It's coming up on the end of the year (believe it or not) and I thought it might be some good, lighthearted holiday discussion to think about who or what might be Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2009.

There are no real requirements for what a Person of the Year can be. It could be anything from a single person (Barack Obama, 2008), a group of people (Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates, 2005), or an abstraction (The Endangered Earth, 1988; You, 2006). The only criterion, since the establishment of the yearly issue in 1927 is that the nominee has “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.”

That said, here are, in my opinion, the ten most likely contenders (in no particular order).

As you can see on the left side of your screen, I finally started “twittering.”

I don’t plan to use this tool to tell you about my current location or travel plans. I will use Twitter primarily when I see an article or blog post worth bringing to your attention and don’t have much commentary to add. It should work much like the Breaking Blue feature at MyDD or the Quick Hits at Open Left.

Only my five most recent “tweets” will show up in the box on the Bleeding Heartland front page, but you can view them all or sign up to “follow” me here.

I’d like to hear your suggestions for other changes at Bleeding Heartland. Also, let me know if there are any politicos or commentators I should be following on Twitter.

By the way, noneed4thneed Twitters here.