Karl 
WE ARE SCIENTISTS has announced their tour dates in support of With Love and Squalor, which got a 6.7 on the Pitchfork, but a 4 out of 5 stars write-up from London's Guardian. And Filter thinks it's a band to watch. Tou can decide for yourself by streaming three tracks from MySpace or checking out the audio and video at the Sci-Cave. It's angular, new-wavish sorta rock… hip now, as it was 20 years ago when Pate got started.
OTHER JANUARY RELEASES range from the Arctic Mokeys to a bunch of T. Rex reissues. Talking Heads DualDiscs, Robert Pollard, Aqualung, Laura Veirs and Test Icicles, too.
ROBERT CHRISTGAU has the latest consumer guide at the Village Voice. Looks like a “best of 2005” to me…
SLY STONE has old unheard stuff on the Internet, just like Elliot Smith and Neutral Milk Hotel. But Sly's seems like a family affair.
YUPSTERS are why indie labels now claim 27 percent of the music market — their largest share in recent memory — according to Newsweek.
THE HOLD STEADY: Aquarium Drunkard has posted part two of his interview with keyboardist Franz Nicolay. I neglected to mention before that he's fun to watch onstage, too.
SUFJAN STEVENS may take a hiatus from music to write a book.
DION is singing the blues on his album due next week: “Dion said that despite being urged at various times by Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison and Steven Van Zandt to make an album of blues, he never seriously considered it until a record producer, Richard Gottehrer, heard him talking about his early influences and performing examples” on NPR. And since the NYT link will die soon enough, there's Althouse.
PINK will be speaking truth to power on her next album, I'm Not Dead — a title that just cries out for mockery.
NELLIE McKAY if you missed it earlier, the AP and the NYT can catch you up on her acrimonious split with Columbia Records.
COURTNEY LOVE has collaborated with the Dead 60s guitarist Ben Gordon on tracks for her second solo album.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The tabloids have the supposedly sober supermodel going from “just friends” to falling in love with 20-year-old Jamie Burke: “She says he is just what she needs as, after Pete Doherty, he makes her feel normal again,” said one source. Peter Stoker of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance said Moss should be wary about starting another relationship when she should be concentrating on her recovery. But Ma Moss likes him much more than Doherty.
LOHAN LOWDOWN: Li-Lo tells Vanity Fair she suffered from bulimia and took drugs, then denies cocaine use and has her publicist call the mag the next day to try to get the confession omitted from the article. Just Jared has the Vanity Fair layout. And Best Week Ever had a dubious report of a pregnancy test being smuggled to her hospital room. (The photos are down at BWE, hence the link to IDLY.)
DENISE RICHARDS and CHARLIE SHEEN are headed toward divorce again.
MIRA SORVINO is expecting her second child with husband Chris Backus, according to People magazine.
MICHA BARTON is on the verge of splitting from boyfriend Cisco Adler because of his possessive behavior. But at least the couples NYE screaming match seems to have mellowed following some burning of the ganja weed.
IS THE BLOOM OFF ORLANDO? The Entertainment Weekly blog mulls the NYT article that made him an example of the supposed failed attempt to force certain young actors and actreeses on the public. I tend to agree with the comment that the problem is really with the quality of movies, which is a function of the fact that you can do more in-depth character and plot on cable TV now, levaing movies to gravitate toward their natural advantage of size, which tends to produce big — but often dumb — action pictures.
BRADGELINA: Now the tabs are spicing up the pregnancy rumor with the marriage rumor, this time prompted by lawyers' opinions of Pitt's adoption of Jolie's kids. ALSO: The ladies and gay guys may enjoy Pitt in biker gear.
OCEAN'S 13: This time Clooney walks off with a big bag of money from Warner Bros. by having his partner shoot film of his friends all hanging out at his villa.
JON STEWART is rumored to be hosting the Oscars this year.
BEST PICTURE: No film has won the Oscar for best picture after being snubbed by the Producers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America… so which movies got nominations from both? And is it time for an exception?
THE FRENCH HOTEL is again accused of of using racist epithets.
SIENNA MILLER claims she has tamed Jude Law. And she's young enough to not know that one way to untame a guy is to walk around saying you have tamed him.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio writes about the latest round of small scale operations in Ramadi. StrategyPage notes that while many Iraqi leaders realize that the old ways of tribal revenge will not work, Iraqis prefer to “come at problems sideways, indirectly, so as not to make much of a fuss.” Baghdad Guy, deployed with the 101st Airborne Division, 506th Infantry, paints a portrait of the streets of Baghdad.
IRAN: The bad news is that Pres. Ahmadinejad has said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map, banned Western music from state-run radio and television, and doggedly pursued a nuclear program. The good news is that civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.
CULT OF THE iPod: Mac Rumors is tracking the free downloads offered at iTunes.
TAGGING CONTENT may sound as geeky and boring as filing things, but Jeff Jarvis (formerly of TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly) notes that they will allow you to “discover content tagged by others, to target searches and advertising, to connect people of common interests, and even to collect the wisdom of the crowds.”
PUPPY BOOM: There's no doubt about what dogs have been doing since Hurricane Katrina.
MIRACLE CAT survives a high-speed, 70-mile ride in the underbelly of a SUV. (Thanks, Debbie)
RARE BLACK RHINO is born at the Dvur Kralove zoo in the north of the Czech Republic. Zoos have launched an intensive breeding program to help save the species from extinction.
FUGITIVE BOARS: More than 60 boars which escaped after animal rights activists cut a fence at the Woodlands Wild Boar Farm in Devon, southwest England, remain at large two weeks later.
ANIMALS KNOW STUPID when they see it. And they see it frequently.
WIENER DOG caught canoodling with a lion. Video may be NSFW, if your boss is sqeamish about inter-species loving.
