SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315 Stays In Room 315, Part 6

BY JEFF DEENEY The students’ first taste of freedom from room 315 doesn’t come until well after noon when they are escorted by the teacher’s aid Miss Patterson and the behavioral health worker Mr. Thompson to the lunch room.  When finally given the opportunity to leave the room with legitimate cause the children explode into the hallway, running, jumping and kicking lockers. They draw the ire of the school security officers who scream at them to settle down. They duck into classrooms, giving loud, disruptive shout outs to their friends, causing teachers to holler and slam doors in their faces. […]

TONITE: Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think

ABC NEWS: New home starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 from a downwardly revised level of 771,000 in October, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That is a drop of 18.9 percent, the steepest since March 1984. The total is far below the 740,000 pace that Wall Street economists expected. MORE CBS NEWS: U.S. consumer prices in November plunged by the largest amount on records going back 61 years as energy costs posted nearly double the decline of the previous month. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that consumer prices fell 1.7 percent in November, surpassing the previous […]

GAYDAR EXTRA: A Very Dumpsta Christmas

JINGLE BELLS, BATMAN SMELLS: Sara Sherr and Jimmy Divine get their Dumpsta on. BY AARON STELLA Christmas is here. Yeah, the economy sucks, and you’ve pawned your whole re-gift stash. Well, at least you can treat yourself to a little Christmas cheer. For only $1.99, you can revel in some holiday havoc with one of Philly’s premier trash-glitz drag troupes: you guessed it, the one and only Dumpsta Players are showcasing their Christmas extravaganza “A Very Lipshitz Christmas.” The Lipshitz’s, an orthodox Jewish family, find themselves flat broke (thanks to the Wall Street meltdown) this Christmas, a tragedy which eventually brings […]

NOT SAFE AT ANY SPEED: Flaw In Internet Explorer Leaves All Users Vulnernable To Attack, Financial Ruin

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday. The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims’ machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. The sites are mostly Chinese and have been serving up programs that steal passwords for computer games, which can […]

RAW FOOTAGE: 4-Year-Old Breaks Into Toy Store

Link: KFDM: Police say at 2:59 a.m. Monday, officers responded to an alarm at the Family Dollar Store. Officers arrived and began to check the building. They discovered that one of the two front doors was not secured. There was no sign of forced entry. Police went inside the store and found a four-year-old child playing with toys in the store. The child had to travel more than a block from his home on Chamberlin Drive to get to the store. And cross 7 lanes of traffic at 3 A.M., just to reach the door. MORE

THAT’S NOT FUNNY, IT’S SICK: National Lampoon CEO Nailed By Philly Feds For Stock Fixing Scheme

MARKET WATCH: PHILADELPHIA — Acting United States Attorney Laurie Magid today announced the unsealing of three indictments and an information charging seven individuals with conspiracy and securities fraud. The charges pertain to four separate schemes designed to artificially inflate the prices of publicly traded stocks. Among those charged is Daniel Laikin, CEO of National Lampoon, Inc. which owns interests in the film “Animal House” and the “Vacation” series. These cases were the result of a long-term investigation, conducted in coordination with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), that detected ongoing stock manipulation schemes in the national securities […]

BREAKING: Sweet Little Baby Jesus Stolen

INQUIRER: The National Park Service is investigating the theft of a nearly life-sized statuette of a baby Jesus that was stolen from a crèche at Fifth and Market Streets near Independence Hall. According to Jane Cowley of the Park Service, the theft was discovered over the weekend by a member of the maintenance staff. The statuette was due to be replaced by the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Knights of Columbus. Cowley said this was the first time in memory that such a theft had occurred. The statuette had been bolted to the floor of the display. No other […]

MEDIA: Twittering The Demise Of The Fourth Estate

NEW YORK TIMES: With staff changes and reductions across the media industry, even a blog post can be too time-consuming a way to announce who is in and out of a job. That is why a public relations employee turned to the instant-blogging platform Twitter to create The Media Is Dying, a Twitter feed that documents media hirings and firings in one-sentence bursts of text. “These sorts of layoffs are unheard-of,” said the stream’s founder, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his sources in the industry. “It’s gotten insane to keep up with who was moving around […]

DUCK: Iraqi Journalist Hurls Shoes At Bush’s Head

Shoe-Hurling Iraqi Becomes a Folk Hero UPDATE: BAGHDAD — An Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush and called him a dog became a huge celebrity in the Arab world and beyond on Monday, with many supporters exalting him for what they called a courageous act in the face of American arrogance about the war. MORE CNN: An Iraqi television journalist hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference Bush was holding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement. Bush had just finished his […]

KILLADELPHIA: 3 More Dead Since U Went To Bed

INQUIRER: A 34-year-old man, who lived in an apartment above the restaurant he owned – Wings and Things – in the 2300 block of South 65th Street, was killed as he returned home at 1:47 a.m., said Lt. Mark Deegan of the police department’s homicide division. Two men confronted him in a robbery attempt. He resisted and was shot more than once in the chest. He was pronounced dead at 2:08 a.m. at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The man’s name has not been released because relatives have not yet been notified. No arrests have been made. Shortly after […]