THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with AIMEE MANN's CHRISTMAS CAROL (profanity warnings): Part One has your Scrooge-y set-up with Michael Penn. Part Two features The Office's John Krasinski. Part Three has Michael Cera. Part Four has John C. Reilly.

THE DIPLOMATS OF SOLID SOUND did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.  Soul from Iowa City, improbably enough!

COUSINS did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter at Pop Montreal.

CLOUD CULT stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set (and some painting).

IRON & WINE drops "Tree By The River" as a sweet, sweet advance track to Kiss Each Other Clean.

GEORGE JONES is one of NPR's 50 Great Voices.

YOU AIN'T NO PICASSO is streaming Matt's 50 Favorite Songs of 2010.

REMINDER: Amazon MP3's 25 Days of Free continues.

THE PRETENDERS: "2000 Miles." It felt like Christmas time.

PITCHFORK's TOP 50 ALBUMS of 2010 starts here.

ARETHA FRANKLIN underwent "highly successful" surgery for an undisclosed ailment on Dec. 2 - and is reported to have pancreatic cancer - was discharged from a Detroit hospital earlier this week.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: The Listeners' Poll.

SUEDE talks to The Quietus about their triumphant (and now extended) return.

JIMI HENDRIX biopic nixed, perhaps due to concerns about the impact a film would have on catalog sales.

THE CUTOUT BIN is on hiatus this week, as the ol' HM was busy retooling itself yesterday.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include Yogi Bear, which is currently scoring 14 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; Tron Legacy, which is scoring 51 percent; and How Do You Know, scoring 28 percent. The Fighter expands wide, scoring 87 percent.  Black Swan goes near-wide, scoring 88 percent.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON is "partying very hard" on her "girls' trip" in Jamaica, seeking solace from her failed marriage to Ryan Reynolds - but she's still wearing her wedding ring. E! Online has speculated that Blake Lively, who co-stars with Reynolds in Green Lantern, may have led him astray.

DAVID ARQUETTE says he's having a bit of a nervous beakdown and drinking a lot since his split from Courtney Cox.

MILEY CYRUS is shrugging off her salvia smoking scandal.

LINDSAY LOHAN is afraid she's being targeted by a stalker; the Betty Ford clinic is taking measures to protect her.

MARIAH CAREY and Nick Cannon are having twins.

PRINCE HARRY... and a Real Housewife?

WINONA RYDER talks to GQ about her run-in with Mel Gibson, painkillers, Black Swan and more...

THE SAG AWARDS nominations are announced. The King's Speech and The Fighter score four each, while True Grit's Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld also get nods.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY had some lost footage surface in a Kansas salt-mine vault.

BLAKE EDWARDS, director of Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Great Race, The Days of Wine and Roses, the original Pink Panther franchise, 10, S.O.B. and others, died of complications from pneumonia at age 88. Nikke Finke has a remembrance.

IRAN reportedly has begun secret negotiations on proposals to surrender a substantial part of its uranium stockpile and suspend enriching nuclear fuel in return for an end to sanctions that have crippled the country's economy. I'd love to see some proposal for policing any such deal. Meanwhile, Tehran has cut the annual budget it provides Hezbollah by over 40 percent, stirring an unprecedented crisis within the Lebanese Shi'ite guerrilla organization.

PAKISTAN: Two new classified intelligence reports say there is a limited chance of success in Afghanistan unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border. But Pakistanis may be incapable of doing that because their forces are already "stretched too thin."

AFGHANISTAN: CNN's Nic Robertson, having covered Afghanistan since the 1990s, revisited some of the places he'd reported from over the years to see what had changed.

IRAQ: Captured insurgents who claim al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the US and Europe during the Christmas season, two senior officials said Wednesday. The botched bombing in central Stockholm last weekend was among the alleged plots the insurgents revealed.

LOLITA the PARROT practices singing Drowning Pool's "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor."

FLYING SQUID: Rare photos from off the coast of Japan.

SOME SHARKS can become invisible. Gonna need a bigger cloak.

ONE CROCODILE SPECIES was vegetarian... 80 million years ago.

BRITAIN's UGLIEST DOG is sprung from a shelter.