He is a cute boy. I’ll give you that.
British diver Tom Daley shows off his Olympic rings tattoo
Mitt Romney vs you applying for a job…
Tony Scott, TOP GUN director, commits suicide
The L.A. Times is reporting “Top Gun” director Tony Scott fatally jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro on Sunday afternoon, according to Los Angeles police sources.
His body was pulled out of the water by Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol and U.S. Coast Guard officials.
Investigators found a note in his car, which was parked on the bridge. That note listed contact information. They later found a suicide note at his office. An earlier version of this story said the suicide note was found in his car.]
Law enforcement sources said several witnesses saw Scott, the brother of director Ridley Scott, climb over a fence on the bridge and jump off.
Scott was a respected action-movie director who also made “Enemy of the State,” “Beverly Hills Cop II” and “Crimson Tide.”
UPDATE: ABC News is reporting that Tony Scott had inoperable brain cancer.
Broadway Bares: Ugly Duckling (It Gets Better)
From this year’s Broadway Bares. Created by Nick Kenkel.
More on Broadway Bares, click here.
MO GOP Senate hopeful Todd Akin says pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is rare
“From what I understand from doctors {pregnancy from rape} is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” – Rep. Todd Akin, candidate for US Senate, on The Jaco Report
Hospital tells lesbian domestic partners “you need medical power of attorney”
At Spring Valley Hospital, in Las Vegas, Nevada, a lesbian couple – Brittney Leon and Terri-Ann Simonelli – was told at admissions that even though they had a legal domestic partnership, they would need a medical power of attorney for one gay partner to make decisions in the event of a crisis.
Brittney Leon was checking into the hospital for complications related to her pregnancy. During the admittance, the admissions officer informed the couple that the hospital policy required gay couples to have a medical power of attorney. Even though the couple offered to go home and get their certificate designating them as legal domestic partners, the admissions officer said that it wouldn’t matter – the policy was the policy.
In Nevada, the domestic partnership law passed in 2009 provides all the rights of married couples.
From the Las Vegas Review Journal:
A woman who identified herself as public relations representative at Spring Valley Hospital told a Review-Journal reporter in a phone interview that the hospital policy requires gay couples have power of attorney in order to make medical decisions for each other .
When asked if she was aware of Nevada’s domestic partnership law, she accused the reporter of bias and hung up the telephone.
The domestic partnership law states: “Domestic partners have the same rights, protections and benefits, and are subject to the same responsibilities, obligations and duties under law, whether derived from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.”
What confuses me is no one has brought up that on April 15, 2010, the White House released a statement by Obama instructing his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant all patients the right to designate people who can visit and respect patients’ choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them. That should have come into play here, domestic partnership or not, no?
The couple says they don’t intend to file a complaint or lawsuit against Spring Valley Hospital. But they do hope their problem will lead to more awareness of the domestic partnership law and for fair treatment of gay people.
Sadly, in the addition to the stress at admissions, Leon lost her baby.
Wisconsin: Primary puts gay candidate on track for Congress
State Senator Mark Pocan of Wisconsin cruised to a huge victory in his primary in hopes of taking the US Congressional seat currently held by Rep. Tammy Baldwin.
Pocan got 72% of the vote in a four way primary. His strongest challenge came from Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, who only garnered about 22% of the vote.
Being a heavily Democratic district, this makes Pocan, who is openly gay, on track to replace Tammy Baldwin, who is stepping down as she runs for US Senate. If she wins her race, Baldwin will become the first out senator in the nation and the first woman to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate.
10 Kids, 2 Dads – new series on Oprah Winfrey Network
10 Kids, 2 Dads, which airs tonight, August 18 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, takes viewers to a conservative town about 20 miles outside of Detroit, where gay couple Clint and Bryan are daddy and papa to 10 adopted sons from at-risk backgrounds.
When Clint and Bryan decided to start a family, they never dreamed that they’d end up with 10 kids. At equal turns funny and moving, this series follows a real-life Modern Family as they raise their adopted children in a chaotic, yet loving environment.
From light-hearted moments of painting the house or teaching the kids to drive, to heavier subjects like when one of the kids deals with bullying, this looks to be an honest and revealing look at family life in America.
Tune in for the premiere of 10 Kids, 2 Dads with back-to-back episodes Saturday, August 18th on OWN.
For more info on the show, click here.
I’m definitely watching this tonight.
Obama: We’ve Come Too Far To Turn Back Now
Forward.
Michigan: Former Asst Atty General Andrew Shrivell loses in court BIG after cyber-bullying college student
Former assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell found out Thursday that he must pay a whopping $4.5 million for the damage he caused to a gay University of Michigan student leader.
It’s doubtful he could have imagined such a punishment being issued by a jury of his peers when he decided to sit down with The Daily Show in November 2010 for what turned out to be perhaps the definitive takedown of his harassment.
Shirvell had been generating headlines for launching the “Chris Armstrong Watch” blog in April of that year, and he was placed on leave in October.
Shirvell was eventually fired that year for repeatedly harassing Armstrong, his alma mater’s student body president, via blog postings that claimed Armstrong pushed a “radical homosexual agenda,” called him a Nazi and a representative of Satan. The attorney general’s office reported it had received more than 20,000 outraged phone calls about Shirvell.
All of that led to Armstrong’s defamation lawsuit in 2011. And The Detroit Free Press reported on Thursday that a jury in U.S. District Court ordered Shirvell to pay $4.5 million in damages.
Check out the sadly out of touch Andrew Shirvell try to answer questions on camera.