And just one more thing (still contraceptives)

The key question about whether Catholics are harmed by the contraceptive mandate is whether they are being asked to do something immoral.  I don't think they are.  The key questions about whether religious freedom is harmed by the contraceptive mandate are:
1. Is the mandate objectionable to some on the grounds of faith?
2. Is there a legitimate federal interest in overriding these objections (as in prohibitions on human sacrifice or (perhaps less legitimately) polygamy)?

It's clear that the answer to 1 is yes, but it's not clear that the answer to 2 is no.  The federal government heavily subsidizes employer provided healthcare, so one might reasonably think that if you take the subsidies you have to take the strings that come with them.  Furthermore, it seems possible that there's a legitimate federal interest in reducing healthcare costs, and perhaps even a right to reproductive freedom to be protected.  More below the fold.

Vegas Preliminaries

I finally found a site offering some historical gambling data (thought not as much as I'd like).  For those of you too lazy to click, this is the key thing:

Straight Up Trends (Won Loss Tie)

Category	Record	Percent
Away Teams	11-67-0	14.10%
Home Teams	67-11-0	85.90%
Favorites	70-8-0	89.74%
Dogs	8-70-0	10.26%
Away Favorites	5-2-0	71.43%
Away Dogs	6-65-0	8.45%
Home Favorites	65-6-0	91.55%
Home Dogs	2-5-0	28.57%

So I'm still getting my head around the way this works, but at a glance it looks like the picked favorites do well, and that this week betting on the home team was a good call.  Not surprising for opening week I guess.  It'll be interesting to see what happens with these going forward.  As a sidenote, I also found a site doing comprehensive statistics on college football.  I suspect we'll be seeing some comparisons between Notre Dame and the general field in this blog's future.