Karl 
BOB DYLAN: Stereogum will hook you up with the video he did with Scarlett Johansson and his new iPod commercial. The New Yorker nicely reprints a 1964 profile of Dylan by Nat Hentoff, in which he declared he was done with “finger-pointing” songs. Remember, his new album is streaming in full from AOL this week.
THE DECEMBERISTS gave a free MP3 download titled “Summersong” to Pitchfork.
NEKO CASE doesn't need to be called alt-country; “country” is just fine with her. There's plenty of Neko, including a gig with Calexico, streaming at the Hype Machine at the moment, though my favorite of hers may still be “Deep Red Bells.”
CAT POWER talks to The Phoenix about the benefits of sobriety and mixing solo shows with band gigs.
BRIAN WILSON always seems pretty lucid when he talks about Pet Sounds. You can hear it in the podcasts for the 40th Anniversary reissue, which is still streaming in full from AOL this week.
THE FLAMING LIPS frontman Wayne Coyne tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that behind the Jane Jetson-style dresses, green alien masks and Santa Claus suits is the relationship the band enjoys with its audience: “I came from the audience. To me, the audience makes all the difference. We really do come here to be with them. The way our show is now, without the audience being able to freak out and surrender to all this stuff, I don't think it would be anything.” you can see those costumes at work in last month's TV performance of “Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber),” which also has Coyne working a double-neck guitar. The video quality is better on this mournful cover of “Suspicious Minds” for the BBC. And if you're new to the Lips' live antics, you should check out these short clips of Coyne in the Space Bubble and leading Red Rocks through part of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
TEGAN and SARA: Tegan does the “Random Rules” iPod shuffle for the A.V. Club, causing her to praise the praiseworthy Brendan Benson. You can stream Tegan and Sara via the Hype Machine, and Brendan Benson's “Spit It Out” via MySpace. Of course, I like his Spector-esque “The Pledge” and the title track to “The Alternative To Love” almost as much.
BLOG BUZZ MELTDOWN: I wish I had written the “Net Gains” section of this column in the Broward- Palm Beach New Times.
THE PERNICE BROTHERS are streaming new material from their recently redesigned website.
BECK talks with Wired about his new album and whether his last album, Guero, helped mark the death of the album as we know it.
JESSICA SIMPSON: US Weekly got around to blogging some of the details her hookup with John Mayer from their print story, after getting scooped by People's website Tuesday. The Simpson andd Mayer camps disagree over the amount of canoodling, but Mayer has laryngitis, just like she does. Coincidentally enough, ex Nick Lachey has finally “moved on” from the pneumatic blonde.
BRITNEY SPEARS would like you to buy her baby girl a chandelier. Meanwhile, hubby Spenderline will play the deadbeat husband of a celebrity on HBO's Entourage. I would have thought he'd get that sort of role on Law & Order — ripped from today's headlines!
GWEN STEFANI is said to be “boycotting” the MTV Video Music Awards because of the shoddy treatment she got last year.
PINK is the new Hank Williams, Jr. For some reason, I'm not surprised.
LINDSAY LOHAN: Her wacky convict dad is now explaining the details of the wacky cartoon he sent in to the New York Daily News. And her flacks are back to pushing the “Harry Morton is trying to clean up her act” story.
GLENN FORD, a top box-office draw in the 1950s whose career spanned more than five decades and more than 100 films, was found dead at his Beverly Hills home by L.A. Fire Department paramedics just before 4 p.m. Wednesday. He was 90.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Viacom, having kicked Cruise off the Paramount lot, now has its SpikeTV channel mocking him, even while promoting him. Meanwhile, a Cruise look-alike is stealing prescription drugs from homes in Arapahoe County, CO.
BRADGELINA: Pitt and Jolie have people saying we should reset our Bradgelina decoder rings to “Happier than ever!”
CAMBERLAKE IN TROUBLE? Page Six says Justin Timberlake is acting single sans Cameron Diaz while promoting his CD. He's also taped a segment for the Ellen show that makes him sound like a wedding is about 15 years off.
NYC MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG endorses Shakira for the Video of the Year at MTV’s Video Music Awards, passing over Xtina Aguilera, who would have appealed not only to the Latino vote, but also to the locals generally.
JOE PISCOPO's divorce from his kid's former nanny is getting ugly. Who'da thunk?
HILARY SWANK denied hooking up with her agent in April as she divorced Chad Lowe, but it seems that the pair has been caught canoodling. Coincidentally, Campisi recently split from his wife, with whom he has a toddler.
EDU-BLOGGING: The 82nd Carnival of Education is posted, with a distinctly theatrical twist.
IRAQ and COUNTER-INSURGENCY: I haven't read Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, but author Lt. Col. John A. Nagl — who served in Iraq — may have sold me with the preface to the paperback edition: “Authors generally learn something about their subject matter, and then write about it. I took the opposite approach…” That might sound odd, but I think it ultimately underscores the point that insurgent conflicts like Malaysia or Vietnam, the Philippines or Algeria, tend to be long and messy, regardless of outcome. And I don't know if Nagl ends up discussing troop levels, but when you look at these examples (esp. Vietnam and Algeria), it's hard to make a case that having more troops in Iraq at the outset would necessarily have made a difference.
BLOGGERS ABROAD: I'm a little remiss in mentioning that Publius Pundit has been blogging from Ukraine, where the Orange Revolution is faltering and Princess Leia is their only hope. Michael J. Totten has been blogging from the border of Israel near Gaza, posting plenty of pictures, too.
A BABY ALBINO PYGMY MARMOSET clings to life — and a thumb — at the Froso Zoo in Sweden. The pygmy marmoset rarely rises above a weight of 100 grams.
SNAKES AT A MAILBOX: A timely twist on the postal cliche.
SNAKES on a CRIME SPREE: A car was stolen from an Arkansas convenience store Sunday night after the suspects allegedly used snakes to scare the car’s owner away from her keys earlier in the day.
SNAKES on a PLANE will be auctioned off to benefit an animal rights organization.
DUTCH COWS NEED SEX, according to an animal rights group in Amsterdam.
SWISS COWS, however, do not want you to hug it out with them, so back off, willya?
