SUFJAN STEVENS was o­n the MTV, disclaiming responsibility for Texas. Yesterday, I mentioned that Stevens is contributing to a Rubber Soul tribute album. Today, I note that Welcome to the Midwest is killing music.

GREEN DAY has pulled its early albums and EPs from the Lookout! label. So if they were o­n your wish list, now would be the time to get them.

YOU AIN'T NO PICASSO is really killing the music these days, including new Sonic Youth songs.

RYAN ADAMS submits to the mob.

THE BLACK KEYS: I keep forgetting to mention that if you like your blues-rock duos with a little less garage and theatricality than the White Stripes, you could do worse than the Black Keys. The Fat Possum label has MP3s from Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory for your guilt-free downloading pleasure.

AL ARONOWITZ, who introduced Bob Dylan to the Beatles, is dead of cancer at age 77. Dylan wrote "Mr. Tambourine Man" in his kitchen.

BRADGELINA UPDATE: The L.A. Times goes behind the scenes of the pair's infamous Palm Springs photo shoot of "Domestic Bliss." Photographer Steven Klein said Pitt and Jolie remained "in character" through most of the two-day shoot.

ROAD PICTURE: Jack Kerouac's On the Road is coming to the big screen. Golden God Billy Crudup is set to star as legendary speed freak Neal Cassady.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: Wonka is slowly conquering overseas markets.

BATMAN BEGINS with a 14 year-old boy donning the cape and cowl in Edwards, CO. "He believes he's o­n a mission to help people get off drugs," Eagle County Sheriff's Office spokewoman Kim Andree said. "He really believes he's helping. I think the family is working o­n getting him some assistance." Or a room at the Hilton.

JESSICA SIMPSON: Hubby Nick Lachey was protesting too much o­n Live With Regis and Kelly.

JACKO JUSTICE: Michael Jackson has sold his first post-trial softball interview to the new, U.S. version of Britain's OK! magazine for two million bucks. Page Six notes that Jacko is now living in Bahrain with his three remarkably light-skinned children.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: NPR will be streaming her concert live Sunday night.

STEVEN MALKMUS is interviewed at PopMatters about his new album and more: "It's not really a singer-songwriter record but it's definitely in the same ballpark. I mean Matador probably started that a bit."

JOHN MAYER is calling o­n fans to make a song out of some lyrics that didn't make it o­nto his upcoming album. The winner will receive a Fender John Mayer Signature Stratocaster guitar... and no royalties, I'm guessing.

ANSWER SONGS seem to be a lost art these days, but a whole bunch of old o­nes are posted at WFMU's blog.

CBGB and its landlord have restarted negotiations that could keep the birthplace of punk rock at its current Lower East Side location. Once Soprano Steven Van Zandt intervened, a sit-down was inevitable.

AMERICANS NOT COMING TOGETHER: The massive voter-mobilization project, heavily funded by billionaire George Soros, is disbanding its state offices. With major unions leaving the AFL-CIO, someone like Howard Dean ought to view such news as an opportunity to centralize get-out-the-vote operations within the DNC, in line with the GOP's more efficient 2004 operation.

SIENNA MILLER is rumored to be pregnant by Jude Law. Reps for Miller and Law would not confirm or deny the report. If true, expect the bidding o­n a certain pool table to intensify. Factory Girl director swears his casting of Miller had nothing to do with her newly enhanced press profile. And VH1's Best Week Ever blog draws a parallel between the Law-Miller story and the final season of HBO's Six Feet Under (SPOILER WARNING).

FAKE MOVIE CRITICS cost Sony 1.5 million bucks.

FAKE MUNCH PAINTINGS stolen from Oslo's Hotel Continental. "It's a real fiasco for the thieves," hotel manager Siv Lunde Kolrud said.

IRAQ: Journo-blogger Steven Vincent was murdered in Basra.

ROBOTS EXPLORE LOST CITY UNDERSEA using high-speed Internet connections.

NANO-MEDICINE: Nanotubules are being used to kill cancer cells with laser heat and to deliver drugs to pre-determined locations anywhere in the human body.

HACK YOUR ELEVATOR: You can turn most elevators into your personal express car.

COSMIC RAYS may kill astronauts traveling to and returning from Mars. Or turn them into superheroes.

EDU-BLOGGING: The latest Carnival of Education is o­nline.

BEAT THE MARKET: Invest in virtue and vice.

PAYING A SPEEDING TICKET WITH PENNIES sounds clever, but the judge had the last laugh.

IRAQ II: Twenty-three Marines have been killed in recent days o­n missions in a number of towns along the Euphrates River simultaneously to seal a major infiltration route for foreign fighters and to try to deny insurgents the ability to move around freely and seek safe haven. Bill Roggio has analysis at the Fourth Rail, including a linked report to Iraqi blogger Omar's translated account of a meeting of the disparate elements of the insurgency in Lebanon. In this context, Roggio's prior post o­n escalation may be useful also.

CINCINNATI IS MORE INTO CORNHOLE THAN NYC: "There are places where cornhole, so familiar at Cincinnati church festivals and beer gardens, is considered an exotic form of recreation. One of them, apparently, is New York City, whence the Today show dispatched a crew Monday night to film a cornhole report." Who'da thunkit?

DOGS are cloned in South Korea. It has taken scientists longer to clone a dog than other animals because of the difficulty in producing mature, unfertilised canine eggs in the laboratory.

BRITISH PETS can now go to fat camp.

THE NARCOLEPTIC DACHSHUND: Rusty is cute and a little sad to watch.

PETA KFC PROTEST DRAWS MORE CUSTOMERS: ''There's a place in this world for all of God's creations . . . right next to the mashed potatoes,'' said Rusty Smith, a KFC customer who sat o­n a patch of grass outside the restaurant with a group of co-workers, watching the protest.

"GENTLEMEN'S" CLUB HOLDS GOLF OUTING, police investigation of public indecency follows. Video at the link...

WOMAN MARRIES WEDDING PLANNER: Life imitates mediocre romantic comedy.

CHEAP TRICK'S BUN E CARLOS has his own brand of coffee. You can even get an autographed bag at auction.

BOB MOULD: Chromewaves is your source for rich, bloggy goodness o­n the man and his new album.

HE WAS SO MUCH OLDER THEN: London's Telegraph has an article suggesting that the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home is part of Bob Dylan's plan to market himself to the younger generation.

DON'T GO BREAKIN' MY HEART: Stereogum kills music by posting an MP3 of the song as performed by ODB and Macy Gray. In this context, I use the term "music" loosely. Very loosely. The "killing" part, however, is near-literal. If you thought Elton and Kiki made this as bad as possible, you thought wrong.

JOHN DOE, promoting the new Knitters album, talks to the Chicago Sun-Times about the similarities of punk and country music.

FRANZ FERDINAND may have o­nly o­ne album out, but has already spawned a bluegrass tribute record.

THE RUNAWAYS: Edgeplay, a documentary about the all-girl rock band written and directed by their second bassist, Victory Tischler-Blue, debuts o­n Showtime this week. It has all the elements of a VH1 Behind The Music, but cooler. It appears that Joan Jett didn't cooperate with this production, though she does get called a really good kisser by o­ne of her ex-bandmates.

DOWNLOADS AND STREAMS: Stereogum rounded up guilt-free MP3s o­n Friday. Imho, the cuts from Koufax, The Double, longwave, Hard-Fi (someone has the Clash Collection), and the Fruit Bats were okay. Brooklyn Vegan linked up the streams from Merge Records o­n Monday, including Man-Made by Teenage Fanclub (which sounds quite a bit like Teenage Fanclub, but less fuzzy overall) and Gone Ain't Gone from Tim Fite. What I heard of The Rosebuds' Unwind was pretty cool, too.

MP3 BLOGS: o­n the heels of the Chicago Tribune article noted yesterday, the Boston Globe runs a pice citing The Suburbs Are Killing Us, The Number o­ne Songs in Heaven and Soul-Sides.

BEST OF 2005 (SO FAR): This time all the way from Shanghai. o­nline retailer Insound lists its best of the rest of the year in its newsletter.

THE GODFATHER OF SOUL was encouraged to keep o­n keepin' o­n by Pope John Paul II. That's in o­ne of two books James Brown has "co-written." Martha Bayles' review tells which is the o­ne to get.

THE DAVE MATTHEWS BAND seems like it gets a good review from Page Six, but we later find that "the show didn't find its groove" until ex-Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio made a cameo.

PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer gats no respect from cartoons. Damon Albarn of Gorillaz: "The concert was all about raising awareness, but Peter looked like he was having trouble raising his own awareness - he looked wasted. He is well overrated."

BLAXPLOITATION: No doubt Quentin Tarantino is killing music if he ever visits Blaxploitation, which has plenty of soundtrack sample downloads available.

JACKO JUSTICE: Michael Jackson's latest greatest hits album has sold just 8,000 copies in its first week of release in the U.S. Even the hideous Invincible sold two million units.

CAT STEVENS thinks the problem behind the London terror bombings is that there's not enough Islamic education in Britain. Another theory might be that the problem is people like the converted Yusuf Islam, who publicly endorsed the death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie in February 1989. And who attends fundraisers for Hamas front groups at which he calls Judaism a "so-called religion." I don't think you want to be followed by Cat's moonshadow.

LONDON: Ramzi Mohammed, suspected of being responsible for the failed Oval bombing, tried to get the imam at his mosque sacked for preaching against terrorism. Yet the people in his community describe him as "sweet" and "an extremely nice, peaceful man."

BRADGELINA UPDATE: Pitt is rumored to have given up smoking under the threat of no sex from Jolie... but what about afterward?

HUGH JACKMAN and his wife have adopted a second child. Trying to keep up with Mr. & Mrs. Smith?

JUDE LAW, who admitted having a fling with his kids' nanny, told seemig ex-fiancee Sienna Miller he wants to have her baby to prove his commitment to her. It would also prove Law has a womb. The article notes that Miller's personal humiliation has been good for her career, landing her the Edie Sedgwick role in Factory Girl.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON now says that kissed her "like a 16-year-old schoolboy." Do you think she would have said that if The Island had not flopped?

CHRISTINA RICCI Cured Of Nymphomania By Samuel L. Jackson In Black Snake Moan: Whoever wrote that headline had a good day. However, I think starring opposite Justin Timberlake would have the same effect.

BRITNEY SPEARS is planning a Kabbalah blessing for her baby. Why not? The kid is going to need all the help he or she can get.

KATE HUDSON: A reporter for the Guardian seems vaguely peeved that Hudson handled her so easily. Imagine how that reporter would feel if she knew that Hudson splashes water over herself as protection her from her "negative" Hollywood peers.

SAUDI KING FAHD: Dead. The former Crown Prince Abdullah, Fahd's half brother, has been named the new Saudi king. Abdullah may be more reform-minded than others in the House of Saud, which may be faint praise. He has promised that women will be able to vote in local elections in 2009. That reformist streak also may extend to economic policy.

IRAQ: The big story in Iraq Monday may be what didn't happen. The head of the panel drawing up the new constitution did not seek a 30-day extension, announcing that a draft would be ready by the mid-August deadline. Iraqi blogger Omar (a dentist, iirc) thinks about potential compromises over some of the more controversial questions.

IRAQ II: Saddam's hidden money may be funding many of the diverse groups engaged in terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. Michael Yon has posted a prelude to a major report o­n progress and challenges in standing up Iraqi forces in Mosul, which takes you to his first major dispatch from that city for a review. Arthur Chrenkoff has his biweekly round-up of under-reported good news. Steven Bochco's Over There gets another scathing review from someone who has been over there. And Army Staff Sgt. Dale L. Horn has been named a sheik by elders in the region he patrols.

CULT OF THE iPod: An article in the Detroit News starts off with word that iPod bar nights are cropping up in Motown, but touches o­n a number of iPod-related societal issues.

PODCASTING: It looks like Fox is embracing podcasting to offer recaps of episodes of Fox shows and even recaps of last season for selected shows like 24 and Arrested Development for listening before the new season's launch.

THIS JUST IN: Men still hog the remote control.

THIS JUST IN II: When we have a hot Summer, more people buy ice cream.

THIS JUST IN III: Ford Motor Co. is ending a newly formed relationship with rapper Eminem. Turns out the young man uses cuss words!

UZBEKISTAN: The U.S. has lost a strategically significant base near the border with Afghanistan because it stood up for political liberty in a country rarely mentioned in the nightly news.

DOGS: Jake, a 4-year-old golden retriever, placed 72nd in the South End Rowing Club's 10th annual Alcatraz Invitational -- a 1.2 mile swim from the infamous prison island to the San Francisco shore -- beating 428 humans.

CATS rule the Internet, according to Sara Boxer of The New York Times. Imho, Ms. Boxer is often wrong about such things, so I take this with a grain of salt. And Ms. Boxer has never had much good to say about bloggers, hence this: "Those cats are like so many bloggers sitting at home staring into their computer screens and watching other bloggers blog other bloggers. Cats, who live indoors and love to prowl, are the soul of the blogosphere. Dogs would never blog." So, in that analogy, what sort of animal is the o­ne stuck having to write about bloggers for the NYT?

FUGITIVE TURTLE out cruising for chicks?

HORDES OF MONKEYS are invading Puerto Rico's agricultural fields, devastating crops and eluding capture. Primates are not native to Puerto Rico, but the island has been home to a species of monkey dating back to the 1950s, when scientists brought them here for medical experiments.

REMOVING AN ALLIGATOR FROM UNDER YOUR CAR: It's not as easy as poking it with a stick.