To any one who listens to Judicial confirmation hearings. They always ask whether potential Federal and USSC judges believe that privacy exists in the 14th amendment for the Federal court system to rule on in the context of substantive due process but not individual privacy rights, in other words, basically, you are supposed to say Griswold and everything that came after it was wrongly decided but dance around it by some precedent thing to get the Democrats to confirm you. However, you are supposed to say privacy exists on the substantive due process 'side' of the 14th so that the Republicans always know what their rights are in any state they get arrested in.

Bork, btw, doesn't believe they exist on either 'side' of the 14th.

Roberts went slightly off from conservative orthodoxy when he said Griswold was 'rightly decided' instead of dancing around on precedent the way he did on Roe. It really pissed off a significant amount of Republicans because it indicated that he was against abortion because he was against abortion - not because of any belief in privacy being or not being in the constitution.

It means the only time available is before school, in lots of communities. Which means mom, or dad (neither of whom might be stay-at home, btw), gets up well before dawn and takes the child - who might be a boy or a girl - female participation in hockey is growing significantly, to very early practice. It's a family sacrifice. The sport is also relatively expensive. Many parents have worked second jobs to get the kids what they need.

I don't have kids but I do actually know the sport and I have heard the players talk about what their parents have done for them. Apparently you people think it's a political ploy. Maybe you ought to actually watch a game and hear the players TALK about their families, their parents. I don't give a damn about Sarah Palin or the term hockey mom. I do care that once again most of you don't know a damn thing about the sport - or the people that actually play it. Either learn something about it or shut the f*ck up.

I'm used to people not knowing a damn thing about the sport but it's become more obvious now that the sport is sort of back in the news again because of the election.

Since the choice of Governor Palin of Alaska as the Republican VP nominee, the NY Times has now announced that hockey is a 'red state phenomenon'. Could have fooled me. Look at where US hockey players in the the NHL have actually come from. The states generally vote, well, blue. The league keeps trying to get a footprint in states that vote 'red' and the attempt is partially why fans have had to put up with two lockouts in the last 15 years.

I really, really wish people would either learn something about the sport or, just, well, shut the f*ck up.

Now, I have a podcast of an interview with Patrik Elias to get back to.

In some ways they weren't. It really did depend on who you were.

I remember people who were directly involved in the market crash in 1980s killing themselves. I remember some investors killing their stockbrokers. Whatever is going on now, I don't see that happening - at least not yet. I also remember the Reagan recession (there was one, yes, they used they 'R-word' sometime in the early 1980s). It wasn't pretty. Many people suffered, many people lost their jobs - across the economic spectrum.

However, a few things were not as they are now. More people had actual pensions then. More people belonged to unions. More people still had benefits they could count on. Fewer women were in the workforce and when husbands were laid off, many times, wives took it in hand to go out and get any job they could find to keep the family afloat. Also, more Americans still lived within their means then. Additionally, the price of simply necessities wasn't really going through the roof in the 1980s.

Finally, in the 1980s, many fewer Americans were directly invested in the market. Their retirement accounts were not in 401ks. When the market crashed in the late 1980s, they didn't look at it and see their retirement savings possibly crashing with it. They worried when the plant was shutting down and the company went into bankruptcy and wondered where, in all of the creditors, their union was lined up - and if their pension was safe.

I appreciate the Congresswoman's passion, but, I'm not sure she's correct.