REVENGE OF THE SITH -- I.S.U. EDITION: Pate site member doc loch (and if you know how to play Match Game with "Loch ----," you may know who that is), noticed a familiar name in the Reuters story, "Star Wars 'Stand-A-Thon' Kicks Off in New York:" "We all know what it's like to go through this insanity even though its temporary," said Steve Lorenzo, 39, a technical writer for a software company. "It's like a class or family reunion even though it's not." Heh heh heh...

THE RAVEONETTES get a lukewarm review for Pretty In Black. FWIW, I like what I've heard so far, though perhaps not as much as Chain Gang of Love, at least o­n first listen. I suspect the reviewer may be too young to remember that the Velvet Underground and the Jesus and Mary Chain mellowed over time also.

NEW ORDER played "Love Will Tear Us Apart" o­n Jimmy Kimmel Live. Streams here.

OVERRATED ALBUMS are getting blogged by Michele at A Small Victory. And she's defending The Clash's London Calling. against the charge.

HASIL ADKINS, a unique rockabilly artist, dead at 67. Tiny Mix Tapes explains just how unique he was. And there's more at Hit and Run.

WILLIE NELSON: Texas state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, an Austin Democrat, proposed naming a 49-mile stretch of Texas Highway 130 being built around Austin in honor of the Texas country music singer. But two Republican senators said they didn't want Nelson's name o­n the road that crosses their districts, citing Nelson's drinking, smoking and active campaigning for Democrats -- so there will be no Nelson Highway.

TOM AND KATIE UPDATE: Katie Holmes o­nce told Seventeen magazine: "I think every little girl dreams about (her wedding). I used to think I was going to marry Tom Cruise." But she's also said she's saving herself for Mr. Right and there'll be no sex before marriage. I knew that the New York Post would want to land o­n this like a ton of bricks and the paper bypassed Page Six to do an entire article o­n media skepticism of the pairing. The lede: "LESS than 48 hours after Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' publicists sought to convince the world that the unlikely pair have embarked o­n a hot romance, CNN's Bill Hemmer said o­n American Morning: 'What kind of sham is this, by the way?'"

CRUISE EXTRA: Out promoting War of the Worlds with Spielberg, Tom gets hit with some tough questioning about his involvement with Scientology by Der Spiegel (which isn't surprising, given that Scientology has had a rough go of it in Germany).

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY topped the weekend box office, but I was mildly disappointed. The filmmakers were in a bit of a box -- people who know the material won't have much to complain about, but they won't be surprised much, either. Nevertheless, glad I saw it, if o­nly for Sam Rockwell, who turned a typically wonderful performance as Zaphod. I also saw Kung Fu Hustle and liked it but didn't love it -- which may be a recommendation since I don't care much for the martial arts genre.

DAVID HASSELHOFF was named international star of the year at Bollywood's version of the Oscars. It just goes to show that running o­n the beach in slo-mo is the universal language.

TERI HATCHER: Less desperate these days.

SOME PROMINENT BLOGGERS are starting a news service. The response to their offer to join an advertising network has been big.

A BLOG REBELLION among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.

CATS AND DOGS: Firefighters in Fairfield, CT have 15 new oxygen masks for dogs and cats that can be used to treat animals overcome by smoke inhalation during a fire. It turns out that this has also happened in places like Ohio. And in Florida, Seminole County has oxygen masks for hamsters.

DOGS: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical lists the Top 10 Dog Peeves About Humans.

LIGERS AND WHOLFINS AND ZONKEYS, oh, my!

MAN BITTEN BY POISONOUS SPIDER SAVED by his picturephone.

PETA PROTESTED J-LO at the premiere of her new movie, Monster-in-Law.

ELVIS COSTELLO, BOB DYLAN, THE WHO, THE BOOMTOWN RATS, IGGY POP, KISS, THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA AND THE KINKS are just a few of the bands and artists featured in a French photog's flickr gallery in all of their 1970s glory.

MC5 DVD of archival material drops in July.

THE DAVE MATTHEWS BAND settled a lawsuit stemming from human waste dumped from a tour bus o­nto people touring the Chicago River, agreeing to pay $200,000 to an environmental fund and take measures to avoid a repeat of the incident. Not sure what that last bit means... maybe they won't be using the john o­n their tour bus anymore.

NELLIE McKAY is working o­n her next album for a September release, which will feature a duet with Cyndi Lauper o­n a track titled "Bee Charmer." If you haven't herad her debut double-disc, you can stream clips from her site.

THE CAESARS seem to have a good attitude about the fame the iPod Shuffle ad using "Jerk It Out" has brought: "And if they o­nly come out to hear the iPod song, that's fine too. We'll never complain about that. We'd rather be a o­ne-hit wonder than a no-hit wonder, you know?"

IRAQ: Forensic experts are investigating a mass grave thought to contain the remains of as many as 1,500 Kurds killed in the 1980s.

IRAQ II: The U.S. and Italy disagree o­n the conclusions of a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq. An Army official said Italy was disputing two factual issues in the report: the car's speed as it approached the checkpoint and the nature of communications between the Italians and U.S. forces before the incident. CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad. For some reason, the Los Angeles Times edited that fact out of the Reuters story I just linked. Twice, actually.

CULT OF THE iPod: The Dutch are considering taxing MP3 players by the gigabyte.

CHINA: The government is now decrying demonstrations against Japan, having figured out that the marchers were not simply motivated by opposition to Japan.

ADVERTISING IDOL: Jeff Jarvis figures out a new way to get people to watch advertising.

GANGADHAM: A Hindu Disneyland o­n the Ganges? It's the Moksha Kingdom!

BACTERIA can now be programmed like a computer.

A CALIFORNIA PROFESSOR IS SUSPENDED after students in the Deaf Studies program complained that he tried to get them to take part in a Nigerian investment scam.

PENELOPE CRUZ denies she's a lesbian. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

LEBANON: The government formally announced the election will be held o­n time - o­n May 29th 2005. Michael J. Totten, blogging from Beirut, is ecstatic.

DIGITAL CINEMA: Steven Soderbergh has signed a deal with the billionaire entrepreneurs Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner to create six pictures shot by Soderbergh o­n high-definition video that will be released simultaneously in theatres, o­n DVD and television.

ROBOTS can elect their leaders and operate in packs. I, for o­ne, welcome our new robot overlords.

BURIED TREAURE UPDATE: Maybe it wasn't buried: The men who made national headlines by claiming they found a buried treasure in a Massachussetts back yard were charged Friday with stealing the collection of old currency from a house where they were doing roofing work.

EXPLODING TOADS UPDATE: As the exploding toads spread from northern Germany to Denmark, a scientist studying the amphibian remains theorizes that the phenomenon may be caused by crows pecking out their livers.

KEIKO IHARA, a former Japanese "race queen," is competing in the British Formula Three championship which produced Formula o­ne great Ayrton Senna.

THE UNITED NATIONS Commission o­n Human Rights will have Zimbabwe sitting as a member for the next three years. No wonder even U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed disbanding the UNCHR.

QATAR is paying protection money to al-Qaeda. A Qatari says they "are not the o­nly o­nes doing so."

KYRGYZSTAN may be moving toward democracy; let's hope that helps put a stop to the growing practice of abducting women for marriage.

MALE AND FEMALE BRAINS are different. Who'da thunkit? Research into these variations could lead to sex-specific treatments for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia.

JACKO JUSTICE: Prosecutors in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial o­n Friday showed jurors two books seized from his bedroom in 1993 that include pictures of nude boys. Would you be surprised to learn that Googling the titles of those books turns up A History of Homoerotica? Of course not.

DON'T CROSS THE GIRL SCOUTS: A scout group has filed small-claims lawsuits against people who failed to pay for their Girl Scout Cookies.

DO YOU BELIVE IN MIRACLES? That's what Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said it would take for Democrats to win a majority in 2006.

TRADING PLACES: At the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum blogs an essay by Michael Walzer in the current issue of Dissent arguing that over the past few decades the basic temperaments of left and right in the United States have swapped places with each other. I think that there will be those o­n both sides that will disagree with that assessment, but it's an interesting argument.

SPIDERMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA and... Donald Rumsfeld.

HIGH GAS PRICES: The New York Times has run an article arguing that one thing President Bush could do immediately to fix our energy woes is to bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit. Aside from the fact that Congress would have to do this, rather than the President, the graph accompanying the story undermines the argument, as it shows that demand for gasoline did not drop until five or six years after the 55 m.p.h. limit was imposed in 1973. EconoPundit notes better strategy. Plus, the article ignores the Hagar factor.

EATING ICE CREAM MAKES YOU HAPPY, as confirmed by scientists. And thousands of women dumped by their boyfriends.

DROP THE CHALUPA! No, really, drop it.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

FRIDAY TIME-WASTER: Yo La Tengo: Prisoners of Love -- the hipster's version of the classic "Breakout." And a nice way for Matador Records to promote the band's retrospective collection.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS have posted the title track from the forthcoming Twin Cinema for download. Me likes it!

THE POSIES' album, Every Kind of Light, comes out around the end of June. You can hear a clip at the site for the Paleo festival.

BLOC PARTY is shaking up British indie rock, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

LEADBELLY: The o­nly known film appearance of the legendary singer, edited by Pete Seeger, can be streamed at iFilm.

THE TROGGS TAPES: Said to be a major inspiration for This Is Spinal Tap, tapes of "instrumental incompetence, mutual recrimination and much foul language" are available to stream or download at LimeOne. Internet... I think I love you...

TALKING BACK TO 80's MUSIC: The latest in a series at Protein Wisdom. Also: the latest in Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.

REVENGE OF THE SITH: Kevin Smith, director of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, has seen Episode III and geeks out over it: "Revenge of the Sith is, quite simply, f---ing awesome. This is the Star Wars prequel the haters have been bitching for since Menace came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying. As dark as Empire was, this movie goes a thousand times darker..."

GEORGE LUCAS talks about "Life After Darth."

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH talks about life after Devo.

BRADGELINA UPDATE: Us Weekly and Star magazine are having a tabloid catfight over those famous photos.

TOM CRUISE AND KATIE HOLMES photographed kissing, but still met with skepticism.

OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL investigation spreads to German companies and a French bank.

PRESIDENT BUSH TO WED SAUDI PRINCE: A Borowitz Report exclusive and likely to remain so.

THE BIG BOY GRAVEYARD. Or Dr. Evil's crash site.

BOOZE IS BRAIN FOOD, when taken in moderation, of course.

TWIN CITIES FOLK like Pate bassist Mike Kelly may want to check out the newly-launched mnspeak site which, despite its title, does not read as though written by the cast of Fargo.

WAL-MART will burn a mix CD and mail it to you.

TABLETOP FUSION: Seth Putterman, a physicist at the UCLA, has turned a tiny crystal into a particle accelerator. Putterman is not claiming to have created a source of virtually unlimited energy, because the reaction isn't self-sustaining. Even so, it's pretty neat.

DO THE BOSSA NOVA to the songs of The Clash, Joy Division, Modern English and more, courtesy of Nouvelle Vague, streaming from VH1.

BOB MOULD: Billboard has details o­n his July release of Body of Song.

MINUTEMEN: Flagpole magazine covers the making of the documentary, We Jam Econo: the Story of the Minutemen.

CBGB Gallery hosted a fete for director Don Letts' Punk: Attitude, which premieres on IFC in July. Tommy Ramone, "Handsome" Dick Manitoba of the Dictators, Martin Rev of Suicide, Punk magazine founders Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch were among those who turned out for Letts, who direcrted every Clash video. ALSO: The legendary venue could be could be saved if you bought enough chocolate.

COBRA VERDE'S John Petkovic examines the merger of hip-hop and pro basketball.

SPRINGSTEEN: Uncle Grambo raves over the Boss in the Motor City.

THE ONION: The St. Petersburg Times goes behind the laughter with the writers of the satirical newspaper.

BATMAN BEGINS: The full trailer is o­nline, looking good in glorious QuickTime. As much of the movie was shot in Chicago, I'll have some behind the scenes photos for y'all as the June premiere approaches.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY opens today to mixed reviews. But if you're so inclined, here's a guide to the Guide.

IRAQ: Iraq's National Assembly approved a list of Cabinet members Thursday to form a new government, though five positions have been filled temporarily after talks failed to produce a compromise. ALSO: The toughest commute in Iraq is the trip to the airport.

DOGS are going gangsta. And I'm not talking about Snoop, fo shizzle.

BLOGGERS AS JOURNOS: Julie Hilden of FindLaw (via CNN) argues that bloggers should benefit from any privilege that extends to journalists, largely for the reasons I have stated here before, but adds another point: Those who doubt that bloggers should share journalists' legal privileges should consider that bloggers already share journalists' legal risks.

THE HUFFINGTON POST: Arianna Huffington's soon-to-launch celbrity group blog is already being parodied -- oddly enough -- by The London Guardian.

ROSIE O'DONNELL: New blog address, same demented blank verse.

JUICED BASEBALL: While Congress turns its eye to other sports, Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, tells a tale of two sluggers.

PROM THEME: The Boston Globe reports that local high school administrators, worried about students' increasingly vulgar music tastes, have been delivering a pointed message to DJs: Keep it clean, or we keep the paycheck.

SONGS OF THE DECADES, as voted by BBC Radio 2 listeners. The current round of voting covers 1965-74. BTW, the Beatles didn't win the prior period...

JINGLES: Watching the zillionth ad to use a rock song as a soundtrack for no particular reason, it occurred to me that advertising has suffered from the death of the jingle. My co-clerk Debbie pointed me to this stream at NPR o­n the topic.

GANG OF FOUR: Dave Allen gives an interview about the band reunion and the reissue of Entertainment! to Suicide Girls.

ON THE PITCHFORK: The New Pornographers' new disc, Twin Cinema, will be finished and released around August 23rd. Ben Folds' Songs for Silverman gets a decidedly snarky review.

PULP founder Jarvis Cocker gives BBC Radio 4 his desert island discs. You would expect Joy Division to make the list, but Engelbert Humperdinck?

LET'S GET IT OVER WITH: The Black Eyed Peas are planning solo careers after the release of their next album.

ONE HIT WONDERS are blogged at The Volokh Conspiracy. Is Looking Glass mentioned? Of course!

BRADGELINA UPDATE: Angelina Jolie has been accused of tipping off photographers about her romantic holiday with Brad Pitt, for personal and charitable reasons.

MADONNA: Famed movie director Norman Jewison is not wowed by Madge, to put it mildly.

BRITNEY SPEARS COMES IN LAST in an America Online poll of over 75,000 kids as to who would make the coolest celebrity mom. Jessica Simpson won. That's bad news for Britney and civilization generally.

LINDSAY LOHAN: Page SixSixSix comments o­n a blind item from the New York Post's Page Six.

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE: Bradgelina, Jessica Simpson and the Lohan also made People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People issue, due out Friday. Oops... Spears loses again. BTW, the Lohan is photographed with Ann-Margaret and there's a bit of a resemblance there. Jessica Alba makes it, natch. And Eva Longoria is the o­nly Desperate Housewife o­n the list -- let the catfight begin!

TOM CRUISE AND KATIE HOLMES have been dating for a few weeks. I can't wait to read the innuendo Page Six will ladle o­nto this story. Perhaps blatantly pointing out that both have big summer movies to promote?

AMERICAN IDOL: ABC News is hearing from Paula Abdul's attorney in advance of the Primetime Live expose set to air next Wednesday.

X-WING STARFIGHTER up for auction o­n eBay. You still have a couple of days to bid!

NETFLIX SENT BAI LING to meet and greet the hardcore Star Wars geeks camped out in front of Graumann's Chinese Theater.

IRAQ: Hours after gunmen killed a Shiite Muslim lawmaker in her home, Iraq's new prime minister submitted a complete list of 36 Cabinet members. The Cabinet would have 17 Shiite Arab ministers, eight Kurds, six Sunni Arabs and o­ne Christian, fulfilling promises by leaders of the Shiite majority to share power with ethnic and religious minorities; seven of the ministers would be women.

IRAQ II: Wednesday, there were plenty of headlines like this o­ne from CNN: "Myers: Insurgency same as year ago." The story itself is a little different. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers noted that while the number of attacks was about the same as a year ago, that's less than before the election, half of the attacks are ineffective and U.S. troops are devoting more of their time to training Iraqi forces. Even so, CNN did a better job than the London Guardian, which claimed that "The Pentagon has said that Iraq's insurgents have lost none of their ability to inflict devastating attacks over the past year..." Apparently, the folks at the Guardian don't realize that the Internet allows people to compare coverage and spot this sort of thing.

GOOD MORNING, TIKRIT! Lt. Col. Todd Wood of the 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion of the 70th Infantry Regiment, does a weekly radio call-in show o­n FM 96.5, which the troops call "the Rock of Tikrit." The "hearts and minds" effort is so popular that it's rerun a couple of times a week.

JACKO JUSTICE: Michael Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe testified that she was never scripted or rehearsed to say positive things about him to rebut a damaging TV documentary. However, she had been offered a list of questions by her interviewers. Rowe said of Jackson, "we've been friends and we were married." Asked about her domestic arrangements, she said, "We never shared a home." Rowe was not asked whether Jacko is the biological father of Prince and Paris, presumably due to a defense objection.

DOG HELD FOR RANSOM is recovered unharmed.

MEET THE NEW JAMES BOND, same as the old James Bond. But not the James Bond.

VIRGINIA WOMAN went to bed with her eight-year-old daughter sleeping at her side, but awoke in the arms of a neighbor -- who is a convicted sex offender.

HOMELESS MAN COLLECTS $230K in a lawsuit, spends it, files another lawsuit.

TOGO: Eleven deaths have now been officially reported in clashes between the ruling party and opposition forces in Togo in the aftermath of the disputed Sunday election. Wait, make that 22 dead.

ROBOT SCULPTURES: Wired profiles the Amorphic Robot Works, an artists' group operating out of a former ashtray factory.

DAVE, MY MIND IS GOING: A reporter for New Scientist plays Abbott & Costello with today's artificial intelligence.

DAVID SCHWIMMER AND KIM CATRALL canoodling? And to think I just ate...

LEBANON: As I previously suggested, Syria has not withdrawn a significant part of its intelligence presence in Lebanon.

THE HUFFINGTON POST: As the list of celebs signing up for Arianna Huffington's soon-to-launch group blog swells, fishbowl LA speculates as to who will actually be writing it.

PODCASTING AND RADIO: In May, Infinity Broadcasting plans to convert San Francisco's KYCY (1550 AM) to listener-submitted content. Business 2.0 asks, Who Needs o­nline Radio? A Newsday article surveys shows featuring unsigned bands, mp3 blogs and video.

PERSONALIZED POSTAGE: Although embarrassed when editors from the Smoking Gun website ordered stamps featuring a high-school photo of the Unabomber, former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosovic and Monica Lewinsky-confidante Linda Tripp, the Postal Service has given Stamps.com the go-ahead to bring back custom stamps for an additional year of testing. The Smoking Gun celebrates with a gallery of those wacky stamps, including sheets featuring the Rosenbergs and college yearbook photos of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who used the postal service to deliver his homemade bombs.

BELARUS: Police detained more than two dozen protesters who tried to present a petition to President Alexander Lukashenko o­n the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

CONVICTED MILLENIUM BOMBER provided information o­n more than 100 suspected terrorists, helped shut down clandestine Al Qaeda cells and exposed valuable organizational secrets of the global terrorist network.

YO, HO, A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR YOU? Disney o­nline is developing a new massively multiplayer o­nline role-playing game based o­n Pirates of the Caribbean, to promote the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in Summer 2006.

THAI MAN had around 50 maggots hatch in his ears. Everybody say it together: Eeeeeewwww!