Here's a satisfying post-election shakeout of one of the rumors that Obama detractors stirred up: remember that accusation Libertarian VP nominee and Columbia alum Wayne Allyn Root made about Obama padding his resume with a fake Columbia University degree? "I think the most dangerous thing you should know about Barack Obama is that I don't know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever!." (He also told Reason that he would bet a million dollars that, if Obama had in fact attended Columbia, he had made a better GPA.) Well, Root can STFU because Columbia is making a big fuss about their grad, sending out an e-mail to their community about how Obama is the first Columbia graduate to be elected President.An excerpt from the e-mail sent out by Columbia's President:

Former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld led his firm into bankruptcy, was subjected to blistering criticism by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, was officially "terminated" yesterday by the firm he led for a quarter-century, and will be selling off $20 million worth of art next week to keep up his lavish lifestyle. So how is he handling the roughest stretch of his life? He's doing okay! At the New York Public Library benefit on Monday, an Observer reporter spotted Fuld and his wife, Kathy, and reports the couple was "looking relatively cheery." [NYO]

Yesterday we asked whether South Park could make Obama jokes that were actually amusing. As we suspected, the most cutting jokes in last night's episode focused on the crazed supporters of the candidate, while the politicians were parodied in a heist to steal the Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian, a dated reference to Ocean's 11. Still, the show had its fun with Obama as smooth movie star, imagining McCain and Obama as secret-handshake best buds and Barack as just a glitzy jewel thief in Michelle's eyes. All the clips come after the jump.

Natalie Portman walking her dog in the West Village ... A bundled up Scarlett Johansson walking with friends ... Ashanti posing outside the Early Show ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts grabbing coffee ... Julianne Moore walking in the East Village ... Ed Westwick leaving a photo shoot for K-Swiss ... Whitney Port standing under an umbrella with a friend ... Jessica Alba on the set of her new film in Brooklyn ... Jessica Szohr trying on clothes at a French Connection store ... country singer Brad Paisley waving outside the Letterman show ... Kate Winslet talking on her phone in the meatpacking district ... and Katie Holmes and Suri walking under an oversized lady bug umbrella.

After Yahoo bought email startup Zimbra for $350 million, where did the money go? Cofounder and CEO Satish Dharmaraj put at least some of it down on a customized Toyota Prius, now on display at the SEMA auto show in Las Vegas. The yellow-and-orange car was so outrageously over the top it made even the heartless carbloggers at Jalopnik weep.The Prius features an extended battery for all-electric operation — how green! (Unless you count the coal which more than likely generated most of that electricity.) MyRide says that Dharmaraj's outré choice of scissor-wing doors means "the Lamborghini-door trend is officially over." (Photo by MyRide)

Honestly, art buyers, why even show up to auctions if you're going to cowardly balk at multi-million dollar estimates? At last night's Christie's sale combining the 19th and 20th century art collections of Park Avenue widow Rita Hillman and property heiress Alice Lawrence, works by Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Rothko, and de Kooning were left on the block, making an overall tally of $47 million, not even close to the presale estimate of $103 to $150 million.

[Well paid comedic figure Adam Sandler and his gay ole bulldog on the beach in Malibu. Pic via X17. Click to enlarge.]

You think this election was all fun and games and hope and first black presidents and gay marriage banning? No! No, it was not! There were real things at stake that Americans didn't even think about, lives in the balance that Americans never considered, and now they've gone and torn a family apart with their "voting." That's right, the 110th Congress's only all-member rock band has been forced to disband. "The Second Amendments" are an actual, instrument-playing rock band made up of members of congress. They were basically a crappy wedding band, playing dad music semi-competently, but the "members of Congress" thing made the whole show a little more surreal. Now, though, they are done, forever.

Which wife of a very prominent hedge fund manager was spotted at Hermès last week returning thousands of dollars worth of merchandise? Her husband was in the news recently after his fund announced huge losses in the wake of the market meltdown.

• So Anderson Cooper told Ellen DeGeneres "Honey, I don't even know where to begin" with NeNe from Real Housewives of Atlanta. That was Tuesday. Now NeNe is inviting the CNN anchor to ogle her chest and "get down and dirty" and have some "brown sugar." Her husband, an obvious CNN viewer, is totally fine with this.

So, have you all signed up to feed the homeless, tutor a child, and read to the blind thanks to your lingering Obamamania? No. No you haven't. Instead you sit poised to judge the secret foibles of others, which, let's face it, is the right thing to do, because your clicks translate into solid American jobs in this shaky economy. The true patriots: you. Today in blind items, a celebrity chef who's cheating on his wife, a celebrity who hilariously misunderstands "democracy," and a paranoid singer secretly trailing her man: 1) "Within the past month or so I think I posted about a celebrity chef who was cheating on his wife. The celebrity chef is known to all of you. Would he be A list? Sure. Definitely. Anyway, the update is that I was unsure who he was cheating with. Turns out it is one of his restaurant employees. Not someone who works with him on television or with his books, but a restaurant employee. This could of course be the reason why he is spending so much time at that particular restaurant lately." [CDaN] 2) "Which celebrity showed up at a polling place on Election Day, saw the long line, and demanded that she be allowed to skip to the front? When special accommodations were not made for her, she stormed off in a huff, presumably to another polling place where people would acknowledge her superiority and personally escort her past the unwashed masses into a voting booth big enough to accommodate her inflated ego." [Blind Gossip] 3) "Which freaky singer is so worried her bloke will cheat on her that she's told her family to tail him..." [Mirror UK]

♦ Former Lehman CFO Erin Callan has gone into contract on an apartment at 40 East 66th Street, one month after cashing out at 15 CPW. The Credit Suisse exec is reportedly paying between $7.5 and $8 million for the three-bedroom condo. [NYP]
♦ Tommy Hilfiger has found a new apartment to rent. (His Plaza apartment remains on the market for $50 million.) The fashion mogul is reportedly paying $50,000 a month for a five-bedroom spread at 807 Park Avenue, inside the converted townhouse that was owned by Diddy until 2004. [NYP]
♦ A week ago, we reported Bella Sapir had closed on a new penthouse at 250 East 53rd Street for $8.895 million. Now the Post reports she's already trying to flip the place for a profit. She's relisted the 4,500-square-foot spread for $13.5 million with Corcoran's Angela Rapoport. [NYP, Corcoran]

When you get engaged to the son of a billionaire, it's only to be expected that you'll develop expensive tastes. The Smoking Gun has copy of M.I.A.'s tour rider, which stipulates that the singer be provided with a long list of cheeses, including cave-aged Gruyère. [TSG]

One can't help but wonder if Jack McBrayer's character on 30 Rock, Kenneth the page, didn't provide some small amount of inspiration for that Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker article this week on the advantages of being an underprivileged outsider. The hardworking "country boys" once favored by New York merchants went on to run Goldman Sachs and so forth, Gladwell writes, and 30 Rock's fictional GE executive, Jack Donaghy, was similarly optimistic about Kenneth: "In five years, we'll all either be working for him … or be dead by his hand." Salon's Sarah Hepola makes the case in her Q&A with McBrayer that the actor is the midst of an unlikely ascent of his own as 30 Rock's breakout star:

Yesterday's gigantic New York Times headline—"OBAMA"—was only the fourth time in history that the newspaper has used the 96-point type. (The others, in case you're curious: "MEN WALK ON MOON," "NIXON RESIGNS," and "U.S. ATTACKED.") Also: Copies of the paper are now going for as much as $100 on Ebay. [E&P via kottke]

On last night's episode of Stylista, the contestants were divided into teams and tasked with devising a "shopping" page, one of those cheap-to-create catalogue-ish pages that highlight an alleged trend. When the hour of judgment rolled around, one team got roundly scolded by Joe Zee and Anne Slowey for not bothering to include store details and prices because, Anne frowned, what on earth is the point of looking at something if she cannot instantly totter off to purchase it? Elle would never feature clothes that aren't actually available to anyone, right? Um, not exactly, as the Times' Eric Wilson discovers during an intrepid investigation into what those three tantalizing little words, "price upon request," actually mean.

Bernie Kerik is now holding fundraisers to come up with cash to defend himself against numerous charges of bribery and lying to Federal officials. VBS.tv was lucky enough to pay a visit to the former police commissioner at his home in New Jersey a few weeks ago, and it turns out Kerik is about as creepy a man as you'll ever find who isn't a member of an armed militia in Idaho. His property is home to a pack of vicious dogs, he's a hard-core Motley Crue fan, and he keeps ruins from the World Trade Center in his home office. Oh, and despite the fact Rudy Giuliani won't talk to him anymore, he still thinks the former mayor would have made a most excellent president. Click through for the video.

Misery Loves Companies has an amusing list of "things we look forward to imploding" amid the economic downtown. A few items mentioned: "15 Central Park West, Masa, the Robin Hood Foundation Annual Benefit (The Foundation can stay), Birthday parties with AAA singers who don't know the birthday boy/girl, birthday or anniversary parties you fly to, Tom Ford's Men's Store..." [Misery Loves Companies]

In case you didn't obsessively compare election results to his site in real time, it's worth noting that baseball stat whiz Nate Silver wholly justified his gushing press and nailed the popular vote. His prediction: 52.3 percent Obama, 46.3 percent McCain. Actuals: 52.4 percent Obama, 46.3 percent McCain. Within a tenth of a percent, bitches! Granted, there are a couple of million votes yet uncounted, but Silver has already extrapolated how those will play out, and he's still super-close. Unless you want to step to his stats?? Thought so. Silver may grow fabulously wealthy applying his battle-tested techniques to other realms, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Ethan Hawke turns 38 today. Mike Nichols, director, four-time divorcé, and husband of Diane Sawyer, is 77. Sally Field is 62. California's First Lady, Maria Shriver, is 53. Michael Cunningham, the author of The Hours, is 56. TV host Catherine Crier is 54. Actress Kelly Rutherford is 40. Rebecca Romijn is 36. Thandie Newton is 36. Taryn Manning is 30. And your favorite former Manhattan Borough President, Ruth Messinger, celebrates her 68th birthday today.