Whenever I sit down to write my bi-monthly girl crush post, I’m usually looking for someone with a hot career that’s matched by her hot body, gorgeous face, gorgeous boyfriend, and impressive array of gold Emmy’s, Oscars or Grammy’s to perch atop the mantelpiece in her (assumingly) impeccable apartment. These are the celebrities of today, right?

Well, this week, in light of the horrendous violence and political strife that has unfolded in Iran throughout the past 10 days, we’ve decided to honor the women that are risking their lives on the streets to fight for justice.

Demonstrations and riots broke out in the city of Tehran last week when voting results confirmed that the conservative candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had defeated former prime minister Mir Hussein Moussavi. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, immediately threatened protesters and the Revolutionary Guard asserted that their actions would invite confrontation from the city police force. Government security officers with weapons and tear gas have been occupying the streets since then, where deaths and injuries continue to increase in number.

The protesters, many of whom are women, believe that Ahmadinejad was re-elected unfairly and through a corrupt voting process. One woman in particular, Neda Agha-Soltan, has become a heroic figure since her death on Tuesday, when she was shot in the chest while stepping out of her car. The 26 year old, who has been described as “not political” by a relative, was on her way to a rally with her singing teacher when a shot was fired from a rooftop across the street, supposedly from a sniper. A doctor had attempted to save the young woman but failed as the bullet had made its way to her heart in only a few minutes.

Videos littering internet websites show Neda locking eyes with a video camera before dying, a chilling image that millions of Americans can’t seem to erase from their memories. Friends and relatives report that Neda was an aspiring singer and a peaceful woman, and on the day of her death she was carrying no weapons and had no plan to commit any acts of violence. In other words, she was a completely innocent bystander, not unlike any of the men, women and children that fall victim to political violence in the Middle East. This link from the New York Times features a video story about Neda and captures the image that has become so well known in only a few days.

While it may not be appropriate to refer to Neda as my girl crush, I’m sure you all will agree that women like this deserve to be honored for their bravery and courage as we cross our fingers that the violence in Iran will end soon.

They’re trooping off to the polls in the biting November chill, snug in their Uggs and North Faces zipped to the collars. They’re waking up too early and standing around in long lines for something that isn’t free food. They’re American college students, and they are voting.

Smell that? That’s the smell of freedom. Also, American college students don’t shower much.

Are you with them – or are you against them? Political nihilists beware: the jaded, “The-electoral-college-it’s-a-broken-system-f**k-I’m-moving-to-the-Moon” attitude won’t get you anywhere this year, because cynicism is out and passion is in! If it’s such a big stick up your ass, go vote for Bob Barr or something. If he’s not on the ballot, write-in “John from College Candy.” But please, do go and vote.

And what about this evening? You probably don’t have anything important to do while you watch poll results stream in, and “Nation’s First Black President” or “Nation’s First Woman Vice President” are both perfectly acceptable reasons to skip all your classes tomorrow. This means you should drink!

2008 United States Presidential Election Drinking Game

(As always, replace “chug” with “shot” if that’s how you roll.)

- Drink after you vote – you’ve earned it! (Not before, please.)

- Prepare red and blue drinks (Red – Sex on the Beach and… blue? I don’t know, straight Blue Curacao?) and drink from one or the other whenever a state gets called for the respective party.

- Chug every time a “swing state” (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Georgia) turns into a blowout for one side or the other.

- Drink every time Obama looks sassy and classy at his Chicago gala. Chug if he repeats his dance performance from his appearance on Ellen DeGeneres.

- Drink every time McCain gives anyone a thumbs-up or winks; chug if both.

- Drink any time anyone on the T.V. says “Joe;” chug if Sarah Palin says it.

- Drink whenever Tina Fey pops onto the TV, not including “30 Rock” commercials.

- Drink every time McCain styles himself an “underdog.”

- Drink every time Obama uses spiritual, religious or otherwise goofy metaphor to describe himself, his campaign or his supporters (“a mighty wind is at our backs,” for example).

- Drink every time a McCain supporter walks into the room (You’re on a college campus, they’re rare creatures)

- If you are a McCain supporter, chug whenever you get depressed about the election, which probably means “whenever results come in.” It’s going to be a long night for you, I’m afraid. You’ll probably want to forget the pain.

- If you’re an Obama supporter, meanwhile, drink and high-five someone every time you feel “pumped.”

- If you didn’t vote today, your punishment is drinking malt liquor alone in your room, a**hole.

- Drink every time a report of voter suppression rolls in. Ideally, you’re also drunk enough to stand up and start an angry chant about your god-damn f**king rights.

- Drink every time one of the candidates’ attack lawyers gets ready to sue.

- Drink every time a saccharine T.V. reporter gushes about the enormous passion of youth voters this year.

- Drink whenever someone cites the “Bradley effect” – or racism in general, for that matter.

- Drink every time you can give everyone a smarmy grin and say “Oh, yeah, I read about this on the Internet.”

- Finally, chug when we elect a new President of the United States of America! It’s history in the making – who wants to remember something like that?

The other thing that paralyzed me, and that made me think it wouldn’t matter if I voted even in the presidential election, was the electoral college. I’m from good old Massachusetts — you know, the first state to legalize gay marriage, the so-blue-we-don’t-even- see-the-color-red state, the most liberal state in the union. There is never a contest about who wins our state’s votes. In fact, the politicians don’t even try; in the last election, I didn’t see a single presidential campaign ad.

So why bother voting? My vote amounts to a spit in the wind, and as long as we’re not talking about national popular vote as an option, things are going to stay that way. Still, though, I felt a renewed urge to cast my vote this year, because more than ever it seems like a year when a tremendous amount is at stake. Like hundreds of millions of others, I’ve seen my country slowly going down the tubes in the past eight years. It’s gotten a lot harder to be proud of my country, and I see the ideals it stands for increasingly obscured by smoke.

That’s when I found out that several states — including my college’s state of New Jersey — have voted to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular election. Hot damn, my vote counts for one vote again! It’s a very exciting and rebellious move on the part of several states who are tired of only Ohio and Pennsylvania getting all the love.

So I registered!

And you should too. For all you college students out there, register for an absentee ballot the next time you’re in your hometown, or you can register to vote in your college’s state as long as you have a resident address there. College democratic and republican organizations are eager to register young voters, so they often have booths up in public spaces on campus to help you get registered (and are always giving away free stuff!). Go to that extra effort to be a first-timer and you’ll feel invested in your country’s politics and future to a whole new degree.

So for those of you who feel apathetic the way I did, I urge you to reconsider this year. There’s just too much at stake to sit idly by — and this time, your vote just might make a heck of a difference.

You wanna know something? Us college kids are really just big magnets. If you open a dumb video of an overweight thirteen year-old kid singing a pop song from the Falkland Islands, every single student within a mile will be chuckling over your shoulder within fifteen seconds.

If our presidential candidates really want to get the 18-24 crowd out and voting, they should start making films of themselves running drunk and naked across the interstate. Right now, candidates are mostly remembered for being a bunch of lumpy old guys who still haven’t lowered the drinking age. They can do so much better: the McCain/Romney version of “Daft Bodies”, for example, would totally steal the election. I’d vote for them.

4. “Reframe the debate”

This year, the American people are concerned with economic something and whatever with foreclosure blah blah drilling offshore and climate change, very important to something Iraq timetable mumble mumble. Man! The issues are tiring! I need a nap!

So it’s not surprising that college students don’t get out to rep their favorite pols. All they talk about is boring crap that sucks! You know what college kids like? Movies. It’s what we care about. “Iraq” is far away and hard to pronounce properly. All those cutthroat late-night debates need to be centered around the real questions — the tough questions, the ones that will get students waving big posters and burning their underwear.

“I understand that Christian Bale’s a great Batman, Senator Obama, but what’s up with that police run-in? In light of his creepy bevhavior, have you reconsidered your recent “pro-shirtless Bale” position?” “Senator McCain, what’s your stance on Pierce Brosnan singing ABBA? Awful enough to be funny, or just awful enough to suck?” “If elected, what measures do the candidates plan to take to ensure that George Lucas doesn’t ruin another franchise, ever?”

3. Hand out textbook vouchers at the polling place

College students aren’t always very driven people, but damn, we will go through lengths to save money on textbooks. A quick trip down the street and a bit of decision-making is nothing if we can score a discount on that $400 Statistics set that comes with two hardcover books, a study guide we’ll never open, a Miley Cyrus DVD and a custom Yorkshire Terrier, all of which are required. Hell, you can probably put some barbed wire and a few pungee pits on the way, too; we’ll still make the trek. We already try to save money by going through crazy, only semi-English speaking online vendors that may sell you your textbook and may simply sell you a bomb with AIDS.

2. Create a voting drinking game.

What’s voting, anyway? A waste of expensive gas and time better spent surfing Wikipedia. There needs to be an incentive! Of course, polling places could always just put Keystone on tap, but even then, so what? Drunk with a bunch of creaky old people? And they probably won’t let you set up a pong table; some of those voting booths are kinda small.

But think along simpler, more portable lines — like a movie drinking game, you know, “drink every time Garden State sucks and you hate it” or whatever. Start with simple stuff, like “drink every time a chad gets dimpled”. “Drink every time they have to kick someone’s cute little kid out of the voting booth”. Watch out for the splashier events: “drink twice every time someone’s voter registration is screwed up and they get accused of being an illegal immigrant from Turkemenistan” Or “chug every time you’re voting in Florida — it’ll probably improve things overall”.

Of course, when everyone staggers to the TV the next morning, fuzzy and hung over, you discover that somehow “my nuts” has become the next leader of the free world, by write-in vote. Democracy! All right!

1. Have an inspirational, intelligent, charismatic and refreshing candidate on the ballot

I know, it’s a long shot, but just imagine it: millions of Americans rushing out of their homes, lining up to see one man — a candidate who offers something new, something great, who offers a friendly, feel-good kind of politics but still stands firm on principle. A candidate whom you wouldn’t mind having a beer with but whom you also wouldn’t mind trying to balance the national budget. A candidate who probably won’t need triple bypass surgery during his presidency and a candidate who has a charming smile. A candidate you’d want to vote for, and then you’d want to hug.

Yes, it’d be a beautiful thing, wouldn’t it? Masses of bright-eyed youngsters, driven by a new-found political passion like nothing before. Perhaps a false hope, but maybe one day… hey, wait a minute!

Biased? Me? Never! But seriously, get out and vote this election season! Vote for someone you care about, whoever that may be! And don’t drink and vote, folks. Practice responsible democracy.

Looks like the McCain campaign (ooo! that rhymes) is taking a turn for the worse. As if aligning with George W. wasn’t bad enough (what, with the recession/housing crisis/war/daily stupidity), McCain has another skeleton in his closet.Well, a skeleton with implants.

It looks like Meghan McCain, daughter of the presidential hopeful, had a lovely and intimate lunchdate with the one and only, Heidi Montag. No one knows for sure what the purpose of the meeting was, but I can assume the following topics were discussed:

Heidi

Heidi’s Music

Spencer

That Stupid Bitch, Lauren Conrad

Heidi Singing at the Republican Convention

Who is Your Dad Anyway?

Wait, That Black Dude With The Weird Name is Running Too?

Have You Ever Considered Highlights?

I Love Your Bag!

Do You Think Spencer Could Represent Your Dad?

Let’s Pose for the Cameras!

Things not discussed at lunch:

What the girls were going to eat. Because, duh, you can’t eat and look this good!

It’s time for the news with Kandy Korrespondent!

On Monday, California performed its first round of legally recognized same-sex marriages. Among the first love-birds to say the magic words, were Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, the original plaintiffs in the 2004 lawsuit challenging the gay marriage ban as unconstitutional. In San Fransisco, pioneering gay activists Phyllis Lyon, 84, and Del Martin said “I Do” in a ceremony initiated by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a record 2,386 marriage licenses were issued on Tuesday June 17th. An average June day’s count is 460. California is the first state to allow same-sex couples from other states to wed. While for most out of state couples such an action is purely symbolic, New York State has said that it will recognize all CA unions.

While marriage-protectionists mainly stayed out of the lime light on Tuesday, they have already begun to plan their campaign for the November ballot initiative banning gay marriage once again in CA.

In Other News:

The crisis in Zimbabwe is beyond alarming. Earlier this week, the secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Tendai Biti was arrested as he returned from South Africa on treason charges, “for publishing a document that was explaining a transitional strategy around March 26″. If convicted he faces the death penalty. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was also detained for the third time.

On Monday, a senior UN envoy, Haile Menkerios arrived in Zimbabwe for a five day visit. He will meet with politicians to discuss the upcoming election. Mr. Menkerios is the first UN envoy to visit Zimbabwe since 2005.

Opposition supporters speak of being beaten, shot at and attacked with petrol bombs. Human Rights Watch estimates that there are at least 2,000 victims of political violence since the March 31st elections.

On the campaign trail, according the latest Washington Post-ABC news poll, Obama leads McCain 48 to 42 percent. The poll goes on, however, to reveal some serious weaknesses with which the Obama campaign will have to deal. 56% of those polled said that McCain was safe choice compared with 52% for Obama. After Hillary Clinton’s barrage of attacks against Obama’s lack of experience, a mantra which McCain has since picked up, it’s perhaps not so surprising that only 50% of those polled said that Obama has the necessary experience to be president. Although Obama led by 16 points on the economy, the two were evenly matched at 46% on the “strong leader” issue.

The challenges of the next few months for Obama will be convincing middle-of-the-road voters that not only can he do the job but he can do it better than McCain.

And Now for Something Completely Different…

This past Sunday, residents of a village in Romania voted their old mayor back into office. The only difficulty is that he is in fact dead. Neculai Ivascu died from liver disease just after the voting began on Sunday and people kept voting for him. One villager seemed to speak for the rest stating, “I know he died, but I don’t want change”.

Election officials in the end awarded the post to the runner-up despite numerous calls for a new vote.

That’s the news!

[photo courtesy of the BBC]

Oh, she’s just being Miley…via Brett Ratner

This whole “presidential election” thing has got more drama than any MTV reality show

Fess up on those summer plans

My marriage offer still stands, Jonas Brothers

Oscars vs. VMAs

I, too, would rock a “J” tattoo for John Mayer

Once a Samantha, always a Samantha

For those who once tried to rock, we still salute you

It’s news time with your Kandy Korrespondent!

First off here’s the latest Candidate Candy:

Democratic Party Chairman, Howard Dean (whose infamous scream ended his nomination bid four years ago), warned that a prolonged Clinton-Obama battle has the potential to hurt the party’s chances against John McCain in November’s presidential election.

Meanwhile both campaigns continued their struggle on Monday to derail the others’ lead. In North Carolina, Barack Obama sought to spread his magnetism to working-class voters—who throughout the primaries have remained solidly in Hilary’s camp. He told a rally that he was going to take their questions rather than give them another party speech. “I want you to be able to lift the hood, and kick the tires, you know, take me out for a test drive a little bit”

Senator Clinton got a boost on Monday night when a new AP poll placed her leading John McCain by 9 points.

The next democratic primaries will occur on May 6th in North Carolina, and Indiana.

It takes 2,024 delegates to capture the democratic nomination but as it stands now, neither candidate could capture that many from the remaining primaries.

In Other News:

On Monday Cuba’s President Raul Castro announced that all death sentences (with the exception of three convicted terrorists) had been commuted to 30 years to life. This is the latest of a series of reform-minded moves taken by Raul since he took over the office in February.

In Washington, DC on Monday, members of Trucks and Citizens United circled the National Mall in their rigs with horns blaring to protest rising fuel costs. With diesel prices at $4.18/gal it now costs $1,200 to top off a cross country rig. As the protest’s Chief organizer Mark Kirsch stated, “this was a groundswell movement. Truckers are parking their trucks because they can’t afford to haul freight. Businesses are going under, and folks haven’t seen Washington do a darned thing about it.”

Tragedy struck a family in the Gaza Strip when a missile crashed into a house where mother and four of her children were having breakfast. The incident occurred during an Isreali incursion into the area and it is unclear which side is to blame. According to the BBC, over 400 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the last five months.

And Now for Something Completely Different…

This past Saturday saw the first German Championships in Office Chair Racing in the town of Bad Koenig-Zell. With only a crash helmet and chair, 70 participants teetered through the 170-meter race. Now that’s a sight I’d love to have seen.

See ya tomorrow!

This past Wednesday, April 16th, Senators Clinton and Obama faced off for the twenty-sixth time.

Now I must admit– I have long since stopped caring about the debates and I am dangerously close to apathy with regards to the DNC.

Moreover, I am of the opinion that after the first few debates they become pointless and simply a chance for candidates to get free TV time.

A debate could be held where moderators ask questions and the studio uses old footage of the candidates answering because seriously guys—THERE IS NOTHING NEW TO ADD!

Take this last debate for instance:

The first portion concerned a controversial comment Obama made two weeks ago while in San Francisco. He stated that small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere have been seeing jobs disappear over the past 25 years.

“It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,”

He later apologized for the poor wording of his statement, saying that the underlying truth of his statement remained unchanged—people are rightfully frustrated because they have seen their way of life drastically and unapologetically changed over the past few years.

Clinton and McCain both took the opportunity to label Obama as an elitist out of touch with the electorate.

The debate, then, was simply a chance for Hilary to continue her attack and Barack to continue his defense.

Moderator George Stephanopolous then turned on the heat asking each candidate if the he/she thought the other could beat Senator McCain.

Are you kidding me? What kind of question is that and why should I as a voter give a damn if Obama thinks Clinton could win or vice versa?

Discussion then turned to good ol’ Reverent Jeremiah Wright. I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit sick of that whole controversy—yes the man made really horribly insensitive comments- concerning HIV and concerning 9/11. But he’s not the guy on the ballot.

Regardless, however, this issue is being beaten to death. The next question Stephanopoulos asked says it all: “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?” – Dear George—as a voter I really don’t care whether Obama or Reverend Wright love America more—love as an emotion has little to do with the nuts and bolts of leadership and governance.

But even when the debate finally got away from the mud-slinging the rest was equally predictable:

Both candidates opposed McCain’s stance on the economy.

Both reiterated their opposition to Iran as a nuclear power.

Both also stated that they were committed to pulling the troops out or Iraq.

So I rest my case—by the 26th time around, a debate is a total waste of time. So why do they happen?

In the end I think it’s simply part of the “great game” of politics. The song that never ends…

Zimbabweans headed to the polls this past Saturday (March 29th) in a historic vote challenging President Robert Mugabe’s 28-year iron grip on the presidency.

The challenging party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), announced soon after the polls closed that they were in the lead. According to the BBC, as of Monday night, (March 31) they claimed that their candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, had won with 60% of the vote.

While Mugabe has intimated that he will honor the people’s decision, the delay in announcing the decision has many fearing the worst.

Nana Ampofo, an analyst for Global Insight, told the BBC that; “It’s still not clear that the election results are fixed but there are definitely reasons to be concerned.”

Rumors abound of election rigging:

According to the UK’s Sunday Mirror, the Zimbabwean Government ordered nine million ballot papers despite the fact that only 5.9million people were in fact elgible to vote→ to some this smells of ballot box stuffing.

The Economist notes that in one location, African monitors found that 8,500 voters were registered with addresses that turned out to be vacant land → to many this signifies Mugabe’s use of so-called “ghost voters”

As of Tuesday (April 1), while there were still no official results, members of Mugabe’s party are increasingly hinting at a run-off election in the works. According to Zimbabwe’s election law, if no one wins wins 51% of the vote, a run-off must be held.

In many ways it may not matter if the vote was rigged or not. If Mugabe is declared the winner after such a long delay and amid such rumors there will be violence.

Riot police can already be seen around Harare, seen as the seat of the opposition to Mugabe.

Mugabe has long been a thorn in the international community’s side. Secretary of State Rice stated on Saturday that,

“His [Mugabe’s] regime is a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and to Africa as a whole.”

During his tenure, Zimbabwe’s economy has plunged deeper and deeper into crisis—the country now has the highest inflation in the world at 100,000 per cent and the lowest life expectancy worldwide at merely 37 years.