Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

The "no exceptions" crowd vis-a-vis abortion would oppose even a nine year old getting an abortion. It's a fanatical and incredibly unpopular position.

And it does exist. The woman who ran as an R for governor in 2022 said "no exceptions", so this isn't just one isolated backwater in a deep red state making this call.

Not only that, the context of her remark was in response to a scenario where a young woman was raped by her uncle. That's how you get your ass kicked by a governor who sent Covid patients into old folks home, killing thousands, yet wouldn't let healthy people get a hair cut.

[Hannibal]

Really? Can you cite one case where a 9-year-old has been "forced" to carry a pregnancy to term? There is no state I know of that doesn't have exceptions for "rape, incest, and the life of the mother". This is rape. No one is being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Typical Prog nonsense.

The "no exceptions" crowd vis-a-vis abortion would oppose even a nine year old getting an abortion. It's a fanatical and incredibly unpopular position.

And it does exist. The woman who ran as an R for governor in 2022 said "no exceptions", so this isn't just one isolated backwater in a deep red state making this call.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Really? Can you cite one case where a 9-year-old has been "forced" to carry a pregnancy to term? There is no state I know of that doesn't have exceptions for "rape, incest, and the life of the mother". This is rape. No one is being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Typical Prog nonsense.

The Ohio "Heartbeat" law passed in haste immediately after the Dobbs decision banned all abortion after Week 6 with no exceptions for rape or incest after that point. A 9-year old was raped and impregnated. The girl and her mom were not aware she was pregnant until after the 6 week limit. She had to go to Indiana to get an abortion. The story got widespread coverage especially here in the state and it likely contributed to voters overwhelmingly protecting abortion rights in the State Constitution last year.

Rather than show any sympathy to the girl or her mother, Republican politicians in this state branded her a liar and accused her of not telling the police (this turned out to be completely wrong). They doubted that a girl that young could even GET pregnant. Republicans in Indiana went after the doctor who performed the abortion and threatened to get her medical license taken away, but they failed because she had pretty much done everything according to the letter of the law.

Man pleads guilty to raping Ohio girl who ended up traveling across state lines for abortion - ABC News

As for your claim that every state has exceptions for rape and incest? NO. Both Alabama and Texas have total abortion bans beginning at conception with no exceptions made but for "life of the mother" which, in practice, has to be extremely well documented else the law will prosecute.

Alabama can't prosecute people who help women leave the state for abortions, Justice Department says | AP News

Alabama is one of several states where abortion is almost entirely illegal after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision known as Dobbs, handed authority on abortion law to the states. Alabama bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape and incest. The only exemption is if it’s needed because pregnancy seriously threatens the pregnant patient’s health.

15 states with new or impending abortion limits have no exceptions for rape, incest - Poynter

A Review of Exceptions in State Abortion Bans: Implications for the Provision of Abortion Services | KFF

Texas had over 26,000 rape-related pregnancies in 16 months after abortion ban, JAMA study shows - ABC13 Houston

Idaho GOP Lawmaker Aims to Remove Rape and Incest Exceptions to Abortion Law | Truthout

[Da Geezer]

Dartmouth basketball has voted to unionize as recognized by the NLRB.

https://apnews.com/article/dartmouth-union-ncaa-basketball-players-2fd912fade62ffd81218a6dc91461962

I think athletes should be able to profit from their athletic abilities while in college and support some form of revenue sharing like what Harbaugh advocated. But I also think the players who generate the revenue should be first in line to share in the money. It's clear that the college athlete compensation model will change dramatically in the near future but I predict there will be a lot of unintended consequences as a result.

The standard argument for paying athletes is that college athletics generates billions in revenue for the schools, therefore those schools should share that revenue with the athletes who generate it. It's a completely logical argument and one I agree with. However, if the Dartmouth unionization leads to college athletes being recognized as employees across the board, well... there's gonna be a LOT fewer college athletes going forward. A quick Google search indicates that Dartmouth drew an average of 686 fans per home game this year. Their most expensive season ticket is $120 (if you want to spring for a chairback seat). So even if every person who attended a Dartmouth game this year was a season ticket-holder with the good seats, total ticket revenue would have been $82,320. I'm guessing their TV revenue was $0.00. So what piece of the pie are they going after!? Popcorn sales??

The billions of dollars that everyone clamors for are generated by 20-30 football brands that the networks want to broadcast on Saturdays. Ohio State brining in over $250m in revenue last year doesn't have a single goddamn thing to do with women's soccer at Utah State. But it looks like this is headed in a direction where the "billions generated by college athletics" will be used to classify them all as employees and be forced to pay them a wage/salary. This will have a devastating affect on everyone outside the P4.

Do any of you legal experts know if a scholarship could be taxable income if the player is an employee or is that set up differently than earned income? I really don't know.

This guy did a good analysis of AD profitability from pre-pandemic 2020 and found that 18 out of 229 public division 1 athletic departments were profitable.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-found-18-profitable-211-money-losing-ncaa-public-scott-hirko-ph-d-

I can't imagine anyone lower than D1 makes much of anything in the way of revenue. That's entirely supported from the general fund. But they may be adding payroll to their bottom line in the not-too-distant-future.

What say you? Is the employee model good for college athletes? What will college sports look like in 5 years, 10 years?

Good questions:

- If the player is an employee, they would get a W-2 and pay taxes. Players pay taxes on NIL money now.
- Pay "equity" generally follows unionization. The employee model will lead toward the outstanding players subsidizing the regular players. This can probably be mitigated by using some mix of NIL and wages.
- The employee model is already in effect with most P4 programs now, but we call it NIL. To me, the biggest threat to the golden goose is that the massive crowds at college football games are about shared life experiences and "our guys" against "your guys". Watch any college basketball game now and the announcers will point out where the players have transferred from. There are already more transfers in B-ball than 4-year guys. It is dangerous to just assume that the connection fanbases feel toward their team will be so strong if the players are hirelings and move around in the transfer portal as is happening in basketball. I think the Ignite team in the G-League will go away, because it was envisioned as a way for high school kids to be paid $ 500,000 per year and not have to go to college. Ignite is 2-19 this year.

[Da Geezer]

The Cons give us laws that require pregnant 4th graders to carry their pregnancy to term. BUT otoh the progs wrote a computer program that depicts black vikings. Who really can say which is worse?

Really? Can you cite one case where a 9-year-old has been "forced" to carry a pregnancy to term? There is no state I know of that doesn't have exceptions for "rape, incest, and the life of the mother". This is rape. No one is being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Typical Prog nonsense.