While I was growing up, I had a hell of a lot of fun. My very early years were spent going to the local sports complex with my dad and my little brother, playing backyard baseball/soccer/tag with a gaggle of kids from the neighborhood, having fashion shows with gear from my massive dress-up box for my mom. Then, as I got older, my friends and I started throwing boy-girl parties involving air hockey tournaments and games of spin the bottle, and would have sleepovers where we dyed our hair and cleaned the house on Saturday afternoons so my mom would give us movie money.

In my early teen years I’d hang out at the skatepark and take trips out of town with as many people as we could pack in a van to watch bands play; later, at the end of my high school career, weeknights were spent driving around, listening to jams and making pointless stops at WalMart, and weekends were spent partaking in outlandish late-night drinking shenanigans accompanied by board games.

Then I went to college. And while some of my best friends did attend the same school as me, and while I did meet a handful of fantastic new people, for the most part, I was pretty miserable. I went from a small town where I had known everyone for 5+ years to a giant school filled with rich kids from suburbia who wouldn’t know real fun if it kicked them in the teeth. Read More »

And now the news with Kandy Korrespondent.

On Thursday, the Texas Third Appeal Court US ruled that officials had no legal right to seize 463 children from the Yearning for Zion compound in April. The immediate removal of children from their homes without a court order is only allowable if the children are perceived to be in immediate danger. The decision did not immediately order the return of the children.

The raid was prompted by call allegedly from pregnant 16-year-old who said her much older husband was abusing her. The raid failed to find the girl and authorities are now examining the possibility that it may have been a hoax.

The children removed in the raid were all placed in foster care, 100 of which have yet to be matched with mothers.

The Yearning for Zion sect belongs to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) an offshoot of the Mormon Church. FLDS members believe that a man must marry a minimum of three times in order to ascend to heaven.

McCain has refused the endorsement of Texas pastor Reverend Hagee following the discovery of the later’s anti-Semitic statements. During a late 1990s sermon. Hagee stated that Adolph Hitler was used by God to expedite God’s will the re-establishment of the state of Isreal. He stated,

“‘and they the hunters should hunt them,’ that will be the Jews. ‘From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.’ If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can’t see that.” Read More »

It’s today’s news with Kandy Korrespondent!

On Wednesday President Thabo Mbeki announced the deployment of the South African army in response to increasing xenophobic violence in Johannesburg and surrounding cities. Foreigners are fleeing their homes for mosques, churches, community centers, and police stations. According to witnesses, mobs are roaming the streets armed with clubs and bottles attacking foreign-owned businesses and homes. The BBC estimates that there are between three and five million foreigners currently residing in South Africa. Many are refugees from Zimbabwe.

In related news, according to the International Crisis Group there is a growing danger of a military coup within Zimbabwe. Moreover, the ICG doubts that current dictator Robert Mugabe will allow a genuinely free and fair election to occur since, according to recent polls, opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai seems sure to deliver a resounding defeat. The report calls for joint African mediation.

In Other News:

On Tuesday, Senator Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The diagnosis follows Senator Kennedy’s hospitalization due to a seizure on Saturday. Fifty percent of those similarly diagnosed die within a year, the rest pass away within three years. This type of tumor is always fatal.

Check out the National Brain Tumor Foundation to join the fight against this most deadly form of cancer. Read More »

Yes, we all know the supposed heart-throbs of our generation: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, blah blah blah blah. But aren’t there girls out there who yearn for a pair of boys with adorable accents, mad guitar skills, and who are also downright hilarious? If you answered no to that question, you need a wake up call, and here it is.

These two rather adorable boys are called Flight of the Conchords, and last Sunday they won a Grammy for best comedy album for their debut effort, The Distant Future.

They are, in their own words, “New Zealand’s 4th most popular folk/comedy duo“, and their songs are wonderfully quirky and insanely funny. In addition, they star in probably what is the most original show on television, called, you guessed it: Flight of the Conchords.

They star as slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, a folk duo from New Zealand trying to make it big in New York City. What makes this show unique, however, is the duo’s tendency to randomly burst out into song…about completely random topics. Read More »

* People in Vancouver are sexy, virtual dorks. (Leader-Post)

* Kentucky pulls off the greatest upset since Appalachain State. (Courier-Journal)

* Dunder Mifflin needs your help! (DunderMifflinInfinity.com)

* “Mr Husband heard about the knicker crisis from his parishioners, decided to practise what he preached and so organised the volunteer knicker-runs.” Woo! Free underwear! (News.com)

* A New York man attacks a neighbor’s inflatable Halloween display: she heard hollering and swearing and looked outside to see Odee struggling with the giant pumpkin. “He was enraged. I could see that,” she said. (Yahoo!)