title: Python bug: Invalid Syntax
body: <p>I am brand new to programming so maybe thats the cause of my problem. I am trying to learn through the book "learning python the hard way" and I can't seem to get python to run correctly. Any time i try any kind of cmdlet it give me an "invalid syntax error" and I can't get around it. The book uses an older form of python so it gives me no help on this type of issue and I've only found one other person with the same problem and I've read it was because there is a bug with the environment variable? This is basically what i am seeing</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;python
  Python 2.7.6 (default, Nov 10 2013, 19:24:18) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. 
  &gt;&gt;&gt;mkdir mystuff
      File "&lt;stdin&gt;", line 1
         mkdir mystuff
                     ^
  SyntaxError: invalid syntax
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If anyone knows whats going on and how to fix it I would really appreciate it. </p>