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 […]
THE FUNNY PAPERS: Greek Tragedy In The Making
[via MARRIEDTOTHESEA]
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 […]
NO MO: 76ers Fire Head Coach Maurice Cheeks
INQUIRER: A source close to the 76ers has confirmed that Sixers head coach Maurice Cheeks has been fired and the interim coach will be Tony DiLeo, who is currently the Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager. DiLeo will coach tonight’s home game against the Washington Wizards and, a source close to the Sixers confirmed that DiLeo will coach the team through the end of the season. The official word coming from the Sixers at this point in “no comment.” MORE WASHINGTON POST: The 76ers became the fifth team to fire its head coach this season when they replaced Maurice […]
THE PHOTON BAND: Where Did The Love Go?
[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN] The Photon Band plays tonight at JBs with Audible and Brown Recluse.
TONITE: On Sugar Mountain
ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: AMERICANA (Musical movement 1776-present; see also alt-country, No Depression) Often shortsightedly assumed to date back no further than the first Uncle Tupelo record, the Americana musical tradition in fact begins with that iconic, bloodied fife-and-drum trio staggering out of the smoking ruins of the American Revolution. Forsaking macho jingoism for earthy, backwoods aesthetics, Americana is a catchall phrase to encompass the impossibly wide breadth of American roots music, evoking the magnificent vistas of the national geography and the transcendental struggle of the American experience — the good, the bad, the ugly, the high and the lonesome. While […]
TRAGIC: Bettie Page Is Dead
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85. Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler. A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur […]
THE EARLY WORD: Let Them Eat Rock
Philabundance is the region’s largest hunger relief organization and works to end hunger and malnutrition in the Delaware Valley by acquiring food and distributing it through organizations serving people in need. *** NEIL YOUNG: After The Gold Rush RELATED: Tix Still Available For Neil Young + Wilco Friday At The Spectrum PREVIOUSLY: Q&A With Wilco Keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen *** BIZJOURNAL: Comcast Corp. said Thursday it launched a faster Internet service that will double the speed for most of its existing customers by early 2009. The Philadelphia-based telecommunications giant will roll out the so-called “wideband” service to residential and business customers […]
LIL MAN W/ GUN IN HIS HAND: Psycho Killer & Wrestling Enthusiast John Du Pont Denied Parole
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Former suburban Philadelphia multimillionaire John du Pont has lost a bid for parole. A jury in 1997 found the heir to his family’s chemical company fortune guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill in the 1996 shooting death of Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler David Schultz. Du Pont was sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison, but first was treated for three months at Norristown State Hospital. His attorney, Tara Wochok, said the 70-year-old du Pont is now at the state prison at Mercer in western Pennsylvania. Wochok said du Pont’s parole petition was turned down last […]