NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre's bizarre press conference managed to make the cover of the New York tabloids today and both papers didn't miss the opportunity to really dig in.

One of the greatest things about reading all the nasty, incoherent emails you send us each week is that I'm always on the cutting edge of the latest email trends. Oh we're doing ALL CAPS this week? Sounds great. This is the week we all stopped trying with the your/you're there/their/they're differentiation? Love it, makes life easier. This week, however, the passive-aggressive custom sign-off was the new black. And, boy, have we got some good ones. Like the note your college roommate used to leave on the refrigerator, but even more passive-aggressive, since it's via the Internet.

Much has been made of Ben Affleck's "possible Senate run" over the past 48 hours, mostly from cable news anchors, and mostly sourced to an interview on CBS' Face the Nation in which Affleck said "one never knows" when asked about possible political ambitions.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled today that employers can fire employees towards whom they have an "irresistible attraction," irrespective of the latter's workplace conduct.

If you didn't bear witness to the most disastrous press conference in recent history today, courtesy of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, here is the gist of the NRA's response to last week's Sandy Hook massacre: the NRA wants to put a volunteer force of armed guards in every school in America. They call this plan the "National School Shield," and they believe it will prevent more school shootings from happening. "The only way—the only way—to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved," said LaPierre, "and the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun."

Xiao Liwu, whose name translates to "little gift," is the latest addition to the San Diego Zoo's growing panda family.

During NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre's Friday-morning press conference, the organization's first since 27 people died a week ago at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., my Twitter feed — filled with liberal writers and pundits — was lighting up in fascination and disgust. "Every journalist on Twitter thinks Lapierre is completely insane," Reuters' Felix Salmon wrote. The consensus was that LaPierre's remarks were unhinged and alienating; the Washington Post's Ezra Klein marveled at "how much damage LaPierre is doing to the NRA without even allowing questions." Even the few conservatives I follow agreed: "I'm not sure this presser was good in style a week after Newtown," wrote RedState's Erick Erickson.

On Friday in Los Angeles, a young old woman named Demi Moore sold all her beautiful hair for $20, so she would have some money to buy a fine Christmas present for her husband Ashton. After ransacking the stores for hours, she finally came upon the perfect gift: a platinum fob chain for his treasured pocketwatch.

iPNP is a hilariously named Santa app for kids, not for adults interested in having sex on meth. Stick to Grindr.

A woman in Argentina is being called "psychologically ill" by her mother for announcing her intention to marry the man convicted of murdering her twin sister.

The new movie version of Les Misérables is a nonsensical, emotional vampire of a movie. It sucks and sucks and never stops sucking. I knew I was supposed to feel something in this ever-welling sea of emotion, but I didn't know exactly what and I most certainly did not feel a thing. Well, that's not entirely true — I did feel isolated, like I was from a different planet than the people who were moved to repeatedly applaud for actors that couldn't hear them (at a screening full of critics, no less!), and audibly weep at turns so evidently constructed to make them do so that a giant lit up "CRY NOW" sign in the theater would have been redundant.

The Mayan apocalypse didn't kill us all, but I knew the apocalypse couldn't kill me. I've been through major earthquakes and hurricanes, Y2K, Hale-Bopp and MMMBop. In my lifetime, they've been printing doomsday prophecy the way vaporware tech companies printed stock in 1999. I wipe my ass with prophecy.

Are you trapped in an office while all your friends and loved ones are hanging stockings, dreaming of sugar plums, watching Maury, and whatever else they do when they're home during the day? Us too.

A failure to enunciate to Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak's liking cost a contestant a bundle of money earlier this week along with the rest of the game.

The Gizmodo App Challenge inspired by BMW i's sustainable and design-conscious i concept cars came and went, and one talented Gizmodo reader had her winning app revealed on Wednesday evening at the GQ Best Stuff of the Year event. The winner? "I Can Make That," a creativity a sustainability app created by Sara A. that helps people repurpose materials lying around the house by making DIY projects out of them (like turning an old bicycle into a pedal-powered generator for camping).

The best part about this "sequel" to Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First" routine starring Jimmy Fallon, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, and A.D. Miles, is how great it is.

With our profuse apologies, we now present to you, in no particular order, the 50 least important writers of 2012. Enjoy, or not.

The National Rifle Association today held its first press conference since last week's deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the takeaway was clear: We need more guns.

And now it's dead...almost. Last night's episode of Jersey Shore found the show's guido/guidette family packing up and moving out of Seaside Heights, NJ, for good. The girls cried, Vinny got an itchy eye and the entire goodbye scene was full of euphemism, as many acknowledged how the show changed their lives without specifically being able to say that. Insert Snooki "Waaaaah!"

On December 21, 1912, the New York Times published a profile of "The Perfect Girl": a size 14 wannabe-vegetable farmer who loved beefsteak and, by her own admission, literally did not know what fear was: