VP Dick Cheney growls his swan growl.

We, like you dear reader, are overwhelmed with year-end lists at this, the very end of 2008. While we at Listicles strive to keep on top of the Interweb’s swirling, churning, micro-climactic list systems, we habitually miss a few, hence the perfect storm that hits our shores in the middle of every work week: Weekly Wednesdays.

In this edition, we’ve collected some of our favorite looking-back-on-the-year-that-has-been lists, to present you with part 1 of our Top 25 Year-End Lists of 2008.

• Top 5 Corrupt Politicians of 2008: This Huffington Post piece from Casey Gane-McCalla has the merit of including both 2008-specific corruption cases (Elliot Spitzer, Sarah Palin, Rod Blagojevich), and enduringly corrupt politicians whose unethical antics continued into 2008 but originated somewhere nearer the beginning of time (Dick Cheney, pictured).

• Top 10 Douchebags of 2008: Another HuffPost entry (with some overlap with the above listicle, douchebagery involving, we gather, at least a speck of corruption), which heaps some more names onto the dirt pile (Rudy Giuliani), and throws more general terms into the mix (the Economy, Oil).

• 10 Worst Corporations of 2008: We’re beginning to see a trend of depressed antagonism emerging from the writings of our upright lefty friends over in Huffington. Nonetheless, corruption and douchebagery are long-known to be harbored, cultivated and valued by corporations, so this listicle is really a natural outgrowth of the two above.

• Top 10 Worst Pop Culture Bits of the Year: We agree with you wholeheartedly Gawker, you’ve put words to our greatest pop culture woes of 2008: The Office’s decline, the unfortunate rise of Twilight, and the misconceived if sonically addictive Sasha Fierce moniker adopted by Beyoncé.
  

  Beyonce as, we guess, Sasha Fierce?

• Top 10 Sports-Related Arrests of 2008: A great chronicle of foolish, violent and some very tangentially sports-related brushes with the law. Our favorite is the one about the mother who stole her 15 year-old’s identity to join her school’s cheerleading squad. Go moms! (via COED Magazine)

• 2008’s Most Regrettable Bank Slogans: So many bad ones to pick from – except Washington Mutual’s “Woo-hoo” because it makes us think of that Blur song, which makes us happy. Let’s call it a tie between Merrill Lynch’s “We’re bullish on the future” and Wachovia’s “We’re Wachovia, and we’re here.” Not anymore you’re not. (via BuzzFeed)

• Consumerist’s Top 10 Business Debacles of the Year: Entries here range from accidental emails to federal buyouts to retail bankruptcies. Our favorite though is the one about all the strange and exotic new airline fees, of which we recently became victims (damn you Delta).

• Ten to Hate in 2008: Going for types rather than individuals, 23/6.com’s listicle singles out some deserving targets (Governors, CEOs) and some less endorsable picks, like pregnant men (pictured below) and slutteens (see their definitions, which we find vaguely sexist and moralizing).

• Top 10 Comedic News Stories of 2008: Will Durst’s mix of news items we couldn’t get enough of and simultaneously always ducked and ran from whenever they appeared includes The Primaries, National Political Conventions and John McCain. We’re not sure what Proposition 8 is doing on the list though…
  

  Apparently it's okay for pregnant men to drink vodka.

• 100 Weirdest News Stories We Dugg in 2008: This one from the rowdy humorists at Asylum will keep you reading busily until 2010. Our favorite is number 29: PETA demands Ben & Jerry’s to make their ice cream with human breast milk.

• Top 10 Newspaper Industry Stories of the Year: Why go past number 10: Pulitzer Prize eligibility opened up to include online-only outlets. Hint, hint, Pulitzer jury. (via Huffington Post)

• Top 10 Most Sought-After Gifts of 2008: Thanks, Forbes, for reminding us of all the cool stuff we didn’t receive (or give to others, for that matter).

• The 11 Biggest CEO Firings of 2008: Why did the CEO of Krispy Kreme get fired? I guess some of these guys will show up in next year’s edition of another Forbes listicle…

• The Biggest Bums of 2008: Congrats Bernie Madoff for earning the ire of the typically stiff upper-lipped folks at Forbes.

• The Worst Band Names of the Year: This exhaustive list from The Onion’s A.V. Club includes such gems as emo band Blue Skies for Black Hearts and post-60s folksters Children of the Flower Children. And don’t miss the section on late-comers to the Wolf trend, which includes our favorite: Holocaust Wolves of the Apocalypse.

"Stop naming your lame bands after me and my species!"

Ride out the listocalypse (or is that Wolfpocalypse?) with us and we’ll have part 2 of our Top 25 Year-End Lists of 2008 for you in not time.