MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC: Wednesday's show will feature Stars, whose latest disc was well-reviewed o­n the Pitchfork. o­n Thursday, Kathleen Edwards is featured. If the show does not air o­n your local NPR station, you can always get it by streaming media or podcast from KCRW (thanks to Sylvia Hauser for the tip).

ROXY MUSIC REUNITES for a new album, including Brian Eno, who left the band in 1973.

ELVIS COSTELLO was interviewed at SXSW.

MERLE HAGGARD was interviewed by Billboard.

FIONA APPLE is emerging from the "Where are they now?" file through file-sharing, because Sony is refusing to sell her shelved album. You can also stream it via Scenestars.

CATS AND DOGS should be brushing their teeth regularly. ALSO: Another Carnival of the Cats. Zippy the pit bull has broken out of death row. And a Belgian loves dogs in an unnatural way.

TOASTED CHEESE SANDWICHES go gourmet in London.

I WANT MY HDTV: High-definition television makes some celebs look better, others not so much.

THE INCREDIBLES: Reviewed as only Jeff Goldstein can.

GENE WILDER: Newsweek has an interview and excerpts from his forthcoming memoir.

CULT OF THE iPod: The gadget has been banned by a Sydney private school because they lead to "social isolation". The New York Daily News does a "person o­n the street" piece asking Podpeople, "What are you listenting to?"

NEW ORDER: The forthcoming Waiting for the Siren's Call is now streaming from overseas.

PAULA ABDUL: Prosecutors are considering whether to file criminal charges against the alleged singer for an alleged hit-and-run freeway accident last December, officials said Thursday. Straight up?

CBGB: Among the efforts to save the landmark New York punk venue is a collection of limited-edition treats from Gotham candy store Chocolate Bar. There is a toll-free number in the linked story, which also mentions the store's website (but there is no listing for the treats at the site yet).

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS: Mickey Kaus (formerly of The New Republic and now with Slate) asks, "How is the American Prospect different from Armstrong Williams?" There is a difference insofar as Williams was paid by the government, but from the standpoint of the payee, Kaus may have a point.

SIN CITY: A ton of advance reviews are up at Ain't-It-Cool News, almost all raves. There's a separate review from AICN semi-regular Neill Cumpston, who has a style all is own, and not a particularly family-friendly o­ne at that.

GIVE NUKES A CHANCE? Kenneth N. Waltz, perhaps the leading living theorist of the foreign policy realists, thinks we should stop worrying and learn to love the Bomb.

IRAQ: You have to love Agence France-Presse. A March 21st story lede: "At least 45 people have been killed in insurgent attacks across Iraq as Washington defended its decision to go to war o­n the second anniversary of the US-led invasion." The next sentence: "Twenty-four Iraqi insurgents were killed and six coalition soldiers wounded in a firefight in a Baghdad suburb overnight..." Does that math work for the insurgents? ALSO: In The New York Times, John Burns reports there have been signs that the tide may be shifting in favor of the U.S. along Haifa Street in Baghdad (a/k/a "Purple Heart Boulevard"). Time magazine reports on the growing professionalism of The Iraqi Special Forces Brigade.

KYRGYZSTAN: There is more heavy unrest over the parliamentary elections. President Askar Akayev o­n Monday ordered the Central Election Commission and Supreme Court to investigate alleged election violations and agreed to talk with the protesters.

SHAWN COLVIN, LORRAINE BRACCO, TERRY BRADSHAW and other celebrities are inking deals with drug companies to talk about their depression.

FEYNMAN LECTURES can be found here in both pdf and MP3 formats, for all you science geeks.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ AND BONO discussed World Bank issues last week. Wonkette can only imagine what that sounded like.

THE STATE OF ADVERTISING: The more things change, the more they stay the same?

PLAYGIRL EDITOR stripped of her duties after she revealed how she voted Republican in the 2004 election.

NEXT STOP, JURASSIC PARK: Scientists hope to clone a Woolly Mammoth with a body recovered from the Siberian tundra.

DO COMPUTERS HELP EDUCATE KIDS? "The less pupils use computers at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy and maths, the largest study of its kind says," according to the London Telegraph.

TURTLE survives a fire, but its shell now bears the image of a devil's head.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE TO EXPLAIN COKE AND PEPSI TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, but apparently I do. The Associated Press reports that the Coca-Cola Co. will launch a no-calorie version of its trademark soft drink called Coca-Cola Zero in the United States in June. The drink will be sweetened partly with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

The AP then reports "Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo Inc. also has several different varieties of Pepsi and Diet Pepsi, including a one-calorie cola called Pepsi One, which is sweetened with Splenda." This is flat wrong. Splenda is made from sucralose, a modified version of sugar. Pepsi One is not sweetened with sucralose, as a glance at a bottle or can will reveal. Indeed, Pepsi One is sweetened with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium, just like the new Coca-Cola Zero will be, assuming the AP got that right. The AP adds that Pepsi "Spokesman Dave DeCecco said Pepsi does not have any current plans for a zero-calorie version of Pepsi." Of course not; Pepsico already has Diet Pepsi and Pepsi One. Next time, the AP might have its reporter read a pop can, or ask someone to explain it to them.

WRAPPED DETECTIVE: The DJ who brought you "Paperback Believer" now delivers a monster mash-up of Elvis Costello, The Police, Lionel Richie, Peggy Lee, Bob Marley, The Hollies and Led Zeppelin.

BRENDON BENSON is profiled by the Detroit Free Press. Unsurprisingly, he had problems with his label. Check the Benson links I posted Friday if you missed them.

STEVE WYNN: Pitchfork has a review of his post-Dream Syndicate retrospective, the wonderfully titled, What I Did After My Band Broke Up.

FREEBIRD! The Wall Street Journal (by way of the Naples Daily News) tries to clear Chicago as the source of rock's oldest joke.

"I AM A GOLDEN GOD!" Jim DeRogatis recaps Robert Plant's keynote at SXSW. To his credit, Plant paid his respect to Pinetop Perkins.

SEX JUST ISN'T A BIG DEAL ANYMORE: The Chicago Sun-Times kicked off a series with this headline o­n Friday. Of course, if it was true, it would be news, but would not be a page one headline. Rather, sex still sells, so there it is, a series on sex in college replete with sentences like, "Jeans hang precariously below shiny belly rings winking from firm, flat midriffs." Moreover, a glossary provided as a sidebar to the story describes a return home the morning after as the "stride of pride" or the "walk of shame," depending o­n whether a male or female is doing the walking [ though I admit the term "Cincinnati Bengal" is a funny twist o­n a familiar concept.] So it would appear that college has not turned into a judgment-free zone. Indeed, it would appear that college hasn't changed much since Claude Pate was an active band, given that Part Two of the series examines group dating. SEMI-RELATED: The dark underbelly of Spring Break.

DIRTY CHEERING: Legislation filed by Texas State Rep. Al Edwards would put an end to "sexually suggestive" performances at athletic events and other extracurricular competitions.

MEN AND WOMEN: Two new studies suggest that the female "inactive" X chromosome may eventually explain some of the behavioural and biological differences between individual women, and perhaps, between women and men. Clearly, Bill Gates should be working o­n new components.

JUST IN TIME FOR EASTER: Candles that smell like Jesus.

LARRY SUMMERS UPDATE: The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted that they lack confidence in the Harvard president. Now they don't know what will happen and it is slowing university business. That's a little tardy with those thinking caps, professors.

WARD CHURCHILL UPDATE: The University of Colorado professor whose book blaming the U.S. for 9/11 is titled, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens is finding out for whom the bell tolls.

ERNESTO ALMONTE manages to recall both Hannibal Lechter and Lorena Bobbitt.

ROCK FOR KIDS: The Associated Press notices rockers making albums for kids. But aside from They Might Be Giants and former Del Fuego Dan Zanes, it's mostly the rock equivalent of movie stars doing voices for animated flicks.

TOM WAITS makes a Top 20 Favorite Albums list for The Observer.

BECK: Sasha Frere-Jones writes that Guero "sums up everything Beck is good at, like an imaginary greatest-hits album."

ADAM DURITZ: The Counting Crows singer and Sideshow Bob lookalike was hitting o­n Mary-Kate Olsen. He should be more careful; he could have snapped her like a toothpick.

JACKO JUSTICE: Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon told Howard Stern Thursday that when Michael Jackson was a guest star o­n the animated series, he demanded the script be changed so his character could spend more time with Bart.

NO CLOTHES FOR XTINA: Christina Aguilera's multi-million contract to start a fashion line was terminated after she called celebrity lines "tacky."

CULT OF THE iPod: Not everyone is joining.

BLOGGERS AS JOURNALISTS: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Rocky Mountain News come out in favor of granting bloggers the same privileges as journalists. Now if they figure out that this means everyone should have the same rights...

IRAQ: The top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, according to The New York Times.

KYGYZSTAN: Protests over the parliamentary elections spread, in some cases erupting into riots. The interior department building in Jalal-Abad has been practically burned down. The government said it was ready to negotiate with the protesters who have demanded President Askar Akayev's resignation.

CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named o­n this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: How's the rehab going for the troubled singer? On St. Patrick's Day, he was joined o­n stage by former Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan. According to the New York Post's Page Six, "the two Guinness-swilling hellraisers sang incoherently together for 10 minutes, according to a witness, before McGowan stumbled offstage." Doherty galpal-fiancee-whatever Kate Moss fought with bouncers at the bar. And Doherty is inexplicably teaming up with Ocean Colour Scene. Well, maybe not inexplicable, just bizzare.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: The Killers' Japanese hotel hijinx were interrupted by ex-Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

THE "WHERE ARE THEY NOW?" FILE: The London Sunday Times covers Teenage Fanclub as they go indie to release their first disc in five years.

ST. PAT'S SHOCKERS: The Lucky Charms leprechaun is not Irish. And the creator of Lucky Charms was anything but.

APPROPOS OF ST. PAT'S DAY, the Kansas City Star recently profiled Flogging Molly; at The Nation, John Nichols profiles Damien Dempsey.

BOB MOULD: Contrary to earlier whispers, Billbooard reports that Mould's forthcoming solo disc will be more acoustic and "rock-based" than his last o­ne.

COCTEAU TWINS reunion, scheduled for Coachella and other festival dates, is cancelled, with Elizabeth Fraser citing unspecified personal reasons.

SMOOSH, a Seattle-based indie rock duo formed by kid sisters Asya, 13, and Chloe, 11, recorded their debut disc, She Like Electric at Egg Studios (well-known to fans of the Young Fresh Fellows and the Posies). The Associated Press interviewed them before they went to play SXSW.

THIRD-GRADER Commutes to School by Mule: A North Dakota girl really will be able to tell her kids, "When I was your age..."

STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE PHRASES: Amazon ought to integrate this technology into its A9 search engine.

LILEKS, after a bit about his daughter, weighs in o­n a debate over the impact of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and the worth of John Williams' soundtracks. Plus, he tells us what was o­n his iPod while writing it.

EDUCATION BLOGGING: The latest Carnival of Education is o­nline.

BILLY BRAGG is releasing "official bootlegs" through his website, with free preview downloads.

JON SPENCER, formerly of ***** Galore and his Blues Explosion, is teaming with Matt Verta-Ray to form Heavy Trash. Their album isn't out yet, but you can hear a track at the link to YepRoc records.

THE NAME GAME: The Wikipedia has a nice entry listing songs containing overt reference to real musicians. The listing for Reunion's "Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)" is about as lenghty as the entry for that song in the list for covert references to other musicians. I may have to submit an entry for "(Let's All) Turn o­n," by the Hoodoo Gurus.

DID THE NAZIS HAVE THE A-BOMB? According to Der Spiegel, a new book claims that the Nazis conducted three nuclear weapons tests in 1944 and 1945. But the reviewer says the book has no proof to back up that theory.

SEX BOMB: A blow-up doll sparked a bomb alert in a German post office after it started to vibrate inside a package awaiting delivery, police said Wednesday. The sender told police he was returning the doll because it kept turning itself o­n at the wrong moment.

JESSICA ALBA: I know what you're thinking: "Now he doesn't even have a Sin City story and he's still posting that Alba promo!" But it's not quite as bad as posting something from her GQ photo shoot. And certainly not as bad as the take you get o­n those photos from The Superficial.

VAL KILMER is not known for his sense of humor (Top Secret! notwithstanding), but he was pretty funny while having dinner at The Ivy Restaurant in London with Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Spacey.

NANOBACTERIA? Particles an astonishing 100 times smaller than bacteria have been observed inside dying cells in lab tests. Scientists are not sure that they are living organisms, but studies have linked them to kidney stones, aneurysms and ovarian cancer.

DOCTOR WHO: The pilot episode of the BBC's highly anticipated new Doctor Who series may have been intentionally leaked o­nto file-sharing networks to generate buzz, a source who instructed the network o­n viral advertising told Wired News. Viral or not, the leak has generated good advance buzz...

YAHOO! is preparing to introduce a new service that blends several of its popular features with blogging and social networking -- much like LiveJournal.

AOL INSTANT MESSAGING UPDATE: As I speculated earlier, AOL has wisely revised its Terms of Service for AIM to make clear that your messages remain private until posted to some public forum.

JANE FONDA claims that she was forced into threesomes with women while married to director Roger Vadim, according to the Daily Mail, apparently based o­n leaks from her forthcoming autobiography.

DEMI MOORE-ASHTON KUTCHER HELLSPAWN RUMORS: Moore's publicist issues another denial, though immediately following it with, "All I can tell you is what Demi tells me."

THE "WHERE ARE THEY NOW?" FILE: Sir Mix-A-Lot, the Seattle-based 17-year veteran rap artist known for such hits as "Baby Got Back," has sold over 500,000 copies of a ringtone for cellphones.

FABCHANNEL: If you have broadband access, you can stream concerts from Guided by Voices, Bettie Serveert, Sonic Youth and more from Paradiso Amsterdam.

WHENEVER POSSIBLE, PUT o­n SIDE o­nE OF LED ZEPPELIN IV: Boing-Boing has a thumbs-up for Erik Davis' book o­n the classic LP, including a short excerpt with some amusing sword-and-sorcery analogies.

TACKY XTINA: I recently gave drrty girl Christina Aguilera kudos for calling the practice of pop stars launcing fashion lines "tacky" and suggestive of an aimless career. I have to take those kudos back, as it turns out that Aguilera signed a deal reportedly worth millions of dollars to do the same.

BRENDAN BENSON is profiled by the Detroit Metro Times as he returns to the Motor City to work with Jack White.

PODCASTING: Former Senator and 2004 Veep candidate John Edwards is launching a weekly podcast to answer your questions and update you o­n his family and projects.

WONKETTE: Potty-mouthed DC gossip-blogger Ana Marie Cox was temporarily barred entry to a party being held for her at SXSW.

ANN COULTER is running for Mayor. No, not that Ann Coulter -- this o­ne, who apparently was accused of being an atheist in her bid to become Mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

BASEBALL o­n STEROIDS: Since it looks like the House Government Reform Committee will be holding that hearing o­n steroid use in pro baseball today, I thought I would link to blogging o­n the subject at Baseball Musings. The StatsGuru rightly points to element of grandstanding here -- though that's nothing new for Congress. However, when he wrote, "What I don't understand is why so many people think the drug testing policy has no teeth," he lost me. After all, he wrote the next day about how easy it is to beat the testing. Moreover, the o­nly way to detect human growth hormone is through blood testing, but MLB o­nly tests players' urine.

WOODY ALLEN gives an interview to Suicide Girls (shouldn't someone give the Woodman some PR advice?), in which he admits that Diane Keaton "always used to steal the picture from me."

KEVIN FEDERLINE: Mr. Britney Spears stinks. By which I mean he smells. Bad.

JACKO JUSTICE: Michael Jackson usually wakes up at about 4:30 a.m. to pray with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the minister and the singer's spokeswoman said Tuesday.