trying to do a solid for all of my male readers: Do likewise.

It is good to be queen. For starters, everybody worships you. And although I have great admiration for her majesty for staying around for 60 years and rocking what I have to guess are knee-high stockings, what does she do? Oprah gives away cars and book ideas and makeovers. The queen is best known for her hats and for hating Princess Diana.

I am guessing being the husband of the queen is quite humbling, so I give Philip points for hanging in as long as he has. That said, who do you want repping your country. Him? Or Manning, who most recently called the family of one of the shooting victims in Colorado. Knowing Manning, he did this because he really is a good dude. (Could have chosen Tom Brady here, but that would have been fish-in-a-barrel easy. The dude is married to Gisele and has model good looks.)
 

Am I the only one incapable of getting those "love letters" to Camilla out of my brain? Yuck. We do not insist our royalty be flawless — Kobe hardly is — just that said flaws come standard with talent. And, no, being born first is not a talent.
 

This might actually have been a debate were we talking about Charles' first wife, Diana. Even my hardened royal heart liked her, which is probably why the royals did not. Yes, JLo has divorces on her resume and the whole Bennifer debacle. She also is a genius businesswoman.
 

William seems like a good dude, devoted husband, son and grandson. My question is: What does he do? No really, what is his occupation beyond repping his country? LeBron does that in his off time, you know, after winning an NBA title and trying to repair his image.
 

How can you not like Kate? A commoner marrying into royalty is pretty cheeky, not to mention a girl who actually dumped the prince for a time. The girl has guts, very much like the roles Stone takes on (think: "The Help"). It's a shame, Kate's will be wasted cutting ribbons and delivering heirs. The further one is away from the throne the luckier they are. Look at Zara Phillips, granddaughter to the queen and 14th in line, who gets to focus her energy and talent and thus is on the British equestrian team competing in this Olympics.

The biggest non-security news from this Olympics so far is that Harry is off the market. He is dating — rather seriously, to much sadness and dismay expressed by women of all ages. This feels very much like all the dissecting of Harper. The difference is we are interested in Harper's swing and swagger and talent not simply an adorable freckled face.

There really is no comparison, of course. One is one of the best baseball players of my generation. The other is the guy who launched Fergie onto us.

It is hard to say who did more to damage his or her reputation — Fergie or Tiger? Both were tabloid fodder for a while and got muddied up pretty good. The difference is Tiger goes back to playing golf and Fergie, well, promotes Weight Watchers. Good for her.

If swimming were not a once-every-four-year sport, Phelps would be one of the biggest athletes in the world. And if Edward had been born first, he'd be in line to be king. I guess the best thing that can be said about Edward is we rarely hear about him.

Why does Disney keep giving us princesses as heroines? Little girls should be playing dress-up like Tina Fey. "I get to wear the jeans." "No, I do." "OK, then I get to write the '30 Rock' script." "Fine, I get to anchor the news on 'Saturday Night Live.' " And Anne might be the most impressive royal of all. She at least competed in the 1976 Games.

There are no winners here, well, except for all of y'all, for whom having these pictures next to each other makes for a good day.