Fun fiscal cliff fact: You're not wealthy unless you make $400,000 or more, or almost 8 times the median income in NYC.

When a guy fell into a lake on Christmas morning in Wrightwood, California, his friend went to help him. Then he fell in. Then someone came to help both of hem. And he fell in. Then some other people came to help them and they fell in. Etc.

As the Tribune Co. emerges from bankruptcy, heed its lesson: don't put a clown or an asshole in charge of your company.

Barack Obama is a master of the casually revealing photo. For months, you'll see the President of the United States blocking out a stiff rectangular space behind all those podiums, seeming a little vulnerably gangly in one of his slightly roomy grey or blue suits, alternating among a familiar reserve of strained expressions meant to convey leadership, certainty, disappointment, concern, reason, gravity, and occasional disgust. But then, at a regularly reaffirming clip, there are these moments when the President of the United States seems most at ease, somewhat unguarded, and most resolutely human. In these scenes, Obama's character doesn't shrink, it swells.

As 2012 draws to a close, it's very important to figure out what, exactly, 2012 was the year of. The dragon? The election? The Olympics? New practical thermoelectric power generators? To help figure it out we've assembled 58 articles explaining why 2012 was the year of...

It's New Years Eve and not too much is going on on the internet so let's contemplate The Most Important Question In The World: "Who would win if every country sent their leader to fight to the death?" Yesterday a user on Reddit posed the question that every stoned college sophomore home on winter break asks himself when ambling to the corner store to get some Pop Chips not because he's even that hungry but just to get out of the house for a minute or two.

Will 2013 be the year when the student debt bubble pops, raining havoc down upon us all in the form of economic destruction? Eh, who knows. What we do know is that college prices, which have been shooting skyward for many years as institutions reaped every last dollar they could from the public's hope and ignorance, are now slowly—ever so slowly—calming down.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I surrender to every lazy, venial backsliding tendency lurking in my insufficient character. But they make sense for a lot of people. Not just in that that Dale Carnegie "winning friends and influencing people" way, but in the sense that they act as a bulwark against every inexorable, cruddy force surrounding us.

An "athlete's foot from hell" is killing all the world's coolest frogs. Damn.

On this, the final day of 2012, allow us to draw your attention to what is—if memory serves—the most obnoxious letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review of the entire year, conveniently published in yesterday's edition.

In news that basically shattered the internet when it first hit Twitter, Kanye West announced Sunday night that Kim Kardashian is pregnant with his baby. West broke the news during his concert in Atlantic City, telling the crowd something along the lines of: "Stop the music and make some noise for my baby mama" before pointing at Kardashian.

Earlier this year, we asked if you remembered Afghanistan. The answer then, obviously but somewhat unofficially, was no. Now, with the release of several news organization's year-end top stories lists, we know that, objectively, no one gives a shit about the 11-year-old war.

Bad month to be a world leader: Hugo Chavez is in "delicate" condition following recent cancer surgery in Cuba.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a hospital Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot during an follow-up examination related to a concussion she suffered earlier this month.

When George H.W. Bush was released yesterday from the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital, most news outlets reported the event in a straight forward enough fashion, with some even taking the opportunity to compliment the 88-year-old on his excellent taste in socks. Germany's Der Spiegel, however, took a different approach; instead of reporting his improving health, the magazine accidentally published their pre-written obituary for the former president.

You can never be too rich or too thin or have enough portmanteaus for your post-adolescent generation. It's Twixters, now. Who is a Twixter? Everyone, probably. Any woman who has ever listened to music while wearing a hat is a Twixter. Any man who has ever looked at a picture of Mila Kunis is a Twixter. You are, just for having read the word. Welcome to the Twixter generation. Here is your knit cap and sense of purposelessness. Characteristics include "ESPN" and over-employment.

Piers Morgan has announced he "may deport [him]self" if America doesn't change its "crazy" gun laws.

Actor and profesional crazy person Charlie Sheen recently hosted the opening of his new bar in the El Ganzo hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, was on hand to watch Slash perform. What a party!

Les Misérables has already made off with $67 million at the box office since debuting on Christmas day, but a lot of people have found the sweeping musical largely problematic. Many are quick to criticize the performance of Russell Crowe. He can't really sing that well after all and some really judgmental critics feel that he ruined the whole movie.

PR email blasts take on a kind of terrifying, poetic majesty at this time of year. Some caps become all caps; "don't-miss" becomes "can't-miss"; I have now read the words "burlesque" and "cabaret" so many times that they have lost all meaning. Everything is burlesque. All things are burlesque. Nothing is burlesque. Endless cabarets. The limit does not exist.