Karl 
KATHLEEN EDWARDS: Jam! proclaims this the summer of Kathleen, which is probably better than the summer of George. The article also discusses the breadth of country music in the U.S.: “There appears to be room in America for both poles of the country music magnet. The differences extend far beyond music to culture, politics, religion, to wishing there could be a cage match between Steve Earle and Toby Keith.”
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE talks to MTV about their upcoming album, Windsurfing Nation and trying to not become too commercial. Pitchfork has the story of how BSS producer Dave Newfeld was apparently beaten by the NYPD following an arrest for alleged pot possession. The band mentioned this at the Intonation Festival, but I didn't mention it because it was almost said like a joking tall tale and the coverage on the internet sometimes made it seem like it might not be the real deal. For that matter, the comments on the music blogs suggest that trying to buy pot in Washington Square Park is an extremely dumb thing to do.
MORE INTONATION: The New York Times runs a review of the festival by a reviewer who admits enjoying “being compared to a dog who 'might need to be put down'” by a Pitchfork reviewer. There's an accompanying pop-up photo gallery with nice pics of The Wrens and Petra Haden (who gave us the a cappella version of The Who Sell Out, but is currently playing violin and singing with The Decemberists). Pitchfork itself is running a retrospective on its site with plenty of pics, including a couple backstage shots.
THE MERCURY PRIZE, devoted to promoting albums by UK artists, has announced it 2005 shortlist of nominees.
THE POGUES liner notes for a reissue by Bob Geldof.
JOSS STONE wants you to know that is so totally not her butt in her GAP commercial. And Patti LaBelle wants you to know that Stone opens her mouth and a big black woman comes out.
TOM FITE, mentioned here recently, gets reviewed and photoblogged at Brooklyn Vegan.
BALL OF CONFUSION: Norman Whitfield, who co-wrote Motown classics like “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” was sentenced on Monday to six months of home detention for failure to file U.S. income tax returns. Politicians say more taxes will solve everything… and the band played on.
THE POSTAL SERVICE: Apparently, you can get their CD and singles through an unusual, but apt source.
NO ROCK AND ROLL FUN sums up the upcoming Rolling Stones disc and the Vogue article on Madonna so well that I can skip it. The Manolo, he has a comment on Madge also.
CHRIS MARTIN admits that he's under Gwyneth Paltrow's thumb. As if anyone thought otherwise.
THE HOLD STEADY: If you missed 'em on Conan O'Brien, shame on you, but you can set your recorder for Last Call with Carson Daly tonight!
CIRCUIT JUDGE JOHN G. ROBERTS is nominated for the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Although Sens. Schumer, Durbin and Kennedy opposed his nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, he was confirmed by the full Senate on unanimous consent. The link is worth reading for: (1) Sen. Hatch's highlighting of cases where he took positions some would call “liberal,” though they may not represent his views any more than positions he argued when he worked for the Solicitor General; and (2) the fact that he apparently had the support of some Democrats with whom he worked. Perhaps Sens. Hatch and Schumer will engage in the same elevated debate they had when Roberts was nominated for the DC Circuit gig. The SCOTUS blog has plenty of linkage to bios, analysis, and reports from probable opposing groups from when he was considered a potential successor had Chief Justice Rehnquist retired and even more links, and more opinions added. FWIW, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) has previously suggested that Roberts was in the ballpark,” whereas Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) says the President has “guaranteed a more controversial confirmation process.” At TalkLeft, Jeralyn Merritt argues that: (1) it's too early to bash Roberts; (2) he's not as conservative as many of the other possible nominees; and (3) liberals should not be distracted from other issues by the Roberts nomination. At National Review online, Ramnesh Ponuru excerpts Jeffrey Rosen from The New Republic, which is nice for non-subscribers of TNR. The news had to come as a disappointment to The Magic 8-Ball.
LONDON BOMBING: Criticism of the British government grew Monday over the revelation that the vaunted domestic intelligence service did not detain one of the London attackers last year after linking him to a suspect in an alleged plot by other Britons of Pakistani descent to explode a truck bomb in the capital. One of the London terrorists bought more than 2,000 dollars of designer perfumes as a deadly napalm-style ingredient in the bombs. Moderate British Muslim leaders yesterday decided to develop a network which will counter extremism within their own communities after meeting Tony Blair and senior colleagues at Downing Street, but many of his visitors reject his insistence that a different foreign policy in Iraq would not have prevented the attacks. As I suggested yesterday, Spain remains threatened after pulling out of Iraq. The group claiming responsibility for the bombing also wants a pullout from Afghanistan. And British intelligence memos suggest that thousands of people in Britain passed through Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, long before the invasion of Iraq. Maybe these so-called moderates should start by sitting down with Mufti Zubair Dudha, who condemned the London atrocities and signed the Sunni Muslim fatwa against suicide bombings, but blames British foreign policy for the bombings and is advocating “physical jihad” in the hometown of one of the suicide bombers.
IRAQ: A Sunni Arab appointed to a committee to draft Iraq's constitution was assassinated Tuesday in a drive-by shooting; two other Sunnis had already quit because of threats from the insurgents. The al-Mada newspaper published what is apparently a draft version of the equivalent to the Bill Of Rights. An Acrobat pdf file of a translation by Nathan J. Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows that the new government may attempt a large welfare state, including free health care and guaranteed maternity leave.
IRAQ II: A British research group said Tuesday that about 25,000 civilians died in violence in Iraq in the two years after the start of the U.S.-led invasion. The new estimate was much lower than the figure of 98,000 civilian deaths that appeared in a study in medical journal The Lancet in October 2004. Iraqi and U.S. forces established a joint/combined operations center to develop intelligence and track operations during a series of missions July 15, resulting in the capture of 39 suspected terrorists. on more personal notes, Chief Warrant Officer 04 Randy M. Kirgiss is running Operation Teddy Drop, which is pretty much what it sounds like. And Who's Your Baghdaddy blogs a recent trip to Shomali.
LEBANON has a new government, with the first cabinet free of dominant Syrian influence in three decades. However, the State Department said it will have no dealings with the one cabinet official described as an active member of Hezbollah.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Berkeley Breathed's Opus may seem like it's taking a dig at Holmes, but I think it ends up as a sneaky dig at Cruise. I Don't Like You In That Way panders to a prurient interest in Holmes.
JUDE LAW: A fan site has this picture of Law in happier times with Sienna Miller. I think the ladies may want to take a peek. Yes, it's safe for work. Also, the ever-reliable Sun reports that Law wanted the nanny in a threesome.
TWENTY THINGS that only happen in movies.
COLIN FARRELL got a judge to issue a temporary restraining order enjoining former Playmate and galpal Nicole Narain from selling, distributing or displaying a 15-minute videotape that shows her and Farrell having sex.
PAM ANDERSON to re-marry Tommy Lee?
COMIC-CON: Defamer has a report from a non-Geek describing the bizzaro world for celebrities.
CASTING COUCH KAPUT? The California Supreme Court has ruled that an employer can be sued for sexual harassment for conveying a message that the way to get ahead at work is to sleep with the boss. The court said widespread “sexual favoritism” at work may add up to sexual harassment even when the plaintiffs haven’t been personally harassed. The San Francisco Chronicle manages to namecheck Justice Clarence Thomas, but somehow missed the more recent case of former President Bill Clinton. SEMI-RELATED: A former Boston Herald columnist was fired from a part-time job teaching journalism at Boston University after posting a note on an Internet site that a female student was “incredibly hot.”
BRADGELINA UPDATE: The Washington Post offers up Cheeseball Magazine Awards for excellence in covering Brad & Jen & Angelina & Vince: “These snooty, snotty (media) critics are forever yipping and yapping about how magazines just don't spend time and money to really dig deep into the stories they cover. Well, maybe that's true for trivial topics like global warming or the budget deficit or genocide in Sudan, but it's definitely not true for one of the great epics of our time: the star-crossed love triangle of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie…”
SAN DIEGO is even wackier than Chicago! San Diego's acting mayor was convicted on Monday of taking illegal campaign cash; by the end of the day, the third different San Diego mayor in four days was installed.
EDUCATION: The Professional Association of Teachers will consider banning the word “fail” from use in classrooms and replace it with the phrase “deferred success” to avoid demoralizing students.
SHOE-BLOGGING: The average woman in Britain spends more than 54,000 dollars on shoes during her lifetime, an insurance group said. The Manolo, I cannot believe he has not posted this as I write now.
CULT OF THE iPod: Dylan Jones, the author of iPod, Therefore I Am, sums up how the gadget changed his life: “My whole life is here, 40Gb of memory, 30 years of memories. Every song I've ever cared about is in here somewhere, waiting in its chosen spot, hugging the wall until it's chosen to dance.” As someone else once put it, “Every one of my records means something! …When I listen to my records they take me back to certain points in my life, OK?”
NANOTECH: The Royal Society and the Food and Drug Administration are concerned over the use of nanotech in anti-aging cosmetics.
DARK CHOCOLATE can lower blood pressure, according to a study published by the American Heart Association. A week-long international cocoa workshop and seminar in Kuala Lumpur was already buzzing about promoting the health aspects of chocolate.
WOULD YOU FLY AN AIRLINE run out of a teenager's bedroom?
AIR FOLLIES: An American Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan was diverted after a passenger found a suspicious note written on a napkin behind her tray table. The note read, “Bomb, bomb, bomb … meet the parents,” which I would have thought was a review of the in-flight movie. But better safe than sorry, I suppose.
DOGS: Missy Jo has probably had more cheeseburgers and shakes than Morgan Spurlock. And dogs remain the best detectors of bombs.
PARROT MATH: A 28-year-old African Gray parrot named Alex may comprehend the mathematical concept of zero — an abstract notion that human children rarely understand until around four years of age.
BIRDS have learned to imitate the ring tones of mobile phones, say German ornithologists.
A WILD PANDA CHASE in the Chinese city Dujiangyuan ended after a day of scrambling over rooftops and swimming a river with firemen using a tranquiliser dart and a rope.
COW COLLISION blocks a cross-country train from Edinburgh to Bournemouth for seven hours. It's probably insensitive to be critical of train service in the U.K. at the moment, but haven't the Brits heard of a device called the “cow-catcher?”
