Woo hoo Dana and Dana's DH.

The pictures of Chesterfield and Worthington have cheered me up a great deal.

Aw! Yeah, me too. I won't lie, I usually have a picture of one of the kitties open in another tab while I'm at work. Always happy to spread the kittylove!

Turns out the blood pressure that was at 155/92 last time we checked is now at 120/70--woohoo!!

Awesome news, Kathy!

Oh, and I meant to say:

Happy Birthday, shrift!!

Now that I've lost some weight, I can finally have my way-too-long-delayed pap smear, which I'm going to schedule along with the rest of the complete physical in mid-February. I'm hoping the doctor will give me the okay to go off of the Lisinopril then.

So nice to see all the good news here! Welcome baby Aeryn! Congrats to the whole family.

And yay for Dana and DH!

(I am totally ignoring the bleaching conversation.)

>To wit: if the state government refuses to defend the proposition, do the proponents of the proposition (i.e., the homophobes) have standing to defend it from being overturned?

I am running out the door and I hate to post a question and run, but there are so many smart lawyer types here and I've been wondering for a while now why the proponents would have been given standing after the Gov and the Atty Gen refused to defend it. So how does that sort of thing work?

why the proponents would have been given standing after the Gov and the Atty Gen refused to defend it. So how does that sort of thing work?

Yeah, I'm not clear on that, except that without someone having standing at the trial court level, the case could not have been heard at all. And that's not right. But now that the case has been heard, the Prop 8 proponents may not have the standing to appeal the decision.

Actually, and I'll let Bon correct me if I'm wrong-- I think what happened was:

1. Prop 8 passes. Gay rights organizations sue the State.
2. State government is the defendent in the court, can't back out of it, but the Gov & AG refuse to affirmatively defend the Prop.
3. The proponents filed papers to allow them to defend it on the state's behalf.
4. Prop 8 loses in the trial court.
5. Proponents file appeal. State does not appeal.
6. This is where the standing question comes in: do the proponents have the right to appeal if the party with the real legal interest (the State) refuses to? I think the answer is No, but that's the question sent to the CA Supreme Court.

And the question it comes down to is: do the proponents of Prop 8 have a legally-protected interest that is threatened by the overturning of Prop 8? Which is really also a substantive claim about the proposition, not just a procedural one, since they're arguing that SSM is a direct threat to them (although they were utterly unable to articulate the nature of the threat in the trial court).

Much ~ma for Kate. I had a weird lymph node thing when I was much younger, and it was impossible to think of anything else. And they never found anything, and it just eventually went away.

Yay Dana's DH!

Sorry about the bleaching convo.

It's Shrift's birthday?

Happy Birthday!!

Timelies all!

Congrats to Jessica and family!

Yay Dana's DH!

That's great, Dana!

I'm home and full of shrimp goyza. Mmmmmm, pan-fried dumplings. On the down side, my back's been sore the last few days. On the up side, I've been working out the last week or so and trying to stretch more, and I'm feeling a bit more flexible. It's probably my back saying, "Hey, wait, we need to do that? I thought we stopped bending that way years ago."