5. Aqua Teens Shut Down Boston – It seemed like a simple piece of viral marketing for Cartoon Network's late-night Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Thirty electronic signs featuring a space alien flipping the bird were placed in a variety of high-traffic locations around Boston. However, in this post-9/11 America, we don't take kindly to strange machinery, and the city panicked, closing bridges and calling out the bomb squad. Cartoon Network had to shell out $2 million to pay off the po-po.

4. Balloon Boy Takes Off – We were all glued to our TV sets and computers in October when young Falcon Heene, a Fort Collins, Colorado native, was reported flying above the state in an experimental balloon built by his father Richard. Tense minutes passed as we waited for the balloon to touch down and speculated as to the fate of young Falcon. And then we learned he'd been hiding in the garage the whole time, it was all a stunt to get the family on a reality TV show, and the parents were batcrap crazy. Nice work, America!

3. Ashley Todd's Face Carving – The 2008 election had more than its share of idiotic moments, but none surpassed young Republican Ashley Todd's vile attempt at stirring up race hatred in Pittsburgh, PA. Todd went to police with a tearful story of being attacked by young Black men for her John McCain bumper sticker. They beat her, robbed her, and carved a "B" in her cheek – for "B"arack Obama, naturally. Cops shot holes in Todd's story, but not before some conservative scumbags latched onto the image of Obama supporters as mindless street thugs. Classy.

2. McCain Chooses Palin – Continuing on the same topic, the world was shocked when Republican candidate John McCain went with an extremely left-field choice for his Vice President – Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Presumably picked to counter Obama's youth appeal, Palin did give the Repubs a bump in the polls – until she opened her mouth. Turns out, she wasn't qualified to be VP of a feed store, let alone the most powerful country on Earth, and by the end of the campaign even McCain's own staffers were disgusted by her.

1. Bush Declares Mission Accomplished – On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that the war in Iraq was over, and we had won. Well, we're still there, much to the dismay of our armed forces. Fully 98% of allied casualties in Iraq have come since Bush's announcement, making it easily the stupidest publicity stunt of the year.