101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Ah, what a dumb year it was! Fortune chose the absolutely dumbest of the dumb that the gods of fate and humor delivered into our laps - and yours - this past year.
CNNMoney.com

1. China
The bad news is that 2008 is the Year of the Rat.
During 2007, the Year of the Pig, Mattel is forced to recall almost 20 million items made in China because of lead paint on toy cars and tiny magnets that could be deadly if swallowed. Lead paint problems are also found in 844,000 Chinese-made Barbie accessories and toys with the Sesame Street brand. Pet food makers recall more than 60 million cans of food laced with tainted melamine in wheat gluten from China. A huge underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormones, and other bodybuilding drugs is traced to 37 companies in China. Chinese-made lunch boxes, given away by the California Department of Public Health to promote healthy eating habits among children, are found to contain lead. Nike recalls 235,000 football helmets because the Chinese-made chin cup has a defective strap and has caused at least two concussions and a broken nose. Ethylene glycol is found in Chinese-made toothpaste. The government of China executes the former head of its State Food and Drug Administration.
2. Eli Lilly
Thank God. We've been so worried since Lucky dyed his hair jet black and started listening to the Smiths.
Eli Lilly wins FDA approval to put Prozac into chewable, beef-flavored pills to treat separation anxiety in dogs.
3. Leona Helmsley
Don't laugh - if she were your master, you'd need a lifetime supply of Prozac too
Upon her death, Leona Helmsley leaves $12 million to her white Maltese, Trouble.
4. Merrill Lynch
Mission accomplished!
In the first quarter of 2007, thanks to its $1.3 billion purchase of First Franklin Financial, Merrill Lynch becomes the world's top underwriter of subprime-mortgage-backed securities. Nonetheless, with the market in meltdown just a few months later, Merrill CFO Jeffrey Edwards (pictured) tells analysts that the firm's subprime exposure is "limited, contained, and appropriately marked." In October, Merrill announces a quarterly loss of $2.24 billion after $7.9 billion in subprime-related write-downs.
5. Stanley O'Neal
Payback is a bitch
In August and September, as his company is racking up the largest quarterly loss in its 93-year history, Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal squeezes in 20 rounds of golf, including three rounds on three different courses in a single day. In October, O'Neal announces his "retirement," walking away with a compensation package valued at $161.5 million.
6. Chuck Prince
Not so flush
Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince resigns after the company takes an $11 billion write-down.
7. High-tech toilets
Too bad nobody gave one of these to Chuck Prince
Japanese manufacturer Toto apologizes to customers and offers free repairs for 180,000 high-tech toilets - thrones that feature heated seats, air purifiers, blow dryers, and water sprayers - after at least three catch fire. "Fortunately nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out," says a company spokesman. "The fire would have been just under your buttocks."
8. KFC/Taco Bell
Ooh, gross!
A video clip showing hordes of rats in a closed-for-the-night KFC/Taco Bell outlet in New York City gets nearly a million hits on YouTube.
9. French newspaper Le Monde
Ooh-la-la, gross!
The French daily Le Monde calls Ratatouille, Pixar's movie about a rat in a kitchen, "one of the greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema."
10. Electronic voting machines
Election officials in Florida promptly order 5,000 units
Diebold tightens security after it is revealed that a simple virus can hack its electronic voting machines. Months later a hacker uses a picture of a key from the company website to make a real key that can open the company's machines.
11. Oil spills
A touch of under-statement
"I touched the delta tower." -- Captain John J. Cota, the pilot of the container ship Cosco Busan, after the vessel strikes the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spills 58,000 gallons of diesel fuel from a 160-foot gash in its hull.
12. Procter & Gamble
Deep doo-doo
The parents of two Florida toddlers sue Procter & Gamble after they are surprised to find images of their children on packages of Luvs diapers. The parents say they were paid a "nominal fee" at a casting call but were promised an additional payment if the photos were selected.
13. Disneyland
It's a fat world, after all
Disneyland announces plans to close the "It's a Small World" attraction to deepen its water channel after the ride's boats start getting stuck under loads of heavy passengers. Employees ask larger passengers to disembark - and compensate them with coupons for free food.
14. Naked Sunday
Getting buff
The Fitworld gym in Heteren, the Netherlands, introduces Naked Sunday.
15. Bindeez
But officer, it was the Toy of the Year!
Australia's Toy of the Year, a bead toy called Bindeez made by Moose Enterprise, is pulled from stores after scientists discover that the beads contain a chemical that converts into the date-rape drug GHB when ingested.
16. Microsoft's PR firm
And the Patricia Dunn Pretexting Award goes to ...
While working on an article about Microsoft, Wired contributing editor (and former Fortune writer) Fred Vogelstein receives a 13-page dossier about himself, describing him as "tricky" and his stories as "sensational." The document, prepared by the company's public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, as background for Microsoft executives, was sent inadvertently to the writer.
17. Cocaine energy drink
Quite a blow
After receiving a warning from the FDA, Redux Beverages agrees to stop calling its energy drink Cocaine. It changes the name first to Censored, then to NoName.
18. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
There will always be an England
A contributor to the website of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds complains that he is being censored when a filter in the site's Microsoft software automatically replaces the word "cock" - the common designation for a male bird - with asterisks. "As bird lovers will know," he writes, "a Parus major is a great tit, and while a **** doesn't get past the forum censors, tits do not cause offense."
19. New Jersey Superior Court
What Lindsay Lohan will be driving in '08
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Joseph Falcone dismisses drunk-driving charges against a Zamboni operator even though he tests positive for alcohol. The judge rules that the ice-grooming machines aren't motor vehicles because they are not street legal.
20. O.J. Simpson
Oh, that explains it
"The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me." -- O.J. Simpson, on why he took matters into his own hands to reclaim memorabilia he says were pilfered. He is charged with kidnapping and armed robbery.
21. Cartoon Network
Right back atcha ...
To build buzz for its animated show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network places electronic lightboards throughout Boston, triggering a bomb scare that shuts down two bridges, an expressway, a subway station, and a stretch of the Charles River. The devices depict a character from the show saluting passersby with an upraised middle finger.
22. Co-op Funeralcare
That no-good Uncle Bertie is finally doing something useful
Co-op Funeralcare, a funeral home in Dunfermline, Scotland, says it is investigating reports that employees routinely used the cremains of the departed to keep passersby from slipping on icy sidewalks. "There's every chance people living nearby will have walked through the remains," an ex-employee says. "Some of them probably even inhaled them."
23. Don Imus
Say what?
Shock jock Don Imus refers to members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."
24. Chris Albrecht
What happens in Vegas...
HBO President Chris Albrecht allegedly punches and chokes his girlfriend while drunk at 3 A.M. in a Las Vegas parking lot.
25. Adam 'Pacman' Jones
...stays in Vegas
Tennessee Titans Cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones rains dollar bills down on dancers at a Las Vegas strip club, setting off a melee in which three people are shot.
26. Isiah Thomas
Guess she didn't want to play ball
New York Knicks General Manager Isiah Thomas is found in a sexual-harassment lawsuit to have subjected an employee to unwanted advances and verbal abuse.
27. Phil Spector
But aren't mullets making a comeback?
Record producer Phil Spector unveils a mind-blowing array of outdated hairstyles, each do creepier than the next.
28. Keith Richards
I mean, since there wasn't any bloody ice on my bloody sidewalk ...
In an interview with a British rock magazine, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards admits to snorting his father's ashes: "He was cremated, and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow." A day later Richards denies the incident, explaining, "I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were - that tight!"
29. Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung
Faux de Cologne
SonntagsZeitung, a Swiss newspaper, publishes a two-page ad for Gucci Eau de Parfum that turns out to be a hoax by a prankster who took a picture of himself posing naked next to a bottle of the high-end scent.
30. James Cayne
Remarkably, he has yet to be weeded out
In July, as Bear Stearns executives futilely attempt to prop up two hedge funds that ultimately collapse amid the subprime meltdown, CEO James Cayne spends ten of 21 workdays out of the office, playing golf and competing in a bridge tournament in Tennessee. According to The Wall Street Journal, his fellow bridge enthusiasts claim that Cayne sometimes smokes marijuana at the end of tournament sessions.
31. Bear Stearns analysts
We'll say this for Mr. Cayne: He clearly shares his primo stuff with the research department.
In March, shortly after No. 2 U.S. subprime lender New Century Financial announces a major earnings restatement as a result of failing loans, Bear Stearns analysts Scott Coren and Michael Nannizzi write a research note on New Century. They argue that despite New Century's stock having plunged 50%, to $15 per share, its downside risk is no worse than $10 in a "rescue-sale scenario." Within a month, New Century drops below $1 a share, is suspended by the NYSE, and files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
32. Jay-Z
Gimme some skin, dawg
Rapper Jay-Z, founder of the Rocawear clothing line, is taken to task by the Humane Society after it finds that the "faux fur" in jackets sold by his company is actually dog fur.
33. Oral B
And we just thought our wives were really into oral hygiene
Lawyers representing Procter & Gamble send a 66-page cease-and-desist letter to British sex-toy company Love Honey, demanding that it stop using images of its Oral B electric toothbrushes to promote a product called the Brush Bunny - a rabbit-shaped piece of plastic that slips over the top of an Oral B to turn it into a vibrator.
34. Summit Products
G-strings and sweaty bald men sold separately
Summit Products of Trussville, Ala., introduces the YOUniverse Funk Fone, a working telephone for little girls that bears a striking resemblance to the footwear worn by dancers at Scores.
35. M&Ms
Who knew 'M&Ms' stood for Meatloaf & Mutton?
Masterfoods, the maker of Mars, Snickers, and other candies, abandons plans to begin using animal products in its chocolates.
36. Best Buy
Let the Best Buyer beware
The state of Connecticut sues Best Buy for setting up in-store kiosks set to a website that looks identical to bestbuy.com but lists higher prices than those they would actually find online.
37. Judge Roy Pearson
... thus making our satisfaction complete
District of Columbia judge Roy Pearson loses a $54 million lawsuit against the owners of a dry-cleaning establishment that he claims misplaced a pair of his pants. Pearson argued that the cleaner committed fraud by failing to live up to the SATISFACTION GUARANTEED sign displayed in the shop. Four months later a judicial review committee votes against reappointing him to his post, finding that he failed to demonstrate "appropriate judgment and judicial temperament."
38. Google
Are you a moron? Click here now!
To test Google's ability to block harmful advertising, Belgian IT security consultant Didier Stevens posts an ad that reads "Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!" It is accepted by Google and displayed 259,723 times; 409 web surfers actually click on the ad.
39. Damien Hirst
Oh, for the love of ... wait, you already said it yourself.
British artist Damien Hirst, famous for such works as a tiger shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde, creates the most expensive piece of contemporary art in history: a platinum human skull covered with 8,601 diamonds. Called "For the Love of God," the piece is reportedly sold to an unnamed investment group for $100 million.
40. Comcast
Oh, Manny, you're soooooo handy
Young Comcast customers in New Jersey are surprised when a scheduled showing of Disney Channel's Handy Manny - featuring bilingual handyman Manny Garcia and his talking tools - is replaced by hard-core pornography. A parent says she will cancel her Comcast subscription just as soon as the NHL playoffs are over.
41. National Amusements
What could be worse than porn for impressionable young minds, you ask?
At a National Amusements multiplex in Holtsville, N.Y., an audience set to watch family film "The Last Mimzy" is instead treated to the opening scene from "The Hills Have Eyes 2," in which a chained woman gives birth to a cannibalistic mutant.
42. Pfizer
They had such high hopes
Predicting a blockbuster, Pfizer introduces the diabetes drug Exubera, a form of insulin inhaled through a tubular device. It's quickly dismissed as a "medicinal bong" by a prominent diabetic blogger, while the president of the American Diabetes Association, citing lung-function risks, says, "I see it as my job to talk people out of it." Pfizer quickly gives up on the product, taking a $2.8 billion write-off.
43. The Toronto Blue Jays
Child abuse: It's fan-tastic!
The Toronto Blue Jays trumpet the arrival of designated hitter Frank Thomas with a TV commercial in which the 6-foot-5, 275-pound slugger - nicknamed "The Big Hurt" - is seen pillow-fighting with a small boy. He swings so hard he sends the child flying from the bed. Though the boy pops up unhurt, the ad is banned by the Television Bureau of Canada
44. Bank of America
Another subprime stunt
A Bank of America branch in Ashland, Mass., is evacuated after it receives a fax with the image of a lit match being held to a bomb's fuse. The fax, sent by the company to alert employees to an upcoming promotion, somehow comes through without its text, which should read "The Countdown Begins ... Small Business Commitment Week June 4--8."
45. Serendipity 3
We seriously mistrusted those sprinkles
Just one week after unveiling the world's most expensive dessert - the $25,000 Frrozen Haute Chocolate, 28 cocoas infused with edible 23-karat gold served in a goblet with a diamond bracelet at its base - New York restaurant Serendipity 3 is shut down for failing its second health inspection in a month. Inspectors find a live mouse, multiple piles of mouse droppings, fruit flies, houseflies, and more than 100 live cockroaches.
46. Johnson & Johnson
And if those guys in Rome don't stop using our logo, we'll nail them too
Johnson & Johnson sues the American Red Cross for infringement of its trademarked red cross.
47. John Mackey
He's also honest, humble, and nuttier than an organic fruitcake
"I like Mackey's haircut. I think he looks cute." -- Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, posting under the screen name Rahodeb, on a Yahoo Finance stock forum. The Federal Trade Commission reveals that Mackey authored this and numerous other posts over an eight-year period, hyping his company and himself while trashing the competitor he hoped to acquire, Wild Oats.
48. The European Union
They don't call it the European Union for nothing
To highlight its role as a patron of the arts, the EU posts a mashup on YouTube featuring two dozen sex scenes from movies it has funded, followed by the line, "Let's come together."
49. German screw factory
The red-light district in Amsterdam immediately closed
A worker in a German screw factory smuggles out 2,000 to 7,000 screws per night, ultimately stealing more than a million units. He sells the screws below cost on the Internet, artificially depressing the entire screw market.
50. The Defense Department
Makes you wonder what it would cost to ship a million German screws
Exploiting a flaw in a Defense Department purchasing system, South Carolina parts supplier C&D Distributors rakes in $20.5 million in shipping fees on just $68,000 in sales. The scheme is finally detected when a Pentagon clerk spots a $969,000 bill for shipping two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas.
51. Apple
One, two, three, four, we'll sue you if you send us more
Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.
52. Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome
And those Hindenburg gas grills are fantastic too
Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome unveils its new Titanic-DNA line of timepieces, made with steel salvaged from the liner's wreck site and selling for $7,800 to $173,100 a pop.
53. Japanese arm-wrestlers
Get a grip, Tinkerbell
In Japan three players of arm-wrestling game Arm Spirit break their arms while challenging the machine, which pits them against such opponents as a French maid, a drunken martial arts master, and a Chihuahua.
54. Research in Motion
This is your brain on e-mail
BlackBerry users are forced to go cold turkey when maker Research in Motion's servers go down for the better part of a day. "I felt like my left arm had been amputated," says one. Six months later a number of prominent addicts - including venture capitalist Fred Wilson and Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams - admit to experiencing phantom incoming-message vibrations even when not wearing their devices.
55. Frank Gehry
Who left R2D2 alone with the AutoCAD and peppermint schnapps?
MIT sues architect Frank Gehry, alleging that flaws in his design of the school's $300 million Stata Center - which Gehry himself once described as looking "like a party of drunken robots got together to celebrate" - resulted in problems including cracks, leaks, and mold.
56. Chrysler
Which explains why Michael Vick bought himself a Nitro
Chrysler pulls an online ad in which a dog urinating on its four-wheel-drive Dodge Nitro gets electrocuted and goes up in flames, followed by the tagline "Charged with adrenaline."
57. Endemol Southern Star
Cultural sensitivity? We don't need no stinkin' cultural sensitivity
"The segment was intended as a lighthearted tribute to Mexico and its vibrant cultural heritage, which we all admire and enjoy." -- Australian TV production company Endemol Southern Star, in a statement apologizing to the Mexican government for a segment of its "Big Brother" reality program in which contestants wear sombreros and floppy mustaches and throw water balloons at a Mexican flag.
58. Taco Bell
The cardboard shell and mysterious meatlike substance are intended as a lighthearted tribute to Mexico and its vibrant cultural heritage
After flopping in a previous run for the border 15 years ago, Taco Bell tries again, opening an outlet in Mexico City. This time the company takes out half-page newspaper ads announcing, "It is a fast-food alternative that does not pretend to be Mexican food."
59. Radiohead
Can't wait for the follow-up album, 'In Debt'
British rock band Radiohead makes its new album, "In Rainbows," available for download on the Internet and lets its fans decide how much they want to pay. Sixty-two percent, according to comScore, decide to pay nothing, while the other 38% voluntarily fork over an average of six bucks.
60. John Griffin
Can't say he didn't warn you
John Griffin, CEO of a Livermore, Calif., startup, pockets about $750,000 of seed capital after lying to investors lured by the company's promise to develop a "dirt eater" to clean toxic soil. After reportedly spending the money on such necessities as a Ferrari, Super Bowl tickets, and steroids, Griffin is sentenced to 30 months in prison. The name of the startup: VaporTech.
61. Sony
Hey! That was Howard Stringer's goat!
To promote the European release of the videogame God of War II, based on Greek mythology and described as "an adult-rated, fast-paced bloodbath," Sony hosts a party at the foot of the Parthenon in which guests are invited to pull live snakes from a pit, be fed grapes by topless hostesses, and reach inside the still-warm carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat to eat offal from its stomach.
62. Nepal Airlines
In related news, Sony plans to acquire Nepal Airlines
After mechanical problems ground one of its Boeing 757s, officials of Nepal Airlines sacrifice two goats on the tarmac at Kathmandu airport to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu god of sky protection. The plane then successfully completes its scheduled flight to Hong Kong.
63. Sony
That beheaded goat on the altar was really uncalled-for
Sony is criticized by the Church of England for using Manchester Cathedral as the setting for a bloody shootout in the videogame Resistance: Fall of Man.
64. Spain's National Institute of Statistics
... thus putting the term "inflation" in a whole new light
Spain's National Institute of Statistics adds plastic surgery procedures such as breast augmentation and nose jobs to the basket of goods and services it uses to calculate the nation's consumer price index, while excluding the cost of garment fabric, upholstery, and home-appliance repairs.
65. Verizon Wireless
Another PR department in the fetal position
Verizon Wireless refuses to distribute text messages from the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America to people who ask to receive them, citing its prohibition of "controversial or unsavory" content. But after media coverage, the company reverses course, asserting "great respect for the free flow of ideas."
66. Rhode Island Hospital
It's not as if they're doing brain surgery or anything
The state Department of Health fines Rhode Island Hospital $50,000 when, for the third time in less than a year, one of its doctors operates on the wrong side of a patient's head.
67. McDonald's
In fact, many of our employees go on to be McBrain Surgeons
McDonald's launches a "word battle" against the Oxford English Dictionary to amend the definition of McJobs, which the OED currently describes as an "unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects." The goal, according to a company vice president, is to change the citation to "reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding, and offers skills that last a lifetime."
68. Thomas the Tank Engine
Sir Topham Hatt was very cross indeed
Illinois-based RC2 Corp., maker of Thomas the Tank Engine toys, recalls 1.5 million of the wooden trains because of excessive levels of lead in their paint (see Mattel). Consumers who return the tainted toys are then sent free boxcars, some of which are recalled three months later for the same reason.
69. Exelon Nuclear
Good job. You're fired.
Exelon Nuclear terminates its contract with Wackenhut Security at its Peach Bottom plant in Pennsylvania after receiving a videotape showing a number of Wackenhut employees sleeping on the job. Exelon thanks the whistle-blower who shot the tape, then lets him go because he works for Wackenhut.
70. Circuit City
Good job. You're all fired.
In a cost-cutting move, Circuit City lays off all sales associates paid 51 cents or more per hour above an "established pay range" - essentially firing 3,400 of its top performers in one fell swoop. Over the next eight months Circuit City's share price drops by almost 70%.
71. TCF Bank
Take Cash Freely? Totally Clueless Fiduciary? Two Crime Friday?
A TCF Bank branch in West St. Paul, Minn., is robbed twice in one day - the second time when a police detective interviewing witnesses from the first heist steps out to retrieve some paperwork from his car.
72. Paris Hilton
Tort reform: That's hot
Paris Hilton sues Hallmark after the company creates a greeting card depicting her as a waitress, served up with the following witty dialogue: "Don't touch that, it's hot." "What's hot?" "That's hot." Hilton, who had trademarked her catch phrase seven months earlier, claims commercial appropriation of her identity and invasion of privacy, seeking at least $100,000 in damages.
73. Easy-Bake Ovens
Hilton quickly files suit against all 278 kids
In February, Hasbro announces a recall of nearly one million Easy-Bake Ovens after 29 children get their fingers stuck inside, some suffering severe burns. Five months later the company is forced to reissue the recall after receiving reports on 249 additional incidents, 77 involving burns, including one that required a partial finger amputation.
74. Google
Kidding. We kid. That's what friends do, right?
As thousands of eBay's biggest sellers gather in Boston for a convention sponsored by the auction site, Google invites them to a party promoting Google Checkout, a payment system that competes with eBay's PayPal. In response eBay, the single largest buyer of search ads on Google, "tests" a shift of its marketing dollars, pulling all its U.S. ads from the search engine for more than a week. Google cancels its party.
75. Mummified corpses
The real estate market must be dead over there too
A Spanish bank repossesses a house and puts it up for auction - complete with the mummified corpse of its former owner, who had stopped making mortgage payments six years earlier. The body, preserved by the salty air in the seaside town of Roses, is discovered by the buyer.
76. Jessica Simpson
... and cardboard boxes ... and the color red ... and, come to think of it, Pizza Hut
Jessica Simpson stars in commercials for Pizza Hut's Cheesy Bites pizza, then tells Elle magazine that she's allergic to wheat ... and tomatoes ... and cheese.
77. Jackson Hewitt
What, you never heard of a barber who makes house calls?
Two weeks before April 15, the Department of Justice files suit to shut down more than 125 franchised offices of Jackson Hewitt, the nation's second-largest tax preparer. The DoJ alleges that the franchisee had engaged in a "massive series of tax-fraud schemes" costing the government more than $70 million.
78. The Virginia Tourism Corp.
Virginia is for bangers
The Virginia Tourism Corp. scraps an ad campaign featuring people making heart symbols with their hands after it's noted that the gesture is also the gang sign of Chicago's Gangster Disciples.
79. Hugo Chávez
Granted, I flunked econ ...
To reduce his nation's 17% annual inflation rate, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announces a plan to chop three zeroes off his nation's currency. Economists say the move will have the reverse effect, as new pricing will tend to be rounded upward.
80. Juan Carlos
... but I aced international diplomacy!
After Hugo Chávez calls the former Prime Minister of Spain a "fascist" at a summit in Chile, Spanish King Juan Carlos leaps to his countryman's defense. His retort to Chavez, "Why don't you shut up?" becomes one of the nation's most popular cellphone ringtones, downloaded more than 500,000 times within ten days.
81. 365 Main
Fate's here to see you, and she brought her wire cutters
On July 24, San Francisco data-center operator 365 Main issues a press release touting its 24/7 reliability: "In the unlikely event of a cut to a primary power feed, the state-of-the-art electrical system instantly switches to live backup generators, keeping the data center continuously running." That day a power outage hits and three of its backup generators fail, taking down high-profile customers including RedEnvelope, Technorati, and Craigslist.
82. One Laptop Per Child
On the bright side, they're learning a lot about anatomy
Nigerian schoolchildren receive $200 computers under the U.N. One Laptop Per Child program and quickly learn a few things nobody expected - such as how to find adult websites and how to store their favorite images on the computers' hard drives. Program leaders say future laptops will be fitted with filters.
83. CIBC analyst Meredith Whitney
Her husband, on the other hand, is more than a little freaked out by the downstream effects of the subprime crisis on the world's capital markets
After issuing a bearish note on Citigroup that contributes to a 7% drop in its stock, CIBC analyst Meredith Whitney receives death threats. Whitney says she isn't daunted. She is married to a former World Wrestling Entertainment champion called Death Mask.
84. Southwest Airlines
Fly the not-so friendly skies
A Southwest Airlines gate agent tells Kyla Ebbert - a 23-year-old college student and Hooters waitress wearing a denim miniskirt, high-heeled sandals, and a sweater over a tank top - that she's dressed too provocatively to be allowed on a flight from San Diego to Tucson. Though the agent ultimately relents and lets her onboard, an indignant Ebbert goes public, appearing on the Today show. Southwest takes a massive publicity hit; Ebbert is hired by Richard Branson to promote rival low-cost carrier Virgin America and by Playboy to pose for a pictorial.
85. Singapore Airlines
Fly the don't-get-too-friendly skies
Singapore Airlines inaugurates the Airbus A380, the world's largest jet, with a seven-hour flight from Singapore to Sydney. To the chagrin of those who forked out $15,000 for one of 12 private, double-bed-equipped suites, the airline asks its passengers to refrain from having sex. Says first-class passenger Tony Elwood: "So they'll sell you a double bed, and give you privacy and endless champagne, and then say you can't do what comes naturally?"
86. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal
Fly the I'll-join-the-mile-high-club-if-I-damn-well-please skies
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal buys his own Airbus A380, paying more than $320 million for a "flying palace."
87. SkyWest Airlines
Fly the smells-like-the-back-row-of-a-Greyhound skies
SkyWest Airlines apologizes to passenger James Whipple after he is barred from using the plane's restroom during a one-hour flight from Boise to Salt Lake City. Whipple, who says he had two "really big beers" before takeoff, winds up urinating into his airsickness bag and is questioned by airport police upon landing.
88. Doug Parker
Fly the well-at-least-he-didn't-have-to-use-an-air-sickness-bag skies
Just hours after US Airways comes up short in its $9.8 billion bid to acquire Delta, CEO Doug Parker is pulled over by police in Scottsdale, and arrested for drunken driving.
89. British Airways
Fly the petty skies
For its in-flight version of the James Bond flick "Casino Royale," British Airways edits out the cameo of rival Richard Branson and obscures the tail fin of one of Branson's Virgin Atlantic planes.
90. Southwest Airlines, Part 2
Fly the didn't-you-learn-anything-from-the-Kyla-Ebbert-fiasco skies
A man boarding a Southwest Airlines flight in Ohio is ordered to change his T-shirt, which depicts a fictional fishing shop with the words MASTER BAITER. The airline is again forced to apologize.
91. Iberia Airlines
Fly the someone-in-the-marketing-department-is-out-of-his-freakin'-mind skies
Spanish national airline Iberia advertises its service to Cuba with a cartoon featuring dark-skinned Cuban women in bikinis bottle-feeding a tourist baby as he sings, "Feed me, mulattas ... come on, little mamas, take me to my crib." The women then transport the baby to the beach, dance for him, and massage him. After an outcry, the commercials are pulled.
92. Jet Blue
Fly the nope-we're-still-not-flying skies
Despite whiteout conditions at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport during a Valentine's Day blizzard, Jet Blue loads passengers onto its planes, pulls the planes away from their gates ... and leaves them there, stranding hundreds of passengers on the runways for as long as 11 hours. "You can look out the window and you can see, there's the gate," says passenger John Farrell, who spent nine hours on the J.F.K. tarmac. "If you just let us off the plane, we can walk there."
93. British Airways Part 2
Fly the oh-gross-oh-gross-ohgross-get-it-away-from-meskies
On a British Airways flight from New Delhi to London, first-class passenger Paul Trinder wakes up from a nap to find the corpse of a woman who had died in the economy cabin being placed in the seat next to him. Upon complaining about the incident, Trinder - a gold-level frequent flier who logs 200,000 miles a year with the airline - says he is told he will not be compensated and should just "get over it."
94. World Toilet Association
Funny, that's what Larry Craig calls stall No. 2 at the Minneapolis airport
Sim Jae-Duk, a South Korean lawmaker and the founder of the World Toilet Association, unveils a $1.6 million home built in the shape of a loo. Sim, who claims to have been born in a lavatory, names the house Haewoojae, which means "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one's worries."
95. Kitson boutique
Hand wash with like colors in dishwater
John Wesley Jermyn, a homeless man dubbed "the Crazy Robertson" for his constant presence on the West L.A. fashion corridor of Robertson Boulevard, strikes a deal with Kitson, one of the street's trendiest boutiques, for a "Crazy Robertson" clothing line. Among the most popular items: a $98 hoodie inscribed with the phrase NO MONEY, NO PROBLEMS.
96. WikiScanner
All the vitriol that's fit to print
Soon after the launch of WikiScanner - a website that links the editing of entries on Wikipedia with the computer networks where the changes were made - users uncover some newsworthy revisions: A Washington Post employee is found to have changed a reference to the owner of a rival paper from Philip Anschutz to Charles Manson, while someone at The New York Times added the word "jerk" 12 times to the entry on George W. Bush.
97. Blogger
What comes up first when you Google "screwup"?
Google's Blogger software misidentifies a company-written blog as spam and automatically disables it.
98. Intel
Just pop in your Birth of a Nation DVD, and you're off and running ...
To promote the speed of its Core 2 Duo Processor, Intel releases a print ad featuring six bare-shouldered black sprinters crouched in their starting positions beneath a white guy dressed for the office. "We made a bad mistake," says Don MacDonald, the company's director of global marketing. "I know why and how, but that doesn't make it better."
99. Century 21
Her grandfather made a killing in the stock market back in '29
"There is a lot of bad news, but this is still the second-or third-strongest year historically over the past 30 to 40 years, and it is still a very strong, vibrant market." -- Bev Thorne, senior vice-president of marketing for Century 21, on the outlook for real estate in 2007.
100. D.R. Horton
Apparently he missed the memo from Bev
"I don't want to be too sophisticated here, but '07 is going to suck, all 12 months of the calendar year." -- Donald Tomnitz, CEO of homebuilder D.R. Horton, on the outlook for real estate in 2007
101. Maria Bartiromo
What, no action figure?
In January, CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo files to trademark her nickname, "Money Honey," for use with a wide array of children's products, including piggy banks, jigsaw puzzles, mousepads, comic books, and stuffed animals.