NBER dating for the 2001 recession puts it as starting in March 2001 (still hardly time for Bush to take all the credit for tanking the economy in a mere 2 months).

It was a relatively partisan CEA, headed by Greg Mankiw that decided that it should be back-dated. To be sure, he had a model to support this decision, but a more even-handed analysis seems to put it back at the beginning of Q22001: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/08/the_2001_recess.html

Your comments about abortion are exactly right. I am a Democrat now. In a different time, I would be a Rockefeller Republican, and proud of it. I have mixed emotions about abortion. But in the end, feel it is a decision best left between a woman and her doctor.

But I have always thought Roe was just wrong, even if I possibly supported the intended results. But as legal reasoning, it just bothers me. More importantly, I think we were wrong to take that route. Leave it to the States. Just like gay marriage, it should be fought in each state. Several states had already legalized some abortion before Roe. He**, my own adopted State, North Carolina legalized abortion for pregnancies caused by rape, or the woman’s life was in danger in 1970. North Carolina!!! If we can win this fight in North Carolina in 1970, we could win it *most* places.

Or maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe the anti-abortion folks could marshal their arguments, show how horrible it really is, and win. But either way, the only right way to do it

So I think Roe was both stupid, and ultimately damaging to everyone.

In 1984, I had no problems voting for Reagan, or the Republican party platform. I largely agreed with much of it. But eventually, all that changed. And changed badly. The Social Conservatives took over everything, and now rammed down a version that give THEM control. Suddenly, it is not about letting the sates decide. They might decide they might decide “wrong”. Just like we can’t let California experiment with medical marijuana, we know it is wrong.

They want to do the polar opposite of what the worst of Democrats want to do. Their way, only their way, and they will tell the country what is right and wrong. There is nothing “conservative” about that

Honestly, if I have to risk one side gaining total control now, the Democrats scare me less than the Social Conservatives

In the 1970s and 1980s, reality used to be a conservative talking point.

Back then, all the starry-eyed idealists, totally out of touch with the reality of how the U.S. economy really works and how international relations really work, were liberals. It was conservatives who kept coming up with arguments based in history, philosophy, ethics, economic theory, military history. That’s why conservatism dominated U.S. politics for some 30 years.

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Reality is still owned by the conservatives, look at Cap & Trade (Artifical Energy Scarcity) leading us out of a bad recession. There is no reality there. Look at Deficits need to be reduced especially from Bush’s and the GOPs irresponsible spending, then goes on to pass the Trillion Dollar Porkulus Bill and tops it off with the Multi Trillion Dollar Health Care Socialization, and they actually think that the taxes that they have to raise, because lets face it the Chinese arent gonna pony up, is going to combine with Cap & Trade and produce the revenues that will pay for all this.

We are talking about an economic calamity, far worse than the Financial Crisis and Real Estate Bubble.

No, its the Conservatives that keep hittin all the right notes, but sometimes have strayed from those notes.

One has to ask themselves, do you support the guy that at least is advocating the better policies based on reality, but not always following it, or do you support the fellow that is actually advocating insanity.

This is exactly what the North did with regards to slavery in the South, as the final resolution of the US Civil War.

Now my politics are to err on the side of caution when it comes to human life. I would allow the morning after pill but basically can aborition altogether with perhaps a few exceptions, like rape, incest, life of the mother. Perhaps as a practical matter an 8 week window.

I dont agree necessarily with the Constitutional Amendment strategy, because to me the Constitution already applies.

But this could have all been avoided if the Left hadnt tried (and they have done this as a tactical strategy, which is now standard operating procedure on the Left) to bypass the State Legislatures via Activist Judges. The Left brought the Constitution into play, and thus made it a crime to limit abortions…as many state laws have been struck down limiting abortion. Its the Left that is to blame for the reaction, they are in the driving seat. Not Conservatives.

You can blast Conservatives for these things, but these positions and circumstances would never have come about if the Left hadnt played dirty. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

Back then, all the starry-eyed idealists, totally out of touch with the reality of how the U.S. economy really works and how international relations really work, were liberals. It was conservatives who kept coming up with arguments based in history, philosophy, ethics, economic theory, military history. That’s why conservatism dominated U.S. politics for some 30 years.

Times change.
And they’ll change again.
But not yet.

Giving Fourteenth Amendment rights to embryos, as a Human Life Amendment would do, would end the practice of IVF.