A new series of attacks were apparently started when this eugenics-promoting South Park episode led to a Facebook group which led to 12 or so kids at a school in California setting upon a 12-year-old then going on some kind of rampage.

The brutality was first revealed on Friday, and now authorities in Calabasas, California have admitted that several other gingerbeatings have occured at AE Wright Middle School, report the LA Times. The paper also, solemnly, describe what a ginger person is:

"Ginger" is a label given to people with red hair, freckles and fair skin.

Thanks! Now we can target them more effectively. Before bands of flame-haired people set out to take their revenge on South Park and its writers, it should be remembered that anti-ginger prejudice is nothing new. Especially across the Atlantic. In 2003 a man was stabbed after a fight following "comments about his ginger hair." In 2007 a family were forced to move repeatedly after an extended campaign of anti-ginger behavior. In the same year a waitress got almost $30,000 in compensation after taunts from co-workers about her strawberry blonde-ness.

They asked me if my head hair was the same colour as the rest of my body hair," she said. "They thought it was funny and liked to see me going red in the face with embarrassment.

Any gingers reading should consult this website.

Retail developer Jack Menashe masterminded the whole transformation. A look at the Limelight Marketplace website and this Real Deal article feature the pictures of the new space, which intends to be stores, restaurants, specialty food shops, and little carts all selling crazy fun things for tourists to haul back to wherever they came from. Sadly 75% of the 60 store spaces are already leased.

Established retailers that have already signed on are Caswell Massey, America's oldest retailer (they made George Washington's cologne), and Hunter Boots, the 150-year-old firm that supplies boots to England's Royal Family. New York newcomers include Mari's New York — Mari Tuttle was a chef at Balthazar's, and this is her artisanal brownie business — It's Sugar, a candy store created by Jeff Rubin, co-creator of Dylan's Candy Bar, Carter & Cavero Old World Olive Oil, and Silly Souls, a baby goods store.

It's basically going to be South Street Seaport on Sixth Avenue and 20th Street, where murderous club kid Michael Alig once walked around dressed as a demonic Ronald McDonald and handed out tablets of E like they were chicklets. Ah, progress.

Thankfully, the former church will retain some of the architectural flourishes that made it distinct, but its soul will be crushed by the feet of ten thousand fat visitors from Texas.

This is the first time we've ever seen the outside of the Limelight in the daylight.
In 1996, we once saw the inside of the Limelight in exactly the same way. Massive doses of Ketamine were involved.
They're going to have cotton candy! Just what we needed.
The real problem with this whole scheme is like it is a club with no velvet rope. "Real" New Yorkers will never shop in a place that looks like a mall where all the visitors go.
There will be carts at the Limelight Marketplace. If you need to get a hat embroidered with the name of your boyfriend, you'll know where to go. Also, no sophisticated shopping space has carts.
They also plan on selling a lot of food. We know this is a country full of fat people, but this still seems odd.
The first floor will host all the little gourmet food stores and restaurants. And don't forget the festival of shops. They're so happy to be there, it's a party!
The second floor is where all the home goods and beauty supplies will be. It is also home to the sneaker gallery, in case you ever need to go somewhere to see children and straight boys pout when their mothers or wives won't let them buy a ridiculous priced pair of rainbow-colored Nikes.
This is where the VIP bottle service is. Ha! Just kidding. But there will be music and fashion!

In 1983, when Microsoft was still a small (if fast-growing), privately-held software company, Allen left his company to battle Hodgkin's disease, undergoing radiation therapy and a bone marrow transplant. (He retained a substantial stake in the company, which eventually made him fabulously wealthy.) A year ago, Allen underwent an "undisclosed medical procedure" that took him away from a local awards ceremony attended by his Microsoft partner Bill Gates.

His health then seemed to improve, but now Allen's announced a diagnosis of "diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common for of lymphoma." The good news: Allen believes he'll be able to continue his role as chairman of investment firm Vulcan, Inc. And he's been through this before. As Bill Gates told TechFlash, " I know [Allen] to be a strong and resilient individual."

(Pic: Allen, left, with his friend Gates at a 2000 Portland Trail Blazers game. Getty Images.)

Window Media owns the Southern Voice and David in Atlanta, the South Florida Blade and 411 Magazine in the Fort Lauderdale area, the Houston Voice, and the Washington Blade, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in October (and where I worked for a number of years). This morning Atlanta gay blogProject Q Atlanta reported that a sign had been placed on the office of the Southern Voice and David, stating, "It is with GREAT regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media, LLC and Unite Media, LLC have closed down." In a sad indignity, employees are told to return to the office on Wednesday with boxes to pick up their belongings. We hear that employees are currently huddled in the parking lot in Atlanta, not sure what to do with themselves and dealing with the local media that has come to report on the closure.

Though the Washington Blade is still online visiting the websites for any of the company's titles lead to an error message, and no one is answering the phones at the Washington Blade. Several gay websites are reporting the Blade is also closed. The Blade's website posted a notice on Friday looking for an editorial intern, so this must have been quite a surprise to all employees. A call to the Blade's editor, Kevin Naff, was not returned. Update: The Blade staff just confirmed the closure on the newspaper's Twitter.

Window has been in financial trouble for some time, and was placed in receivership by the Small Business Association in February because it violated it's contract with the SBA and didn't have capital from individual investors equaling half of the $38 million it had borrowed from SBA. It's not a shock that this happened and, without niche newspapers in major markets, the gay media will continue to move online, just like everyone else. It's sad to see a big gay landmark close—especially one with the reputation for excellence that the Blade had—but isn't that the greatest form of equality?

An upset tipster forward us a Mediabistro job listing for a customer service coordinator at a "Day Spa and Hair salon in Midtown East" New York. "Experience selling beauty products is a plus," but there is absolutely no media aspect to this job. Said tipster complained to Mediabistro and got back the following email:

Hey, Mediabistro: How about carrying listings for some fast-food jobs, too? "Many individuals" who are registered at Mediabistro may be interested in learning the basic skills of that profession, as well.

We can already imagine the MB seminar on those gigs, taught by some sage veteran journalist: "If someone says they want fries with that, check it out. You need three sources to confirm!"

Explaining why he refused to marry Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay, Bardwell explained that it's his very strict policy against marriages that could result in miscegenation:

There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage. I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it.

Now, before you go an call Bardwell a racist, he's not.

He swears has "piles and piles" of black friends, all of whom he would happily let use his toilet.

I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.

You see? The days of "whites only" bathrooms are over! Civil rights have without a doubt been won — and then some. Now, everyone stop getting so uppity.

Image via.

Us Weekly reports that Rebbie Jackson, Michael's oldest sister and the one who is suhttp://publish.gawker.com/ged/5381533#pposedly caring for the children, is not participating in the show and believes it would make Michael "spin in his grave." The children are in the custody of their grandmother, Katherine, who will participate in the show along with her husband Joe, who was always the mastermind behind the family's grabs at fame. A source tells Us that Katherine "is just going along with things."

Didn't the family learn their lesson the first time around. A life that started in the spotlight didn't turn out that great for Michael, why would he want to inflict that on these children as well. And look at poor Blanket in the picture above. Does that look like a kid who wants to have cameras in his bedroom?

The rest of the family—including Janet, the most famous living Jackson—is on board for either five hour-long episodes or 10 half hours. There will be 23 Jacksons in total, so it sounds like the whole brood will be counting their reality television money together.

Update: A rep for A&E told CNN that Michael Jackson's children "are not part of the series." Us Weekly says it stands by its story.

[Image via Getty]

The Deerfield Beach, Florida, fight started because the victim, Michael Brewer (seen here), owed another boy $40 measly bucks for a video game. The indebted boy, 15-year old Matthew Bent, retaliated by stealing Brewer's father's bike, a crime for which Brewer called the cops.

That's when things got insane: Bent called up some friends and they went over to Brewer's house, allegedly doused him with lighter fluid and then set him on fire. And now for the truly disturbing detail: witnesses say Bent ordered "pour it on him," while the others laughed and chanted, "he's a snitch." (Apparently the s-word hasn't gone out of style.)

The five accused — the youngest of whom is 13 — have been charged with aggravated assault, but 15-year old Jesus Mendez, who allegedly started the fire, also faces attempted second degree charges. Brewer, meanwhile, suffered second degree burns all over his body.

All this over a stupid fucking video game, the root of all 21st century evil.

Image via WCBS.

A new profile of Isabell (seen here with Molly Ringwald at the launch party for his Parfumes Isabell product line in 1996) by Arthur Lubow examines his finances and real estate deals around the city, and shows that after he bought at the height of the market and as real estate prices and rents were crumbling. On August 1 of this year, he had a $48 million dollar loan that was due and no way to repay it. Though friends say he remained outwardly cheerful, it sounds like a stressful situation.

At the center of his real estate woes were 837 Washington, a Meat-Packing District building he bought for $45 million in 2008, that he planned to turn into studio spaces and offices for high-end clients. After he successfully flipped two buildings in 2006 — one on West 13th Street and another on Little West 12 Street — he thought this was his next step in the real estate game. When he couldn't get approval from the neighborhood landmarks commission to renovate the space on Washington, there wasn't any return on his investment to repay his loan.

It's unclear what exactly went down, but investigators know this: Gately and his husband Andy Cowley were in Spain, where they have a vacation home. The gents went out on Friday night, tossed a few back and then returned to their apartment.

At some point in the night, according to investigators, Gately choked on his own vomit and died. A gruesome way to go, yes, and not one we enjoy passing on. So, sorry.

It's all very sad and unexpected, but, considering Gately's gay ways, a perfect opportunity for papers, like the Daily Mail, to turn his last hours into a tawdry scandal.

Consider the paper's headline: "Boyzone star Stephen Gately and partner asked Bulgarian back back to £1m apartment."

We're not entirely sure what this mystery man's nationality has to do with the scandal, nor do investigators think he had anything to do with Gately's untimely death, but it makes for great tabloid fodder, no? We wonder whether Gately's sexuality has anything to do with this admittedly pointless article. Or perhaps it's just for shits and giggles.

The most obvious of those realities is that Dame Elizabeth Taylor, now 77, isn't going to be with us forever, and that is a sad thought indeed.

Dear Friends, I would like to let you know before it gets in the papers that I am going into the hospital to have a procedure on my heart...It's very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery, so that my heart will function better...Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate. I'll let you know when it's all over. Love you, Elizabeth

Taylor rose to fame in an age when stars images were handled by the iron hand of the studio system's publicity machine. Now she is sending out statements of her hospitalization in 160 character bursts. While we applaud Taylor for keeping up with technology enough to twitter (or at least savvy enough to hire someone to do it for her), that the old guard has fallen under its sway means that we are going to be stuck with oversharing celebrities assaulting us with their private thoughts and personal details until the end of time.

If Dame E is in on the game, it means that Ashton, Demi, and the rest of the entertainers with over active thumbs and a healthy sense of narcissism aren't going to be the end of the craze, but that new stars who we haven't even imagined yet will be even worse. In 50 years, we'll be following AnnaLynne McCord via real-time streaming 3-D webcam feed as she is rushed to the hospital for her fourth surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome. You can't stop the march of progress, but today we're shedding a tear for when celebrities knew the best thing for their image was often to keep a bit of distance.

The tipster who sent these pictures says, "By 1pm it is completely empty. Not a soul left on this side of the 5th floor. Security guards are standing by the elevator as the last of them trickle out. One woman was rushing to process one last invoice. Amazing how fast they cleared this place out."

Only a few stragglers remain in the lobby. We're wondering if one of them is going to try to rip the sign off the wall and take it home as a memento.
Once these cubes were filled with the bustling of interns and the shrill screams of editors on deadline. Now, we only see the ghosts of the projects that were in the works when the ax fell.
Better not pack too many cookbooks in each box or they're going to be too heavy to carry home so that you can sell them all on eBay while waiting for your unemployment to kick in.
Don't you dare leave those two bottles of wine on your desk. They're going to come in real handy in about an hour or two.
Someone left their cardigan behind so that the desk chair doesn't get cold. After all this, there is still good in the world.
We hope those totes are full of delish food stuffs. After working at Gourmet, waiting in the breadline is gonna suck.

Ms. Paxton came to New York filled with hopes of making it big on a show we all knew was doomed to fail. Now she's totally screwed:

I spent two months and thousands of dollars without a paycheck moving to NY. And now they just say, 'oh, peace, you're done?' We all signed 6 month leases, and now we all have to figure out how to get out of our leases, and I have to figure out how to get all my furniture back. I don't know what to do with this NY furniture. We're kind of stranded.

And here the girls from The Hills are making mad bank for doing even less acting than required of Paxton. What is this economically shattered world coming to?

As an artform, the sitcom started in the '50s with wacky tales of the nuclear family. Going into the '70s there were some shows about the workplace as well as shows about forever expanding, like The Brady Bunch. By the '90s the family was gone almost entirely and replace by the "band of friends" shenanigans of Friends, Seinfeld and the rest of the Must-See-TV crew. From there, the only place to go was totally crazy, as single camera, laugh-track free shows like Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm. With 30 Rock, another age of sitcom supremacy seemed sure to folllow, where its unique voice combined with an office setting seemed like the perfect formula for our time.

So, what do we get this season? Oh, a bunch of sitcoms about wacky families based on tired concepts that we've already seen a million times. The mind-boggling success of Two and a Half Men must still have the networks fooled into thinking they can create traditional sitcoms out of stale ideas. It's like the programmers all sat around and tried to take an old show and give it a "fresh, modern twist" rather than trying to come up with something original or with a viewpoint of its own. Even the actors, like Patricia Heaton, Kelsey Grammar and Courtney Cox are still basking in their sitcom glory of years past.
Here are are the dreadful Frankencreatures they came up with. (Accidentally on Purpose and Community already started, Cougar Town and Modern Family start tonight, Hank and The Middle start next Wednesday, and Brothers starts Friday).

Accidentally on Purpose (CBS)
The Pitch: Knocked Up with an old chick
Description: Jenna Elfman plays a lady of a certain age who gets pregnant by a young slacker and decides to keep the baby.
How Bad Will It Be: Worse than Dharma and Greg, and that's saying something.

Brothers (Fox)
The Pitch: Green Acres meets Perfect Strangers
Description: An NFL player (Michael Strahan) who makes from the city to the country to deal with his crazy family and his competitive brother (Daryll "Chill" Mitchell) who is in a wheelchair.
How Bad Will It Be: It has someone named "Chill" in it.

Community (NBC)
The Pitch: Head of the Class, but stupid.
Description: A mean lawyer (Joel McHale) gets his degree stripped from him and must return to community college with a bunch of misfits. Oh, and Chevy Chase is in it!
How Bad Will It Be: The most promising of the bunch.

Cougar Town (ABC)
The Pitch: That Girl with an old chick and a kid.
Description: Courtney Cox returns as a woman on the prowl now that she's single. She also has a kid. Oh please, you'd still hit on her after two beers.
How Bad Will It Be: Better than Dirt, which is still pretty bad.

Hank (ABC)
The Pitch: Green Acres meets Frasier minus Niles.
Description: Kelsey Grammar and his bellow are rich and white. Because of the recession, he moves the family from the city to rural Virginia. We fell like it is all a way to get people to join the NRA.
How Bad Will It Be: You couldn't pay us.

The Middle (ABC)
The Pitch: Take out the Malcolm In and just call it The Middle. Add a healthy does of Roseanne.
Description: Patricia Heaton is a mom. She has a family. They are "normal" but wacky at the same time. Just like you!
How Bad Will It Be: Everyone Loves Raymond bad, which means it will be around forever.

Modern Family (ABC)
The Pitch: Three families, one that's "normal" one with an old guy and a hot young wife, and one with two gay dads and a baby.
Description: Three families, one that's "normal" one with an old guy and a hot young wife, and one with two gay dads and a baby.
How Bad Will It Be: Could be tolerable, but we may just be blinded by the prospect of gay dads on TV.