Shawn Stevens is nothing but a good old 12 year-old boy. An American boy. He has a touch of autism, but he's American, and that's what matters. He's a young man who just wanted to carry a flag. An American flag. The stars and stripes. The banner of freedom. A simple desire to hold Old Glory in his very own hands. To carry that flag around, at the school, that taxpayers paid for, to let everyone know that the American dream lives. It lives in the mind of a boy. An American boy. Named Shawn Stevens.

We've been hearing whispers for the better part of a week that Kelly Bensimon, Alex McCord, and former Gawker intern Jill Zarin have been fired from the Real Housewives of New York and now it seems like it is official. Goodbye, sweet, sweet ladies.

Netflix recently had the bright idea of introducing a big stealth price hike. Profits soared! Actually, no: Netflix stopped growing due to cancellations, cut its subscriber projections, and the stock is down 17 percent so far today.

In your workmanlike Thursday media column: Megan McCarthy to the NYO, Ana Marie Cox and Nick Davies to The Guardian, a new EP at ABC News, Jon Meacham to Time, and ruthless morning news bookers.

We got some scuttlebutt from an insider about who won the upcoming edition of Lifetime's Project Runway All Stars. Not only that, but the order that the designers got kicked off of the show. It could be right, it could be wrong, but it's sure fun to guess. Spoilers, for those who want them, ahead.

Cancel tomorrow's date night at Olive Garden immediately! The Darden Restaurant Group, which runs fine dining boutiques Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and other strip-mall destinations is getting itself healthy with Michelle Obama's help. That just ruins everything.

Remember coning? It's the dopey web video stunt made popular this summer in which people at the McDonald's drive-thru grab their ice cream cone by the ice cream instead of the cone, making a mess and confusing everyone, and then they drive away laughing. Hilarious! Well, no more, says one New Jersey McDonald's manager.

In our ongoing quest to be servicey and fill the maddening expanse of open pixels with something—anything—that might be useful to you, the reader, it's time for another edition of "Advice questions, reconsidered." Today: coupons! Dating! Cheapness! Sexxx!

The concept for NBC's Up All Night, which premiered last night, is a great one: get a hip pair of thirtysomethings like Christina Applegate and Will Arnett and show what happens when they decide to become parents. The problem is it's a great concept for a movie—not a TV show.

All three Kardashians blow off Kris Humphries' plus-size model sister. Mila Kunis gets hacked. A naked man with a Fudgesicle broke into Nicolas Cage's house. Padma Lakshmi bombs at an open mic night. Thursday gossip turns up its nose.

October, 2010: lifelong media grenade-thrower Michael Wolff is appointed as the top editor of advertising industry trade magazine Adweek. April, 2011: the new Wolff-ified Adweek debuts. Our prediction at the time: "It'll go along just fine for a month or three, until the publisher starts getting calls from the advertisers, who say, 'I find all of that media reporting very interesting but by the way, we are in the advertising industry. Not the media. So I'm, you know, taking my business over to Ad Age, which really, let's be honest, covers this industry that I'm in (advertising) better than you guys do.' And that will be the end of the great media-reporting-heavy advertising trade magazine experiment!"

Some New Jersey politicians (well, OK, one assemblyman at least) are furious after learning that the first season of MTV's Jersey Shore, a paean to all things terrible about America's fourth-worst state, will cost the state's taxpayers $420,000 in tax credits. The horror!

This reality fixture can't help but pass noxious gas when shopping in Beverly Hills. This actor has stopped playing beard to a famous lesbian and found a new lady, and this actress was a total mess at a fashion show. As long as she didn't stink up the joint, she's in good shape.

Yesterday, we brought you the story of Sarah Grunfeld, the 22 year-old student at York University who ran out and publicly accused her (Jewish) sociology professor of anti-Semitism when he said the phrase "Jews should be sterilized"—as an example of a bad opinion. Grunfeld's reasoning: "The words, ‘Jews should be sterilized' still came out of his mouth, so regardless of the context I still think that's pretty serious."

The use of standardized test scores as a proxy for actual intelligence is a lazy, misguided, classist and culturally discriminatory tactic that makes the jobs of policymakers easier at the expense of the future of our children. That said, kids these days are more jaw-droppingly stupid than ever before. We're getting it from all sides.

Today in Some Crazy Person Asked Pat Robertson for Advice, we learn that the firebrand cleric doesn't merely dislike Alzheimer's — "I hate Alzheimer's," he says — but he thinks it's totally cool for you to divorce your spouse over it. A man wrote to Pat seeking advice for his friend, whose wife has Alzheimer's and no longer recognizes him. Pat's response, from Tuesday's 700 Club:

A robot will run, swim and cycle through one of the most grueling tests of fitness endurance — Hawaii's Ironman Triathlon. What kind of images does that conjure up in your mind? Perhaps Robocop in a Speedo, clanking down a tropical highway while downing a quart of Pennzoil? Well, don't get too excited. The robot is Evolta, he stands about two apples high, and kind of looks like Sonic the Hedgehog riding a tiny Segway.

Has Apple's war on Google soared to 30,000 feet? Marcy Simon, erstwhile mistress of Google chairman Eric Schmidt, has taken to Twitter to report her "abuse" at the hands of a United flight attendant.

A mysterious light — "brilliant" and "bright," according to those who had seen it — lit up the sky over the Southwest on Wednesday night. 911 call centers across three states were flooded with reports of sightings. (Really, people? This is something you call 911 for?)

After announcing it to Congress last week, President Obama unveiled the $450 billion American Jobs Act at the White House on Monday. The next morning, Fox & Friends ripped the President for fastening the 200-page bill with a "chintzy clip," a move Stephen Colbert described as "Clip-gate" on tonight's Report.