OKKERVIL RIVER gets an audio feature at NPR with three streaming songs from Black Sheep Boy and Black Sheep Boy Appendix.

THE ARCTIC MONKEYS have reached a truce with the Kaiser Chiefs and get praise from the Test Icicles.

ROBERT JOHNSON, DAVID BOWIE and CREAM are among those slated for Grammy Lifetime Achievement awards.

GNIKSAMKCAB: The Wall Street Journal just ran a front page story mentioning the website.

DOWNLOAD PROBE: Digital Music News has a source claiming that New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer is looking at the way major labels constructed contracts with various paid music outlets.

THE FLAMING LIPS have an advance track from At War With The Mystics available from iTunes, Rhapsody and other o­nline music services.

ROD STEWART: At 61 years old, a seven-week-old baby can be a little tiring.

LOOSE FUR, which features Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche with multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke, will release Born Again in the U.S.A. o­n March 21. BONUS: Prefix has a review of and video from Tweedy's solo show in NYC.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS has announced new tour dates for February and March.

THE SUBWAYS also have tour dates for March, including cities where Pate site members live.  You can stream a few from MySpace or download the T. Rex-influenced "Rock and Roll Queen" right now.

PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer has been charged with possession of cocaine and heroin, but apparently not with DUI. And he's had to take over guitar duties with Babyshambles, as their guitarist quit at the holidays.

JENNY LEWIS: CMJ has details of the Rilo Kiley singer's solo album, due January 24.

THE WHITE STRIPES: Jack has been ordered to shut up for two weeks to recuperate from an acute vocal cord injury. Meg is the new face for Marc Jacobs' fashion line.

LOHAN LOWDOWN: Li-Lo is "appalled" by her Vanity Fair interview. In a statement released Tuesday to Teen People magazine, Lohan denied having bulimia and said, "The words that I gave to the writer for Vanity Fair were misused and misconstrued, and I'm appalled with the way it was done." VF stands by its story.

MR. BLACKWELL issued his 46th annual "Worst Dressed" list, led by "over-the-hill Lolita" Britney Spears -- even before these pictures hit the Internet. Many of my other favorite targets also made the list.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS: The usual mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. What can you make of awards like the "Crest Whitestrips Fans Favorite Smile?" And the Choices are...

COLIN FARRELL sex tape is out o­n the Internet.

JOHNNY DEPP has been tipped to star in the film adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX has directed a music video.

JESSICA SIMPSON may be drunk dialing Nick Lachey, a source tells Star magazine -- so who could doubt it? Meanwhile, the couple have sold their Newlyweds house to Justin Berfield of Malcolm in the Middle.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON told Match Point co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers not to stare at her chest during their nude scenes. Which is sorta like asking you not to think of an elephant. Or two.

BRADGELINA: Ananova reports that Pitt phoned Jennifer Aniston to tell her that Jolie is pregnant -- a story no doubt floated by the Bradgelina camp to counter the original -- and much funnier -- rumor. ALSO: Forgot to note that Jolie filed papers to change the last names of Maddox and Zahara to Jolie-Pitt.

NATALIE PORTMAN is considering shaving her head again... and not for a movie.

LOST: Naveen Andrews, who plays Iraqi soldier Sayid o­n the hit show, has acknowledged that he fathered a child while briefly separated from longtime girlfriend Barbara Hershey. Evangeline Lilly had the pilot script rewritten to avoid a nude scene. E! has some teasers for the second half of the season.

MIKE MYERS, just separated, has his mojo workin'.

THE FRENCH HOTEL: Speaking of drunk...

RONALD REAGAN: Historian Richard Reeves wrote The Reagan Detour in 1985; his new book, President Reagan, is part of a significant shift in elite opinion about our 40th president. He is no longer viewed as "an unwitting tool of a manipulative staff," in Reeves's phrase. Reeves now thinks Pres. Bush is a puppet of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. So if you're keeping score, Reagan is no longer Reagan, Bush is Reagan, except that he's no Reagan.

IRAQ: Both Shiite and Sunni Arabs celebrated the Islamic feast of sacrifice Tuesday with calls for an end to the bloodshed that has wracked Iraq since last month's elections, though Sunnis also renewed calls for the withdrawal of US troops. Sen. Hillary Clinton slammed what she called an "unforgivable" failure by the Bush administration to provide potentially lifesaving body armor to US troops, though -- as noted here Monday -- the troops don't all see it that way. The AP ran a story headlined "Fear Keeps Mosul Residents From Informing." Absent from the story are any figures as to the past or current level of tips. We do learn from the story that terror attacks in Mosul are pushing the locals more toward the US troops. And we learn from Haider Ainja (an Iraqi-American who translates Iraqi media) that tips recently helped defuse a number of bombs and discover of number of weapons caches in Mosul.

IRAN broke U.N. seals o­n its nuclear enrichment facility Tuesday, causing the US and other countries to threaten to take the issue to the UN Security Council -- where nothing will happen without support from Russia and China that is nowhere to be seen.

NANOTECH: Nanotech booster Glenn Reynolds liked the nanotech-gone-wrong thriller, The Cunning Blood.

SQUIRRAT: A simple case of hair loss, or a mythical cross-breed of squirrels and rats? London's Sun investigates!

FLAMING MOUSE UPDATE: A small town rumor that sparked world wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been denied by the house's owner.

LION ATTACKS are on the rise in Tanzania and Mozambique. But not in Detroit.

CAT CSI: A cat owner used DNA evidence to pursue the case that her cat was killed by a neighbor's dog.

CALF BURIED UP TO ITS NOSE is rescued by hunters as its mother paced and walked in circles nearby.

WE ARE SCIENTISTS singer Keith Murray talks to Newsday about trying to translate British buzz to success at home. The band's Love and Squalor album comes out today; you may be able to stream the whole album in The Booth at MySpace, but if they've changed it, you can still stream three from the band's MySpace page or hit the Sci-Cave.

MORNINGWOOD -- more MTV-friendly and polarizing to hipsters than We Are Scientists -- also has an album coming out today. It's streaming courtesy of AOL Music. And you don't have to belong to AOL to hear it.

MY SPACE: USA Today has another piece o­n how teens and bands love it. However, some bloggers are accusing new owner Rupert Murdoch of interfering with their ability to access rival sites.

THE ROLLING STONES: The folks at the Superbowl have revoked a controversial ban against having audience members over the age of 45 o­n the field during the Stones' halftime performance. Critics had insisted the decision meant the rockers, who boast a combined age of 246, were too old for their own show.

HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY is preparing to undergo major surgery to stop the constant pain she has suffered since giving birth to their daughter BEATRICE in 2003. Sir Paul is quite the kidney disturber.

THE HOLD STEADY will be previewing some new tunes while touring the South, San Diego and L.A.

BJORK was voted the world's most eccentric star in a survey for the BBC's Homes & Antiques magazine, beating out Elton John, Johnny Rotten and more.

T.REX DELUXE REISSUES get varied ratings o­n the Pitchfork.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS are finishing up a double album with Rick Rubin, due in April.

YUPSTERS -- or do you call them "Yindies" -- "occupy a precarious and troubling spot in our culture," so the L.A. Weekly warns of ten signs of the Yindie apocalypse.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Sarah Hepola, former music editor at the Dallas Observer, has her parents review Bright Eyes, Kanye West and more.

PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: British police are homing in o­n the drug dealer who sold cocaine to the supposedly sober supermodel.

BFCA CRITICS' CHOICE AWARDS: Brokeback Mountain took three top honors, including best picture. But Heath Ledger lost the best actor award to Capote star Philip Seymour Hoffman, who thanked his coleagues because he's "not the easiest guy to work with." Reese Witherspoon won the best actress award for Walk The Line. Paul Giamatti pulled off the biggest upset of the night, winning for best supporting actor in Cinderella Man over odds-on favorite George Clooney.

PORN AWARDS: The 23rd annual Adult Video News (AVN) Awards were held over the weekend. Adult entertainment, including porn videos and films shot mainly in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, racked up estimated sales of 12.6 billion in 2005, according to statistics compiled by AVN. That's more than the US theatrical revenue for mainstream Hollywood films. It was a big night for Pirates -- o­ne of the costliest adult movies ever produced -- which won 11 awards. But like Hollywood, even the porn biz has remake fever -- with The New Devil in Miss Jones winning best film.

HILARY SWANK and CHAD LOWE have decided to separate. He should have seen it coming after she won the Oscar in 2000 for Boys Don't Cry and forgot to thank him.

HARRY BELAFONTE, hanging out with Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez, calls Pres. Bush "the greatest tyrant in the world" and "the greatest terrorist in the world." I'll bet Harry fits right in o­n that famous boat of his.

BRITNEY SPEARS plans to make her comeback by guesting o­n Spenderline's debut album? If true, it would be proof that love is blind... and occasionally mentally challenged.

BRADGELINA have convinced Richard Branson to allow them to be aboard the Virgin Galactic Spaceship which will lift off in 2010.

LOHAN LOWDOWN: Li-Lo is rumored to be dating Leo DiCaprio, but are they compatible?

MUNICH: The movie's chances for awards are damaged by the Academy's copy-protection scheme.

KATE BECKINSALE sometimes forgets how hot she looks in a latex catuit.

TARA REID: It looks like cleaning up her act was not o­ne of her New Year's resolutions.

SAM MENDES: The director of American Beauty admits it was overrated.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER said a weekend accident requiring 15 stitches in his lip won't stop him from riding motorcycles. The Governator does not have a motorcycle endorsement o­n his driver license, though an exemption for cycles with sidecars means he didn't break any laws Sunday when he was involved in the collision.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Pastor J. Grant Swank, Jr. writes that Cruise is doing the work of Satan. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

KIRSTIE ALLEY nicely dodges the question of why Scientology couldn't help her lose weight.

SHERYL CROW is shooting down rumors that she's been visiting fertility clinics. Maybe because of the other rumor that Lance Armstrong dumped her.

JOE PESCI moonlights as a jazz singer.

RACHEL WEISZ confirmed she's five months pregnant with movie-maker fiance Darren Aronofsky's baby.

OPRAH got conned by A Million Little Pieces, author James Frey's supposedly nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal... which turns out to have been "embellished," to put it charitably.

JESSICA SIMPSON just paid a grand for a framed lithograph of a stick woman at the Jack Gallery in Monterey titled, "You Say I'm a B-tch Like It's a Bad Thing."

BORN TO JUDGE: Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is a Springsteen fan, which probably has the Boss ready to tear his hair out.

SUICIDE BOMBERS: As George Clooney notes, we need to understand them. So it's worth noting that the belief that suicide bombers are poor, uneducated, disaffected or disturbed is contradicted by science. One method to attenuate murdercide is to target dangerous groups that influence individuals, such as Al ­Qaeda; another method, says Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger, is to increase the civil liberties of the countries that breed terrorist groups.

IRAQ: At Iraq the Model, Omar writes that the Islamic Party swiftly rejected Zarqawi's call that it abandon the political process and go back to the "right path." Omar also notes that the Kurdish decision to nominate Jalal Talabani for the presidency was well-received by the largest Sunni Arab party. Pres. Talabani and outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, both expressed support for a united front. The US has stepped up contacts with some Iraqi insurgent groups in a bid to exploit tensions between Iraqi insurgents and Al-Qaeda in several predominantly Sunni cities, including Taji, Ysefiya, Qaim and Ramadi. Bill Roggio has more o­n Ramadi. And three-month-old Iraqi girl suffering from life-threatening spina bifida was recovering after a successful three-hour operation in Atlanta.

NSA SURVEILLANCE: Although the Washington Post runs headlines like "Report Rebuts Bush o­n Spying," The New York Times more accurately reported that a report by the Congressional Research Service "reached no bottom-line conclusions o­n whether the program was legal, in part because it said so many details of the operation remain classified." You can download the CRS report and read it for yourself. I would add that as an arm of Congress, CRS has an interest in arguing that Congress has the power to constrain the President, just as he has an interest in asserting they do not.

STABLE CAT befriends a horse, annoys the pigs and ducks.

DOGGIE-STYLE: The New York Times (via the Chicago Tribune) surveys websites offering fashion for dogs. (Thanks, Debbie)

WILD BOAR not so wild, but nonetheless shot while taking a nap in the guest bedroom in a Bavarian family's house after fleeing from hunters.

FUGITIVE COW UPDATE: "Molly B," the cow recaptured after escaping a Missouri abattoir probably will be spared the killing floor after employees at Mickey's Packing Plant voted 10-1 to keep her alive.