The news that unemployment fell to 8.6% in November, the lowest level since March of 2009, is sure to be greeted by a predictable mix of celebration and derisive parsing, but behind the scenes, Republicans have got to be producing trouser bricks. Their strategy to defeat President Obama is almost entirely dependent on an economy that’s headed in the wrong direction, but despite their efforts to hamper short-term job growth, a glimmer of (yes) hope has arrived.

Yesterday was not only a big day for consumers and retailers, it was also big for the ‘Occupy’ splinter movement Occupy Black Friday. The movement called for a boycott of all large chain stores to hit the 1% during a critical shopping season. There were several small protests around the country, but it’s unclear if the movement had any measurable success. Now that Black Friday is over, the anti-corporate protestors are focusing on the Christmas season to launch a new wave of protests.

This year’s Black Friday was marred by isolated incidents involving pepper spray and near-tramplings over waffles. In West Virginia, a man died in the middle of shopping and eyewitnesses claim that everyone else around him continued to shop, walking around and over his body. So it’s perhaps no surprise that every year, a good number of people opt not to be part of the unruly masses and end up looking for good deals online.

Even as political violence rocks Tahrir Square, epicenter of the Arab Spring, and the Occupy Wall Street movement struggles to retain its momentum, a decidedly lower-stakes variety of unrest has taken hold of average Americans. Call it the Doorbuster Revolution. Following a day of media-stoked hype over deeply discounted retail goods, unruly Black Friday shoppers have been pepper-sprayed at least twice, rioted over waffle irons, and now, as MSNBC reports, tased into submission.

Police officers doused Black Friday shoppers in pepper spray in an attempt to calm a disturbance inside a North Carolina Wal-Mart, arresting one and sending a child to the hospital.

Yes Barack Obama‘s Twitter feed is yet another channel of communications between the President and his constituents. So it’s not terribly surprising that this particular media outlet can and should be used for campaign messaging in the run up to the 2012 election. But one can reasonably ask, however, if the official presidential Twitter account is the proper forum for announcing a Black Friday 10% discount special on all Obama merchandising.

In some respects its a classic play from the capitalist playbook, but some may see such a promotional tweet as something perhaps a little less than presidential?

Alright, let’s break it down here. Y’know, shoot straight and talk honestly. There probably isn’t going to be any big news today. As much as it frequently seems otherwise, media folk are people too and all of them except for the unluckiest interns, the perpetually single, or the foreigners are at home today relaxing while content that was put together days ago fills the TV screens and web pages. Seriously, there’s a reason the New York Times is running a two page profile of Mitt Romney’s barber (Weirdest part? It’s actually pretty good). However, that does not mean you should step away from your computer screen. Definitely not! No, if you leave the warm glow of the Mediaite homepage, even for a second, you will be terrorized by insane shoppers. Don’t believe us? Watch this footage…

A crowd of early Black Friday birds at a Los Angeles-area Wal Mart got more than they bargained for as they tried to gobble up great deals Thursday night: chemical warfare. According to reports, up to 20 people were injured when an unidentified woman deployed pepper spray on her fellow shoppers, allegedly in order to gain an advantage in securing deals on discounted electronic items. According to the Associated Press, 20 people received minor injuries, some due to “rapid crowd movement.”

There are some things you expect to see on Black Friday, and some you don’t. CNN’s Poppy Harlow experienced the latter this afternoon, when anti-fur protesters hijacked her live report outside of Macy’s.

Combine a crowd of holiday-stuffed bargain hunters, the lure of first-come-first-served monster savings, a stunt midnight start time, and a standard-sized set of doors…and you get the annual recipe for a “Black Friday” stampede.

Cut to Buffalo, New York, where the clock struck midnight, prices plunged, and an oversized throng tried to squeeze through the doors of a Target store. “It went from controlled to a mob in less than five minutes and it just got nasty,” one shopper told WIVB-TV, which reported one person injured seriously enough to be transported to a hospital.

Here’s the answer to the headline: no.

But Joy Behar wondered on The View yesterday if describing the day after Thanksgiving as “Black Friday” was actually racist – and Whoopi Goldberg told her it wasn’t.

Want to experience the frenzy of Black Friday shopping without leaving the comfort (and safety!) of you own home? Welcome Black Friday Twitterers. No doubt by next year someone will have figured out how to crowd source the best sales on Twitter. In the meantime, you can still experience the melee from the safety of our Tweetfinder.

Black Friday may take on a whole new and scarier meaning today. Depending how closely you were paying attention to the news (or Twitter) between yesterday’s turkey courses you may have heard whispers about Dubai — and its debt crisis which shook global markets over Thanksgiving and sent the Dow tumbling 193 points. The news is not good, and we’ll probably be hearing a lot more about it. Here’s a short overview.