Republicans in Pima County, Ariz., where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head eight months ago, had a brilliant idea for a fundraiser: Let's raffle off a gun! Who cares if it's the same brand as the gun used in the Giffords shooting?

The New Mexico State Police officer caught sexing a lady lying on a car has been fired—even though he did nothing illegal. Bert Lopez—a past "officer of the year"—has 30 days to appeal his dismissal.

The best part of toppling a dictator, besides freedom, is getting to rifle through the papers of the intelligence bureaucracy. Who knows what you'll find! Like, say, a big binder that says "C.I.A." and two others that say "M.I.-6"!

Despite threatening to cancel her scheduled appearance at today's "Restoring America" Tea Party rally in Indianola, Iowa, our honorable Christian soldier Sarah Palin decided to show up after all. Not many other people did, though.

Long Island babysitter Teresa Coffey collapsed and died while taking care of month-old infant—the son of local TV host Michael Baldwin—falling on the child and, apparently, smothering it to death.

They say you can't take your money with you when you die—and you can't take your debt, either. When people move on to that great air-conditioned lobby in the sky, their banks sometimes ask—and ask, and ask—their grieving families to pay off remaining debts.

Unless you're wealthy, you've probably been spending Burning Man Week moping about how you couldn't afford tickets to America's favorite festival of radical self-expression this year. But make no mistake: Those rich people touring the playa on their Mad Max cruisers are suffering, too.

Being a physician's assistant seems like a great job, doesn't it? Except for all that pesky "learning" and "certification" you have to go through. Bo-ring! Seventeen-year-old Matthew Scheidt figured out a better system: Just pretend to be a P.A. and people will believe you!

Ray J wants to "protect his rights"—his sex tape rights! Billie Joe Armstrong get kicked off a plane. Sandra Oh gets her identity stolen. And Pippa Middleton maybe got a parking ticket. Saturday gossip is here, and ready to explain why its boobs are weird.

Maybe you were swamped at work all week and couldn't check your favorite Gawker Media sites. Or maybe you're stuck at your parents' house for the holiday weekend and need a distraction. Whatever the case, we've got you covered. Here are some of the most amusing and entertaining videos we watched during the week that was.

Five-year-old Zoe Zachrison and her mom were shopping in the frozen food section at a Minnesota Walmart when suddenly a bat swooped down and bit Zoe on the leg, traumatizing her forever and requiring her to undergo painful rabies shots.

"Government regulations are not 'choking' our business"; "Absolutely, positively not"; "I think the rich have to be taxed." —McClatchy asks small-business owners if they're being (per Chamber of Commerce claims) "choked by regulation" and finds that no, not really.

We've all been on bad dates, am I right? Like, when you're out with a guy and he says he needs to go to the betting parlor before dinner? Talk about a bad date! And then he runs out of the shop holding a knife in a sack of cash screaming "DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!"?

The Labor Day weekend is a slow weekend at the movies, everyone's too busy trying to smother the dread of going back to work with hotdogs and beer, but there are still things opening! Beware of sharks! And moon aliens.

Mars rocks! Skinny gene! Saffron cancer! Body odor! Beetle drones! Intergalactic traffic! Antibiotic resistance! Old fossils! And a whole new theory of prehistoric hand axe timing! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—coleopteristically!

Being a Gawker commenter is a privilege, not a right. As such, we expect our esteemed commenters to display certain skills. They must be smart, witty, capable of making a sound argument, and they should also be able to find the shift key.

Jaundiced grifter-king Silvio Berlusconi was secretly recorded by police in July telling a business associate that "I'm leaving this shitty country of which I'm sickened." That would be his own country, Italy! Hard to blame him. If Silvio Berlusconi were our prime minister, we'd want out, too.

In your laboring Friday media column: Rupert Murdoch gets his due, rumors of more Washington Post cuts, the Oakland Tribune is dying, a rare August with lots of news, and Matthew Freud may be the last man standing.

Remember the KFC Double Down? Sure you do. It was that terrible and probably delicious monstrosity that replaced bread with fried chicken and your arteries with chaos. Well, welcome to 2011, where the Double Down is a thing of the past. Denny's has launched their new, "Let's Get Cheesy" menu, and nary a calorie was spared. Eight of the nine items on the menu have more calories than the Double Down and all can be ordered with "extra ooze." Two oozes on the side, please.

Fall's the time for sitting on the couch with an overflowing snack bowl and dogs in your lap, sunning yourself in the bright lamp light that helps you to manage your Seasonal Affective Disorder, and trying not to think of winter. In other words, a perfect time for reading—and this fall brings the release of so many intriguing-sounding books that narrowing down the options was so hard. But we did it, and now here you go.