Week's end news roundup

Lots of e-mails and interesting news to wrap up and clear off.  Here we go!

Just got my first e-mail from El Tinklenberg.  If you don't recognize the name, perhaps this blog will jog your memory.

Got it?  There's an "oust" link on the left so you can click and donate when possible.

We've got a decent 16 months to help raise funds for Mr. Tinklenberg.  I'll keep socking away a few bucks a month and try giving him what I can when I can.  And, I'm a good 2000 miles from western Minnesota.  Their current Representative is nothing short of an embarrassment, plain and simple.

Can't wait to see her go!

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From the VoteVets.org folks, a 62 second statement video on torture.  The link also gives everyone the chance to sign their name to a petition to continue encouragement to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

The arguments for keeping this facility are, plainly, laughable.  With an empty "supermax" style prison available in Montana and the folks affiliated with the facility all but begging to take on the detainees, what's the holdup?

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Finally, Nicole Belle does a nice wrap-up-for-the-week's-end post at C & L on this week's CA Supreme Court ruling on Proposition and what one of our state's first legally married same-sex couples had to say about the issue.

And, most importantly, there is a link in her post all can access to get to a form which, once completed, would give same sex couples (or anyone else, for that matter) the right to visit each other in the hospital. 

I'll add my own two cents to this and urge everyone to search for more information on either a Living Will, Health Care Power of Attorney and/or Health Care Directive.  Pretty much anyone of legal adult age may give the authority to make health care decisions to a person of their choice (including girlfriends, boyfriends, lovers, partners, spouses, etc.).  This document (which is called by one of these names in your state) also gives one the opportunity to specify health care decisions from the moment one becomes incapacitated to the moment one dies.

When you search, be sure to include the name of your state as the forms vary slightly from state to state and states have differing requirements on whether one of these documents needs to be witnessed, notarized, both or neither.  If you get stuck or think your situation may be more complex than a downloadable or template-style form can handle, check out Gaylaw.org.

Here's a toe-tapper that will drill into your ears and stay in your head.  I've not heard such a chipper song with a slap-across-your-face chorus.  Enjoy Lily Allen - it's definitely how I'd utter the song's title -- with a smile on my face and a perky late 70s/early 80's sitcom theme melody.