Of all the videos uploaded to the Internet this year, here are fifteen that found their way into my feeds and dashboards and inboxes and my bookmarked aggregators of varying stripe, fifteen that inspired me to to copy and paste their URL into a Google Doc labeled “2011 Videos Wonderful,” a title comprised of words I was likely to search for when later I couldn’t find my ongoing list, and fifteen that survived when I took that giant collection and whittled it down to ten, and then added five that were somehow similar to others in the top ten and deserved inclusion because they hinted at some kind of trend. Arduous? Perhaps. But so very, very worth it. READ MORE

Late last night, the LAPD raided Occupy Los Angeles. More than 1400 police officers—about 15% of the city's officers—were used to arrest more than 200 people, leaving the encampment in a shambles. Teams of police wore hazmat suits and K-9 units swept the camp, looking for incendiary devices, which they did not find. The tactical approach, guided by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck on-site, involved eventually cordoning off City Hall Park and arresting everyone trapped inside. The operation was concluded by 3:30 a.m. READ MORE

Last night, Occupy Los Angeles was to be evicted. As the LA Times put it: "When the LAPD announced that it wanted the campers out by midnight Sunday, officials hoped many protesters would leave voluntarily. Instead, the deadline prompted hundreds of people to converge on the area." Although the police arrested a few people for blocking the streets early this morning, they did not in the end evict the encampment at City Hall Park. READ MORE

When I found out that Michele Bachmann got migraines she ceased to be this distant caricature of a crazy-eyed ideologue. The Buddhists say that understanding someone else’s suffering leads to compassion, and as stupid as this sounds I found Bachmann instantly more human simply because I get migraines too. It changed my bias. I stopped seeing her religious crap as some insidious flaw. Now I see it as a well-meaning flaw. I’ve been secretly rooting for her to win the Republican nomination ever since I learned about her affliction, ever since people started saying it somehow disqualifies her from office. Who you like in politics can be a weird and visceral thing. READ MORE

You’re standing at the intersection of Wilshire and Highland. What neighborhood are you in? The sign on the corner says you’re somewhere called Brookside. The sign on the other corner says you’re in Park Mile. The sign a block away, in full view of the other signs, says you’re in Sycamore Square. READ MORE

36. Sullivan

35. McMahon

34. Izzard

33. Murphy

32. Asner

31. Begley

30. Begley, Jr.

29. Harris

28. Furlong

27. Norton

26. Wood

25. G. Robinson

24. R. Murrow

23. Schultz

22. Muskie

21. Koch

20. Albee

19. VIII

18. the guy who my grandfather always thought I was when I called him on the phone

17. Fisher

16. Cantor

15. Thigpen

14. Money

13. Van Halen

12. Vedder

11. the Confessor

10. Mr.

9. Special

8. Co-

7. the verb ending that indicates past tense

6. Scissorhands

5. Bauer

4. Cullen

3. Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

2. the guy with the bowling alley law firm

1. DeBevic

Eric Spiegelman is a proprietor of Old Jews Telling Jokes.

10. Chadaka READ MORE

Al Jazeera is putting every American news channel to shame with its amazing coverage of the revolutions across the Middle East. But most cable systems in this country won’t carry it! If you live in Toledo, Ohio, or Burlington, Vermont, or Washington D.C., you might have it. The rest of us are out of luck. READ MORE

Here are ten videos, culled from the neverending stream of Internet things that pass by my face each day, ten videos that will make you feel good about the world. They're all from this year, a year that I can say confidently had way more suck than it had awesome; but if you take half an hour to ignore all the suck and watch these you will come away thinking, man, people still make some beautiful things, even in the midst of shit raining down, even if only they're tiny little Internet videos. This was a running list I started in January, a list I only added to when moved to do so. And there was not much paring down that happened when I looked back at the collection this week, which proves I have very high standards—because let me tell you I saw a LOT of cute animal videos this year, and only two made this list. Looking at them all again, it's clear that I responded to things that were delightful, clever and sometimes poignant. READ MORE

So, Gawker got sued again—this time by HarperCollins, for publishing excerpts from “America By Heart,” Sarah Palin’s latest contribution to the annals of American thought. The book doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but Gawker posted segments of it last week, mostly in order to make fun of them. Some people got upset! On Saturday, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against Gawker. So the page with the excerpts from the book is down. READ MORE