The Alt TIME 100

Madeen greeted me this morning with a hilarious (sometimes touching, but mostly just hilarious) list of 100 people who actually influence society), here.

A few of my favorites:

1. Al Gore, environmentalist
Gore was everyone's first choice. He is, they felt, the only politician who matters at all. "He got an Oscar," explained Xzibit. "That counts for something. At least he's talking about something that matters." To the panels knowledge, no other politician has ever been important enough to win an Oscar.

12. Paris Hilton, celebutant
The panel wanted to create a side list called "Trainwrecks" which would include Paris Hilton (or, as Xzibit called her, "Paris Hitler"), Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Nicole Ritchie, Anna Nicole Smith and the Bush twins. But 100 is an awful lot of people, so I listed them separately. I left off the Bush twins because I'm not sure the panel really meant it. We were drinking quite a bit by the time their names came up. It just didn't seem fair.

21. Simon Cowell, American Idol judge
More people vote on American Idol than the Presidential elections, Xzibit pointed out. And almost as much is written about it.

51. Frank Miller, comic book artist
Sin City and 300? Enough said.

86. Elton John, singer
A lot of people put him on the list, but no one had a good reason why. I think this explains much of Elton John's career. '

94. Michael J Fox, actor
The panel loves stem cell research. And they believe Fox is the top stem cell researcher in the world.