To celebrate the end of 2010, Life.com asked various celebrities and media personalities — including Andy Richter, Harry Benson, Khaled Hosseini, Alan Cumming,  Salman Rushdie, Brian Williams, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Wales, Arianna Huffington, Terry McDonell and Fareed Zakaria — to choose their personal favorite images from among Life‘s 2010 Pictures of the Year. Life.com has the final list of photos, including each person’s explanation for why, exactly, each specific image resonated for him or her.

Pictured here is author Salman Rushdie’s choice, “Heavenly Bodies,” a striking image of the Carina Nebula region taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Rushdie explains why he selected this particular image: “The universe creates beauty on the most gigantic of scales, humbling us by reminding us of our smallness, and simultaneously lifting our hearts by showing us so much glory.”

• Huffington Post: Tracy Morgan continues to battle Joaquin Phoenix for craziest talk show guest in history award.

• Editor & Publisher: McClatchy is expanding its Sunday Select program so more non-subscribers can read its newspapers for free.

• New York Observer: Condé Nast, MTV rebrands. A sign of the times?

• TVNewser: What should be Evan Bayh‘s next career move? Voe here.

• FishbowlLA: Sarah Silverman versus Wired‘s TED conference organizer Chris Anderson in a Twitter flame war? Lets all meet behind the school after math class and watch them fight!

Sometimes, things get a little bit tense in the newsroom and then someone cracks a joke just to ease the tension that grows in a big room filled with endless rows of computers and ringing telephones.

But from the photo above, posted on Twitter by New York Times media columnist David Carr it looks like some reporters at the Gray Lady have been channeling Sarah Silverman‘s Emmy look.

But seriously, we have no idea what was going on. And Tweets from Carr and Brian Stelter were of no help.

— DIANE CLEHANE

We heard we missed quite a scene yesterday when the dining room was filled with the likes of dirty joke diva Sarah Silverman, Pedro Almodovar, Harvey Weinstein and his oh-so-fashionable wife, designer Georgina Chapman, Ron Perelman and a long list of other movers and shakers. But there were plenty of fabulous folks to chat with today, so I made the rounds before they got down to business over their Cobb salads.

I was delighted to see ‘Mayor’ Joe Armstrong, who had been across the pond enjoying some time in London and missing from his regular perch at Michael’s for several weeks. He’s right back into the swing of things, having been at Sunday night’s Tony Awards to see his friend Sir Elton John, who wrote the music for 10-time award winner Billy Elliot celebrate with the cast on their big night. Monday night Joe attended the benefit for Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp hosted by Julia Roberts, Robert Redford and some other A-listers. “We raised $2.5 million,” reports Joe, who volunteers at the camp every summer. “It’s great to see all of Paul’s work is still going strong.” Joe was lunching today with the charming — and funny — Harold Ford, Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council who moonlights as a news analyst for MSNBC.

Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:

1. The ‘Imber Gang’: Dr. Gerald Imber, Jerry Della Femina, Jeff Greenfield and Andy Bergman.

2. A dapper duo: Nielsen Business Media’s Gerry Byrne and Henry Schleiff. I stopped by Gerry’s table to catch up since we last crossed paths at Showtime’s party for Nurse Jackie and its star, Edie Falco. Coincidentally, Gerry, who is one of the greatest guys in the business, is getting a ‘Made in New York’ Award from the mayor’s office next Monday night and his fellow honoree is none other than Edie. Small world.

3. ‘Mayor’ Joe Armstrong and Harold Ford, Jr.

4. Stan Shuman with another gent we didn’t recognize…

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There would appear to be few taboos Comedy Central — and its presumably harried legal department — would ultimately to shy away from. Sh*t? Uncensored? 161 times? Check. Jon Stewart air-skullf*cking Hitler? Check. Sarah Silverman sleeping with a black God then kicking him out of bed? Check. Check.

But it seems when it comes to AIDS jokes, Comedy Central has a bit of a double standard. In the June issue of Maxim, Silverman says the network strategically cut a line from one of her hit show’s episodes.

“In the AIDS episode, the doctor says, ‘You do have … no AIDS!’ And after that he was going to say to the other guy, ‘You do have … AIDS!’” Silverman explained. “Comedy Central said, ‘You can’t have someone get AIDS in a joke.’ As much as I loved how the cadences matched but had severely different outcomes, I couldn’t argue with that one.”

True, it would seem to be reasonable logic, except the network aired an entire episode of South Park — “Jared Has AIDES” — based on the same, endless joke. Oddly, Comedy Central has been reluctant to re-air the March 6, 2002 episode due to controversy surrounding a scene in which the character “Butters” is beaten by his family after a British television station banned the episode. (The episode appears uncut on DVD.)

So, what exactly is Comedy Central’s AIDS joke policy?

The network declined to comment.

EARLIER:

Silverman consummated her show’s first season on Comedy Central by consummating her relationship with ‘Black God’

In case you missed the season finale of the Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central last night, we’ll fill you in: the comedian behind the variety-show-cum-film Jesus is Magic and network behind South Park produced one of its most disturbing moments on television — at least since Jon Stewart “air-skullf*cked” Hitler on the Daily Show.

Sarah Silverman slept with “Black God.” (“God” was played by Vietnam vet and former NBC-TV director Tucker Smallwood.)

The plot was nothing new for Silverman. She once appeared on an episode of Seinfeld as Kramer’s girlfriend who didn’t want him to sleep over after sex.

Perhaps God had the “jimmy legs.”

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