Karl 
dBs REUNION, BABY! The original members — Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey Will Rigby, and Gene Holder — have recorded seven new Holsapple/Stamey originals, as well as a cover of the Motown classic “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?” The band is tentatively hoping to release an album in early 2006, with a possibility of some shows preceding it. Pitchfork has the scoop.
STARS are profiled at Junkmedia, which also has a review of the Pate box by Ken King.
RYAN ADAMS: Scenestars has some bootlegged tracks from his forthcoming disc.
STREAMING: You can check out Beck and M Ward from KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic (with Andrew Bird, Loudon Wainwright III and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives later this week). You can hear Rilo Kiley stream from Xfm, which is not what you think.
CROOKED FINGERS: Bradley's Almanac has live MP3s for download.
PRETTY IN PINK: Caroline laughs and it's raining all day…again… with the original cast.
BONO gives props to the Pope. It looks like there is a photo of the Pope wearing Bono's shades. Meanwhile, Irish bookmakers take bets on the next Pope. And if you thought American TV over-covered the Pope's death, consider that radical Islamists have been using web sites to vent their anger at Arab television stations — including Al-Jazeera — for unprecedented coverage of the event.
IRAQ: Winds of Change has a regular round-up of developments in Iraq Mondays and Thursdays.
DEMOCRATIC DIAGNOSIS: Reviewing George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, Marc Cooper of The Nation argues that a Democratic victory will require more than better phrase-making. Longtime New Democrat William Galston, seems to agree, though his prescription is different from Cooper's.
RUDY GIULIANI probably won't challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2006, probably thinking they will both be running for President in 2008. A darkhorse Democrat, Governor Philip Bredesen of Tennessee is warning that voters are “kind of dissatisfied” with the Democrats’ current presidential contenders and that Clinton would face an “uphill road” to win the White House.
FILESHARING: Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal addresses the weird ethic of filesharing: “Some who will spend hundreds of dollars for iPods and home theater systems won't pay one thin dime for a song or movie. So Steve Jobs and the Silicon Valley geeks get richer while the new-music artists sweating through three sets in dim clubs get to live on Red Bull. Where's the justice in that?”
DOWNLOADING: Looking for downloads without copy protection? Sumana Harihareswara points out that Salon Premium membership can membership pay for itself in a month. If you're into World Music, the Smithsonian has tons of cheap downloadables.
PODCASTING: Mastermaq makes the case for it in response to a skeptic.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES continued their satiric soap opera at their cover shoot for Vanity Fair magazine. Apparently, ABC for some reason demanded that Teri Hatcher not be placed in the middle of any group photos and tried to stop her from getting into wardrobe first. When Hatcher swiveled out in a red bathing suit and stood in the middle of the shot, Marcia Cross launched into a profanity-laden tirade at a publicist, with Eva Longoria text messaging her flack for good measure. Vanity Fair's Ned Zeman claims Hatcher was reduced to tears. Cross, Longoria and Felicity Huffman are already doing damage control with the press. Longoria has moved on to her next hunk du jour. At least the show has had the good sense to reject overtures from Britney Spears.
THE MEANING OF “IS:” one in five U.S. teenagers say they have engaged in oral sex, an activity that some adolescents view as not sex at all and certainly less risky than intercourse, a report released Monday said. However, there's no quote in the story from Presdent Clinton.
A BURMESE WOMAN is breastfeeding two newborn tiger cubs. No teeth yet.
BASEBALL SEASON is underway. How better to celebrate than a poem by Jeff Goldstein?
JOHN TRAVOLTA AND TOM CRUISE deny allegations that they turned to Scientology to “cure” them of their supposedly gay urges.
JOSS STONE has risked her new contract as the Gap Girl by moving in with 25-year-old millionaire music producer Beau Dozier, son of legendary Motown hit-maker Lamont Dozier. Of course, it's the Daily Mail, so take it with a 50 pound bag of salt.
WILCO: It's always Tweedy, Tweedy Tweedy… give some to the drummer! Crazy talk has a podcast interview with Glenn Kotche.
JAYHAWKS: Being There magazine has a nice retrospective of the band.
AUDIOSLAVE announces a new disc and tour.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The Babyshambles' disc will have guest vocals from galpal Kate Moss.
CELEBRITY BLOGS giving too much info? Not a chance, I say.
AQUACULTURE: The Bush administration backs a plan to convert oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico into deep-sea fish farms. Environmentalists are concerned. A team of research scientists says it has conclusively linked the transmission of lethal sea lice from farmed to wild salmon, a finding that raises questions about the future of British Columbia's $400-million salmon farming industry.
PAT BUCHANAN AND WILLIAM KRISTOL hit with salad dressing and pie, respectively. Let's go to the video.
CANADA: A financial scandal threatens to collapse the government, but some of the testimony is subject to a publication ban in the Great White North. However, the Globe and Mail and the London Free Press both run stories on how the ban is being ignored by American blogger Ed Morrisey. Kate of the Canadian blog Dead Small Animals charts the traffic spike at Ed's site.
ZIMBABWE: As I feared, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has ruled out calling for mass demonstrations to protest what he said were fraudulent results from last week’s parliamentary elections. Glenn Reynolds emphasizes his disappointment with South Africa's President Mbeki, who undercut the international pressure for a fair contest.
NANOTECH may go back to the future: advanced quantum computers might go back to mechanical roots, using rows of nanometer-scale bars as moving parts.
KYGYZSTAN: Deposed President Akayev agreed to resign without conditions; the country's top judge said a poll to replace him would be held whether he liked it or not.
BLACK HOLES do not exist, according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
