Karl 
THE SEX PISTOLS: Johnny Rotten wanted to bring the Pistols to Iraq and is upset that the US wanted to restrict the show to troops on base, rather than to the Iraqi people: “I know they might hate me and stone me to death, but at least they have the choice.”
LED ZEPPELIN wins the Polar Music Prize, receiving one million kroner (£70,523) from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The awards are likened to the Nobel Prize, despite the fact that they are the brainchild of Stig Anderson, the former manager of Swedish pop group Abba.
THE ROCK SNOB is dissected at Slate, with a lede irresistible to its subject: “Why o why, ye Rock Gods, do I cherish the Minutemen's cover of the old Steely Dan song ‘Doctor Wu’ as much as I do?”
SOUL ASYLUM, with Tommy Stinson on bass. Who knew? Just don't call him a replacement for the late Karl Mueller.
THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME has yet to announce this year's inductees, but the Cleveland Plain Dealer polled it's readers for their choices. So who topped the poll? (Hint: “Free Bird!”)
APOLLO SUNSHINE is playing the M-Shop on the 12th… you can (and should) stream a few tunes from MySpace.
CAT POWER: Tracks from the upcoming album, The Greatest, have been leaking and surfacing at Stereogum and Gorilla vs. Bear. Apparently, all those Memphis sidemen are giving the songs a countrified Rickie Lee Jones vibe. Folks less into killing music can legally download the title track from Matador Records.
GENESIS: Phil Collins threatens to get the band back together, unless he is paid the sum of… one million dollars.
DEVENDRA BANHART is profiled in PopMatters. His latest album, Cripple Crow, is garnering generally favorable reviews at Metacritic. You can give it a listen at the website for the album.
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH: The Pitchfork faves do an interview with Pitchfork while in Chicago, natch. (I completely spaced on the gig, sorry.) The band talks road music: Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Dr. John, Neil Young, Brian Wilson's Smile, NWA, Rachmaninoff, Gang Starr…
THE CONSTANTINES' co-frontman Steve Lambke tells the Boston Globe he is inspired by the grand expanse of his native Canada: ''I find it really fascinating, because it's such a huge, huge country… and it is, compared to the US, really empty, so there's something really romantic about it. There's like a real sense of a journey, in the same way there is driving across America, but there's so many more cities and gas stations and McDonald's and stuff, driving across America.” The band's latest album, Tournament Of Hearts is scoring an average 77 from critics and 8.8 (out of ten) from users at Metacritic. You can compare for yourself with the legal downloads at SubPop.
P. DIDDY to be investigated by the Federal Election Commission.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The troubled singer says he has a second secret love child.
CAROLINA PANTHERS CHEERLEADERS were charged after their arrest at a bar where witnesses told police the women had sex in a restroom stall. The team has taken down the cheerleaders' web page, but Google preserves the PR photos of Renee and Angela for posterity. Angela's “Best Thing About Being A TopCat?” Friendships. Indeed.
THE FRENCH HOTEL is a material witness in the LAPD's investigation of an alleged burglar who targeted L.A.'s fabulous set, including Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis.
CHARLIZE THERON attacks the casting couch using public humiliation.
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR attacks the cult of celebrity: “Nowadays, women are famous for the way they wear their hair. Or designers they wear. Or who they date. Someone like Rosa Parks reminds you that fighting for women's causes is the most important thing we can do.” That, and slaying vampires.
ENTER SANDMAN: Official confirmation that Thomas Hayden Church will be playing the villain in Spider-Man 3.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Awakening to the smell of a flood of coffee, Cruise has hired veteran publicist and Rogers and Cowan co-chairman Paul Bloch, replacing Cruise's sister, Lee Anne DeVette. I'll bet Holmes drops Cruise's sister also.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Not many can still look hot full-body motion-capture suit.
KING KONG: Can Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic — running over three hours and 200 million bucks — take home the Oscar for Best Picture? Tom O'Neil makes the argument and also makes a list of frontrunners for the Golden Globes.
CRUISE SHIP COUNTER-ATTACKED PIRATES with a sonic weapon. It wasn't the Love Boat's Magic Band, either.
GROKSTER is shutting down, but will likely be reborn soon as a legal digital music service, a la Napster.
WHO'S on THE PHONE? Yahoo and Google will be soon.
GLOBAL WARMING: Cause celebre of evangelical Christians. For some reason, no one calls them “the Religious Right” in this story.
THE SUPREME COURT: The L.A. Times reports: “Although liberal activists are portraying Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as a right-wing extremist, his 15 years' worth of legal opinions do not promise fealty to any ideology. Though many of his rulings favor business or prosecutors, they are often narrow — and a sizable number cut the other way. Accordingly, Democrats in the Senate are cautious, and there is little or no talk of a filibuster” of his nomination to the high court.
FRENCH RIOTS spread to almost 300 towns, with over 1,400 vehicles torched and at least one death. (btw, at least one French TV network is refusing to report the number of torched vehicles.) Unrest is also spreading to Belgium and Germany. The AP makes a Freudian slip, reporting that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin “did rule out the possibility that radical Islamists are involved, saying: 'That element must not be neglected.'” (i.e., he did not rule it out) Newsweek hastens to report that while the rioters shout “jihad,” it really isn't. Rather, the riots are the result of “years of racism and neglect.” Those are factors, but the foreign press is reporting that the religious tension goes both ways. The CBC story linked above notes that “high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair (is) fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists.” Germany's Der Spiegel observes that “Jihad may not be what's inspiring the rioters, but Islam is undeniably an inseparable component of their self-identity.” And an AFP reporter spent time with rioters, showing their “thumbs up” support for the London terror bombings, attraction to bin Laden and terrorists' snuff videos, as well as anti-Semitism.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio rounds up day three of Operation Steel Curtain. Iraqi Army Captain Arkan Hussein predicts that Husaybah will be cleared in three or four days.
MOROCCO: Al Qaeda members in Iraq will suffer the “horrors of hell” if they kill two Moroccan hostages and the victims will die as martyrs, Morocco's influential Islamic scholars organisation said on Saturday. Tens of thousands marched through Casablanca to demand the release of two Moroccan Embassy employees reported kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with execution. Demonstrators chanted “No to terrorism” and “Islam is a religion of love, not hatred” during Sunday's march. According to Al-jazeerah, some members of Islamist parties that back Iraqi fighters battling US-led forces in Iraq also joined the march. That Zarqawi is a PR genius.
TERROR ARRESTS DOWN UNDER: Sixteen people were arrested in raids in Melbourne and Sydney, including radical Islamic cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika. Government and police officials said the group was stockpiling chemicals that could have been used to make explosives.
PUGGLES: A new hybrid mix designer dog that is a cross between a pug and a beagle is the new must-have dog in New York City and other cities, according to a Local 6 News report. More pics and video at the link. Awwww…
ANIMAL HOARDING: New Kensington, PA police thought the strong ammonia-like smell might be the tell-tale sign of a meth lab, but it was 35 cats and a dog.
A COW IN EVERY POT: Politics, Sri Lankan-style.
HONG KONG THIEF PINCHES 70 HAIRY CRABS: Too. Many. Punchlines.
