“Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.” [Sesame Workshop]

Our guest columnist is naturalized android Mitt Romney.

Do I believe that Social Security should take no part in deficit reduction negotiations? Social Security and Medicare are a large part of federal spending. It is about half. Not just this year, but over the coming decades, if we are able to balance our budget, we have to make sure that the promises we make for Social Security and Medicare are promises we can keep. There are a couple ways to do that: one way is to raise taxes on people. Corporations are people. Of course they are — where do you think it goes? Human beings, my friend.

Romney: ‘Corporations Are People, My Friend’ [TPM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_iq5yzJ-Dk

Every fall, colleges around the country send a memo to their graying faculties, reminding the fogeys that the Fresh Young Minds about to invade campus are terrifyingly fresh — this year’s 18-year-olds were born in 1993, which means your Cobain favorites are now as culturally irrelevant as our Stairway/Gilligan mashups.

It’s the shallow end of Living Memory, a wonderful concept that defines our cultural moment — a moment you can effectively double, since today’s centenarians were born into a world that included the centenarians of their day. You can even triple it if you care to, allowing for a great-grandmother telling childhood stories about her great-grandmother: It’s not inconceivable that a centenarian today (b.1911) might recall tales from an earlier centenarian (b.1811) passed along by a 1711 baby who lived it.

So while it’s certainly freaky in 2011 to watch a 1956 clip of someone who witnessed an 1865 presidential assassination, it’s not that odd when you work the math. But it still doesn’t mean that kids today give a shit about Smells Like Teen Spirit.

[via Kottke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkAVmJzdJ88

Our guest columnist is Stephen Colbert.

Dear Colbert Super PAC Members and spouses/lovers snooping through your inbox,

I have exciting news to share from Colbert Super PAC. We have set our sights on Iowa — right after setting our sights on finding out where Iowa is. It’s further north than you think! In advance of the Ames Straw Poll, outside money has been pouring in trying to convince Iowans to write in Texas Governor Rick Parry. It’s a blatant display of unbridled opportunism that we want in on.

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[via Yahoo]

“At that point, all five leaders shook hands and retreated into the Oval Office. It was exactly 9:29 a.m. One minute later, the New York Stock Exchange opened. The Dow was up 1,223 points at the open — an all-time record.” [NYT]

Angry lefty website Firedoglake fired off an angry email yesterday on behalf of Dan Choi, the anti-DADT activist who first came to attention when he came out on Rachel Maddow’s show a couple years back — while still in uniform.

Choi was later honorably discharged, but FDL says the Obama Administration is waging a “vindictive campaign” against him, including “seizing his veterans disability checks” through a collections agency, and this:

Dan currently faces up to 6 months in prison for protesting DADT in front of the White House. He will be the first person in nearly a century to be put on trial over an arcane law written for and last used to silence important women suffragists.

While we have a lot of respect for Choi — we were watching Rachel that night — we have somewhat less respect for Firedoglake. There’s an annoying tendency among Angry Lefties to hit the Outrage Button too often — we may read ThinkProgress and Media Matters daily, but we usually find ourself thinking twice (and checking sources) before running an item from them. So much shouting hurts our ears.

It’s far worse with Angry Righties, of course. But the louder they get, the more we’re amused.

So when the FDL email was brought to our attention, our strong instinct was — well, not to doubt it, but at least to confirm it before paying forward the anger. In particular, we were curious about the Lead Outrage — a century-old law being dusted off to burn Choi. That would be vindictive.

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