THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE SEVEN AGES of ROCK: PUNK!  This documentary from the BBC tells the tale of two cities -- NYC and London -- and the re-invention of rock at the end of the 1970's.  Bands featured and interviewed include the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Television, The Clash, Patti Smith, Buzzcocks and more.  Tubed in eight segments -- Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8.  There's some language, natch.

JOHNNY THUNDERS and the HEARTBREAKERS:  An Aquarium Drunkard has a guest post from a fellow blogger on the wreckage of Thunders' post-NY Dolls band and the band's fab 1977 demos -- two of which you can stream via the ol' HM.

JASON ISBELL:  The former Drive-By Trucker has an interview and mini-set for the World Cafe streaming from NPR.

WILCO:  Renowned avant-garde guitarist Nels Cline talks to the Winniped Sun about joining the band and Jeff Tweedy's post-rehab addiction.  (Thanks, LHB.)

THE PHIL SPECTOR TRIAL:  The jury is taking a field trip to the fmr pop producer's castle-style mansion in Alhambra, just outside Los Angeles.

SEEN YOUR VIDEO:  Looking for something to balance the classic punk?  Dee-Lite finds that "Groove Is In the Heart," with a little help from Bootsy Collins and Q-Tip.

THE EDMUND FITZGERALD:  Did a life preserver from the wreck fabled in song wash up 200 miles from the spot where it sank?

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS did an interview and mini-set of their "sweetly rustic, warmly melancholic folk-pop" for the World Cafe, streaming on demand via NPR.

THE TOP 10 ALBUMS of 1983, according to Andrew Womack, Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Morning News.

THE CUTOUT BIN:  This Friday's fortuitous finds from the ol' HM are: Homer Simpson - Spider Pig; Steve Earle - I Feel Alright; The Police - Next To You; Wire - 12XU; Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer; Television - See No Evil; The Replacements - Favorite Thing; Soul Asylum - Sometime To Return; Husker Du - Makes No Sense At All; The Soft Boys - I Wanna Destroy You; R.E.M. - Time After Time (Annelise); The Velvet Underground - She's My Best Friend; The Searchers - When You Walk In The Room; The Kinks - This Time Tomorrow; David Bowie - Lets Spend The Night Together; 13th Floor Elevators - She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own); Jefferson Airplane - Plastic Fantastic Lover; Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth; The Broken West - Down in the Valley; The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend; Whiskeytown - Dreams (Fleetwood Mac); and M.Ward - Green River (CCR).

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:  Booker T. & the MG's - Time Is Tight; Sam & Dave - I Thank You; The Four Tops - Standing in the Shadow of Love; Otis Redding - I've Been Loving You Too Long; Smith - Baby, It's You; Gloria Jones - Tainted Love; Rufus & Carla Thomas/Rufus & Carla Thomas - When You Move You Lose; Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground; Hot Chip - Sexual Healing; The Go! Team - The Wrath of Marcie; ABBA - Dancing Queen; Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight; Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science; Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl (acoustic); Meat Loaf - Anything For Love; Brownsville Station - Smokin' in the Boys' Room; Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me; Led Zeppelin - Black Dog; and Hans Zimmer - Spider Pig.

LINDSAY LOHAN:  Longtime former bodyguard Tony Almeida tells InTouch magazine that neither Dina nor Michael Lohan provided any structure for Lindsay when she was growing up and that both were wild, abusive, neglectful partyers who needed to keep their "cash cow" daughter working to pay their bills.  Meanwhile, a fellow patient who just completed treatment at the Cirque Lodge in Utah claims Li-Lo's arrival and stay has been disruptive to others in the program.

NOW SHOWING:  This weekend's wide releases are Rush Hour 3, currently scoring 27 percent on the ol' Tomatometer, the Neil Gaiman fantasy Stardust, which is scoring 73 percent (though only 54 percent among the "cream of the crop" critics) and the pseudo-sequel Daddy Day Camp, which is scoring 2 percent.

THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS nominees have been announced, but even Time magazine has figured out how irrelevant they are.

AMY WINEHOUSE was reportedly admitted to a London hospital due to "severe exhaustion," but London's Sun is claiming that it was in fact a "huge drug overdose."

REESE WITHERSPOON stashed JAKE GYLLENHAAL in a secret guest suite reserved just for her at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel and later spent the night at Gyllenhaal's Hollywood Hills pad.  That should put to rest rumors that Witherspoon was on the verge of reconciling with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.

BRADGELINA have descended upon Chicago for Jolie's next project, Wanted -- and are staying in the same hotel suite Jennifer Aniston used when she was filming The Break-Up.  Sun-Times gossip Bill Zwecker goes provincial to offer tips to Bradgelina-spotting.  It appears that Pitt was in California for the day, narrowly missing jury duty.

LEO DiCAPRIO isn't planning to campaign for any of the 2008 presidential candidates just yet: "I have yet to hear a candidate that has clearly laid out their environmental policy in a way that is inspiring to me."

ANNE HATHAWAY tells Newsweek that  "about 95 percent of my friends are gay men," as is her brother -- but ducked questions about whether that complicates her relationship with her boyfriend, who works for the Catholic Church.  NTTAWWT.

IS THE PLAYBOY MANSION A CRIME SCENE?  LAPD detectives have begun an investigation related to a report of a possible sexual assault at the Playboy Mansion in West L.A.

STEPHEN BALDWIN broke a shoulder and rib less than 3 seconds into his career as a bullrider.  Let's go to the video.

BRIDGET MOYNIHAN:  When New England Patriots QB Tom Brady gets someone pregnant, he gets them unbelievably pregnant.

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN cooks chicken upright in the oven, with carmelized pears.  I'm sure it's tasty, but couldn't it use... more cowbell?

GLOBAL WARMING:  Ironically, the same week that Newsweek decided to paint all global warming skeptics as corporate stooges and "deniers," blogger Steve McIntyre forced NASA to revise US temperature data used for climate modeling to correct a Y2K bug.  The revised data shows that 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now occur before World War II.  The Y2K bug was not easy to uncover because NASA's  James Hansen had refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate temperature graph data.  The National Climatic Data Center, a branch of the NOAA, also tried to suppress the locations of the surface temperature monitoring stations that collect the basic temperature data -- some of which failed to meet the NCDC's  requirements, or were revealed to be in ridiculously unsuitable locations -- on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills.  Whether or not these factors affect the overall science remains to be seen, but we should make sure we have solid data, properly functioning computer software and transparent methodology before those who question them are not-so-subtly compared to Holocaust "deniers."

IRAQ:  Newsweek gets a look inside an Iraqi "un-brainwashing" program for teen jihadis outside Camp Cropper.  Up to 2,760 non-Iraqis are locked up in Iraqi jails, among them 800 Iranians, the Iraqi delegation to an international security meeting in Damascus revealed on Wednesday.  Iraqi gov't and religious leaders charge that Saudi Arabia is doing little to stem the flow of its nationals to Iraq to wage "holy war" on Shiites. But some Saudi Arabian analysts say this is a way for Baghdad's Shiite leaders to steer attention away from Iran's involvement in Iraq.  The WaPo has a piece on the wary relations among the US military, former Sunni insurgents and the Shiite-dominated national gov't.  The top US general in northern Iraq said Wednesday he was redistributing troops and predicted any pullout from the country would take at least two years.  And the latest CNN poll shows that most Americans think that the war is winnable -- but still don't think that the US will win.

IRAQ and the MEDIA:  The New Republic's controverisal "Baghdad Diarist" gets covered by the Associated Press, which quotes Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute school for journalists, and Paul McLeary, a staff writer for Columbia Journalism Review who has written about the matter, pointing out the ethical problems raised by the dubious diaries... which is slightly amusing, given that McLeary used to be more interested in attacking TNR's critics in his own writing.  It's also amusing to the extent that the AP itself used a pseudononymous police officer as a source for over 60 stories in Baghdad without even disclosing that fact to its readers (indeed, the AP has never admitted it).  Meanwhile, the conservative blog Confederate Yankee contacted one of TNR's sources and got different answers than the magazine did.

IRAQ and the MEDIA II:  The US military dropped charges on Thursday against two Marines charged in connection with the 2005 deaths of 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha.  Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.  In April, murder charges were dismissed against Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz.  Time magazine, which broke the Haditha story and hyped it heavily, even calling it a "symbol of a war gone bad," has somehow neglected to inform its readers of these developments so far.  That's not surprising; in its "symbol" story, the mag predicted that "it's unlikely that even by throwing the book at the men responsible, the U.S. military will earn the goodwill of the civilian population" -- but somehow missed the Mayor begging the Marines to stay.  Of course, the remaining defendants may yet be found guilty of serious crimes, but it's a lesson about convicting our troops in the press before there has been any due process.

THE RACOON THREAT:  The furry little mask fits on this carpet thief caught on video.

A SEXUALLY SUSPECT PANDA once believed to be male gave birth to twin cubs this week in China.

A 700-LB. GRIZZLY BEAR escaped from a local zoo and is roaming Stevensville, Ontario, not far from a Lake Erie beach popular with Buffalo-area residents.

WHEN BEAVER ATTACKS:  A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

THE RAT THREAT:  Clearly the shock troops for the squirrels, these British rodents blew up a home, killing a grandmother, by chewing through the gas pipes.