Former editor and Washington Post ombudsman, Deborah Howell, died when she was struck by a car earlier today in New Zealand. She was 68. Howell was, among other things, a pioneer for women in journalism.

The hardest part about working for Bonnie Fuller at Us Weekly was pretending to care about the often unknowable, usually banal questions that filled story meetings. Now at HollywoodLife, Fuller's Twitter account allows you to experience her relentess short-attention-span curiosity.

Pictures may only be worth a thousand words, but they can certainly sear an image onto your brain for all eternity. Here are the pictures that defined 2009 on Gawker.

We were worried that naming Joe Francis Gawker's Douche of the Decade might go to the drunk-girls-with-low-self-esteem kingpin's head. Would he simply rest on his laurels and give up the pursuit of douche perfection? Luckily, Francis has not failed us.

Jasper Schuringa probably didn't think twice before dismantling Northwest Airlines Flight 253's would-be bomber. But before telling his story, he wanted money, and he got it. From major news outlets who pay up and lie about it. Here's the proof:

Either Accenture didn't get all the Tiger Woods ads down in time for the holidays, or they're starting a clever new campaign. The intrepid Foster Kamer spotted this seven-foot-tall backlit message next to the security line at LaGuardia Airport today.

Swedes are sort of like Earth's benevolent alien overlords, right? They just are so different than us, gazing down from their icy zone! For one thing, they have a strange tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons each Christmas Eve.

Yea, we know the word "hipster" is played out. That's exactly why we need to pick a Hipster Champ of the past decade. So we can lay the whole damn thing to rest. Your candidates, below. Vote. If you want.

Ugh. Shut up, bill-killing liberals. You know who has more liberal cred than all of you? Bernie Sanders, who secured $10 billion for community health and then voted for cloture.

2009 has been a year of surprising, untimely celebrity deaths. Brittany Murphy's sudden death this morning is no different. Here, we take a look back at her very diverse roles throughout the troubled actress's extensive career.

Read: this great piece on how Design Within Reach—who sell shiny pretty expensive tables and chairs—got popular and fell from grace, all while keeping their headache-inducing name. IT'S NOT WITHIN REACH IF I CAN'T AFFORD IT. Ugh. [FastCompany]

To no one's surprise, it appears that Tiger Woods' wife is planning to divorce him. Sorry, golf fans momentarily distracted from your sedate sport by a wild sex scandal: this story is coming to its end.

Failed David Letterman extorter Joe Halderman was more than an inept criminal with an inept legal defense team; he was a severely paranoid inept criminal. He's just saying—who knows if Letterman might have him killed, or whatever?

The New York Post has some choice quotes from Halderman's recorded conversations with Letterman's lawyer, when he was trying to get a couple million to keep quiet about Letterman's affair. He was worried Letterman might have him fired. Or have his house burned down. Or, something else:

Between pranks, sports, tech, video games, singing, dancing, and television— there was a lot to choose from. These are the top 100 videos that became famous on the web in 2009, all in less than three minutes.

30 Rock's Jack Donaghy embodies every appalling aspect of American corporatism: racism, classism, and — most overtly — sexism. Yet we love him anyway, no doubt thanks to Alec Baldwin (whose charismatic performance makes Jack most misogynistic moments memorable).

The Washington Post has run another Sarah Palin op-ed. And this time it's worse than ever — it's about the myth of global warming and how she is the true defender of science because she kills polar bears.

Kristen Wiig is a comic genius. So our hearts went pitter-patter when we learned she was getting an entire Saturday Night Live primetime Christmas special. But then: of course the NBC suits picked her most annoying, only unfunny character.

CBS actually dropped the ax earlier today so by the time David Faber talked to Moonves, he'd probably already heard the show will end next September. But it was probably a call from his wife, Jenny: Jenny Faber's mother is Marie Masters, who started in the role of Dr. Susan Stewart in 1968. She left the show in 1979 only to return in 1986. She still plays the character occasionally today and even served as a writer on the show at one point.

Currently, Jeremy Paul Olson languishes in a Minnesota jail for the crime of throwing tomatoes at Sarah Palin today. Although he missed Palin's face, Jeremy struck a chord strung through the center of our heart: Who are you, brave tomato-thrower?

These colorful characters will instantly become your new reality show best friends when the MTV show about eight guidos in a summer house starts tonight. It's going to be epic. And yes, we will be live blogging the 10pm debut.