There are many people who have had a huge influence on our lives: our parents, the coach that taught us civics in the ninth grade, the priest that molested us when we were 10, etc. But no one has ever bothered to put together a list of all these influential people until recently, when Time magazine had a special issue that named The 100 Most Influential People in the World.

I only recognized 14 out of the 100, but I don’t feel too bad, because you don’t know who Tidjane Thiam is, either.

These are some of the influential people I recognized, along with my vote as to whether they should or should not have been included on the list:

Bill Clinton: Yes. Married to U.S. secretary of state.

Conan O’Brien: Yes. Dislodged Jay Leno from his long-held late-night TV spot, forcing him, at least temporarily, into prime time, making it possible for me to catch Leno’s monologue before I fell asleep.

Simon Cowell: No. Simon, why don’t you get up on the stage yourself and sing us a song? No? Why? Because you suck!

Sarah Palin: Yes. Many stupid people are heavily influenced by Sarah Palin.

Prince: No. The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince is a Little Richard wannabe.

Kathryn Bigelow: Yes. Director of The Hurt Locker. Who would have thought that I would ever have the hots for a 58-year-old?

Nancy Pelosi: Yes. Liberal who presides over the House of Representatives and irritates conservatives.

Sandra Bullock: No. Made a movie with Nick Saban in it.

Lady Gaga: No. Looks good in cone-shaped breastplates that shoot out sparks, but otherwise a nontalent. For crying out loud, wearing your underwear to a baseball game gets you on the cover of Time magazine?

Barack Obama: Yes. President of the U.S. and irritates conservatives, but not half as much as Nancy Pelosi.

El Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: Yes. President of Brazil with a long and important-sounding name; won’t become a household word like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, until he attempts to make nuclear weapons.

Oprah Winfrey: Yes. Oprah is very influential with women. Without her groundbreaking work in the field of intimate public discourse, The View would never have been possible.

There were many people whom I feel are very influential, but who did not make Time’s list:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: President of Iran who has really made a name for himself, and he can keep it; a master political strategist who proved that you can lose at the ballot box but still win the election; gives a whole new meaning to the term “winning ugly.” We can’t write anything about him without researching how to his spell his name.

Bill Gates: You can’t buy a computer without getting his software; he made porn accessible to anyone over 8 who has computer access.

George W. Bush: We will continue to feel the influence of our former president, at least until we make it out of Iraq and the recession.

Joseph Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI: Being infallible means never having to say you’re sorry; denies any knowledge of the Church’s cover-up of hundreds of cases of priestly child molestation, even though a recent survey shows that 8 of 10 Catholics go to communion expecting to be molested before they get back to their pews.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs: Helped start a worldwide recession and got a $9 million bonus while millions remained unemployed; claimed in an interview to be doing “God’s work”; likes to spend his spare time killing firstborn children and creating drought, floods, plagues, and pestilence; ultimate career goal: the apocalypse.

BP: Large oil company that is very influential in the Gulf States region. Some may argue that a large corporation should not qualify for the Most Influential People list because it doesn’t come under the definition of “people,” but what is a large corporation anyway, other than a group of evil people?

Richard Reid: The inept “Shoe Bomber” — now you have to take your shoes off every time you fly; sentenced to life in prison but should have been sentenced to being put on exhibit in airports so travelers could hit him on the head with their shoes.

Rush Limbaugh: See Sarah Palin.

The Beatles: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they should be on the list!

Nick “Satan” Saban: Very influential in the states of Alabama and Louisiana. LSU fans hate him. Alabama fans, who don’t have lives and grant godlike status to any coach who can win them a national championship in football, are (Holy Bear Bryant!) erecting a statue of Nick, which they will tie a rope to and pull down like a statue of Saddam Hussein if he ever has two losing seasons in a row. 

Vanna White: Vanna has the most influential finger in the world. Millions of Americans turn on Wheel of Fortune every day just to see what Vanna is wearing.

Pat Sajak: Chipmunklike TV game show host; see Vanna White.