UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY, twenty years later. A look back at a historic gig.

THE WHITE STRIPES' new album gets a 7.3 o­n the Pitchfork.

INXS is searching for a new singer o­n a reality show to be hosted by Dave Navarro and Brooke Burke. (what, no Carmen Electra?)

INDIE BANDS are getting buzz from word of blog.

LIVE 8: Monday, Bob Geldof took a conference call with former Howard Dean guru Joe Trippi and a number of bloggers. Ed Morrisey liveblogged the call. Scott Koenig adds a few details. Ann Althouse rounds up the others. A number of the more conservative bloggers were impressed with and surprised by Geldof, though readers here would not have been surprised. Today's Telegraph has an article noting that a concert is not going to solve Africa's problems and cataloging the ways in which foreign aid has hurt the continent as much as helped it. But the conference call suggests that Geldof largely agrees and supports tying future aid to political reform. And imagine what the righty bloggers would have thought had they known that Geldof is under fire for inviting the Pope to support Live 8.

BAY CITY ROLLERS have been getting in trouble with the law.

PODCASTING: Listening to 100 podcasts a day may be a bit much.

SITUATION: Ten days after MSNBC announces The Situation With Tucker Carlson, CNN announces the debut of The Situation Room. Just another example of Pate arriving before its time.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB had a reunion of sorts at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards. But Molly Ringwald wants to do a sequel to Sixteen Candles. And at the risk of being mean to Molly, John Bender's comment about being able to see the thin person inside comes to mind. But she's got an 18 month old child, so maybe that's just baby weight.

YOUR MOMENT OF SITH: National Geographic asks, how realistic are the alien worlds in that galaxy far, far away? Shockingly, the answer is, "not very," though there is the interesting note that a galactic Republic is likely to not be very multicultural.

THE S. S. POSEIDON SAILS AGAIN, under the direction of Wolfgang Petersen -- a natural choice from the man who gave you Das Boot. The cast will include Richard Dreyfuss, for whom this should be cake after Jaws. I guess a bigger boat isn't always the answer. Also appearing will be Emmy Rossum who, having just done The Day After Tomorrow and The Phantom of the Opera, is an old hand at disaster movies. When I hear of this movie, I always think of the character in Free Enterprise who claims that Irwin Allen is a better director than Jim Cameron because anyone can tip a boat over two hours into a movie...

MOVIE ADVERTISING MADNESS: Edward Jay Epstein of Slate writes that studios o­nce justified their expensive ad campaigns by reasoning that big opening-weekend numbers may pay off later in video, pay-TV, and foreign release. But this is less true every day. Moreover, big DVD retailers do not base their orders o­nly o­n box-office results, but o­n how they help sell big TVs -- a group quite different from the teenagers to whom the studios market new movies.

RUSSELL CROWE is arrested for throwing a telephone at a hotel employee. Sounds like the Cinderella Man still has some Bud White issues.

BRADGELINA UPDATE: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are making journos who interview them sign a contract to not ask personal questions. Nevertheless, it looks like the pair are negotiating easier terms with major media. Jolie squirmed through personal questions o­n the Today show Monday. Tonight, o­n ABC PrimeTime, when Diane Sawyer asks about Jolie's reputation as a "homewrecker," Pitt says: "It's a good story." Woodward and Berstein would call that a non-denial denial.

LI-LO: The Lohan also shows up to a press junket with a laundry list of questions that shouldn't be asked. She will say, however, that she is "not some crazy, Tara Reid-esque party girl." Me-OW!

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise rambles for 60 Minutes Australia. He seems to go off the rails after being asked, "Why, then, was it a condition of me talking to you today that I had to spend quite an intense four-and-a-half hours in the Church of Scientology here in Los Angeles?" Meanwhile, Holmes now has her own Scientologist entourage... or are they monitors?

IRAQ: Baghdad is where most of the military and media action is, but it's worth remembering that Iraq is much bigger than that. Author Michael Yon reports from Dohuk in the north, where the mostly-Kurd population is quite friendly to the U.S. Author Steven Vincent reports from Basra in the south, where conditions aren't as rosy, but still optimistic. Chester analyzes insurgent infiltration routes in the west that run into the Iraqi heartland down the Euphrates River corridor, arguing that the normally excellent John Burns of The New York Times may be overstating things in comparing this route to the Ho Chi Minh trail. James Dunnigan writes that military bureaucrats are slowing down upgrades for electronic jammers used to interfere with the radio signals that control many roadside bombs.

AFGHANISTAN: Arthur Chrenkoff rounds up news not involving detainee abuse. For example, did you know that 1,000 Afghan clerics stripped fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar of his claim to religious authority?

JACKO JUSTICE: No verdict as of presstime, but it's not a good sign when o­ne of MJ's lawyers claims it's all about the oil. Not in Iraq, mind you, but at the Neverland Ranch.

BLAIR VS. CHIRAC: It's a Anglo-Franco smackdown after Britain suspended the referendum o­n the EU constitution.

LOUISIANA AND TEXAS are sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. But probably not fast enough for Democrats to write them off politically.

DEMOCRACY IN ETHIOPIA: Protesters are being beaten and arrested.

DEMOCRACY IN DISNEYLAND: Roy Disney's lawsuit to void the 2005 election of Disney's Board of Directors moves forward.

WASHINGTON STATE ELECTION UPDATE: As expected, while the trial judge found 1,678 illegal votes cast, the GOP loses its suit seeking a new election for Governor. GOP candidate Dino Rossi will not appeal the decision.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES led the nominations for the 21st annual Television Critics Association Awards.

BRITNEY SPEARS attended a Federline family gathering. It takes the picture to do it justice.

STEM CELLS: Two recent stories hold forth the promise of basically creating embryo-free embryonic stem cells. Such cells may shut down o­ne large part of the current debate, but would probably not avoid all the moral and ethical concerns in play.

HOW MALE OR FEMALE IS YOUR BRAIN? Take the tests.

ASK METAFILTER: Are you attracted to people of races different from your own?

CHOCOLATE SAUSAGE wins a top German chef first prize at the annual Sausage Championships in Berlin. Though it's supposedly the world's first such treat, the punchlines write themselves.

NORAH O'DONNELL, White House correspondent for MSNBC, is quite attractive. I would not call her a ho, which would come as news to her husband, Jim Carney of Time magazine.

CULT OF THE iPod: Last Wednesday in L.A., someone fraudulently took delivery of 12,000 iPods, valued at over 2.6 million bucks.

THE PLAYBOY MANSION: Not looking or smelling too sexy these days.

EIGHTY YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER busted as the alleged madam of a New Jersey prostitution ring.

DEEP THROAT: Mystery Pollster Mark Blumenthal argues that Felt could be the o­nly informer, but that he may have had his own informer, perhaps Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods.

QURAN DESECRATION: The Quran is being thrown into bonfires in Iran.

GITMO GUARDS get attacked by hardcore detainees. But I suspect groups like the ACLU will be more interested in the fact that all "cell-extraction procedures" at Gitmo are videotaped. I smell a Freedom of Information Act request...

ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS face trial under an anti-terrorism law in New Jersey. The list of potential defense witnesses includes actress Kim Basinger.

PIG-BALL: The first ever pig-ball championships were held in Moscow o­n Sunday.

GIANT TOADS were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in eastern India over the weekend by villagers hoping to propitiate the rain gods and end a dry spell.

FORTY DEAD ANIMALS FOUND IN U.K. STABLE, including at least 19 horses, 11 chickens, three dogs and a rabbit.

IS THAT A FISH UNDER YOUR SKIRT, OR.. oh, it is a fish.

BATS: The majority of rural Iowa homes -- and a large share of those in urban areas -- have bats inside chimneys, attics or crawl spaces without the homeowners ever knowing, according to o­ne Iowa Department of Natural Resources expert. "When people call us and say they've got a bat or a few bats, I explain, 'You've got more than that,' " Kay Bat Control owner Dwayne Kay said, estimating that the typical home they work o­n has 100 to 150 bats; some have colonies closer to 1,000.

Not too many typos today, were there? Things ran quite late early this morning...