The Big Ten Conference and Expansion: Rutgers and Maryland should be rejected for two others.

A change of subject for now. Football. American football.

Originally the Big Ten conference had, well, ten universities. Then it expanded to 11 and then most recently to 14. The new additions from the 11 were Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland. 

I said it before that Maryland and Rutgers were mainly added to for financial reasons - to expand a majority Midwest market to the East Coast, delving into the Boston-DC corridor. So far the fruition of more money has sorta kinds paid off but not to the effect that the powers that be would hope so. This expansion to 14 universities was done around the 2010-2011 seasons. 

People will point out that the state of Pennsylvania as a non-Midwest. Okay, they have a point. But there's Penn St. and Penn St. has the "feel" of a Big Ten university that Maryland and Rutgers do not who are too far east to have any meaning sports wise to those in the Midwest. Nebraska, from its first day as a conference member, felt like it truly belonged (more so than Northwestern).

Realignments of sports conferences happen though not frequently. If I were the Big Ten Commissioner I'd send a hard push to get University of Pittsburgh and the University of Missouri. University of Kansas could be a back up. Geographically Pitt and Missouri makes sense. If we let go of the "not enough marketing money" talking point I believe these two universities make the most sense. They're also strong academically. 

I'll be the first one to say it in public: Rutgers and Maryland are just cash cows for the Big Ten. There really hasn't been any meaningful rivalries that have grown from the Rutgers and Maryland basketball-football additions. Nebraska brings volleyball and football; sure their basketball team isn't strong but so what. Penn St. is equally as horrific. The same goes for Northwestern sports save for football. Nebraska football is plain awesome and to have that be part of the Big Ten makes the conference even more amazing. 

Missouri would be a safe pick and that's okay. I can see the rivalry between Missouri and Illinois basketball become even more heated and tense. Missouri's football team is rock solid and would also add to the Midwest Big Ten football vibe. 

Pitt's football, like Missouri, has also been solid. Volleyball they're okay and basketball I can see them getting better at recruiting. The rivalry between Pitt football and Penn St. football would be great to broadcast on the Big Ten. Out of the two, Pitt is the most well-rounded school to add to the conference.

Academically Pitt is stronger than Missouri, but Missouri is currently ranked at #124 on the national university list by US News (if we use them as the standard). It's fine by me. What's the real difference between the undergraduates at Michigan St. (ranked around the 80ish mark) and Penn St. (ranked around the 60ish mark)? Not much. Missouri's undergraduate academics are not of a concern (they have a Phi Beta Kappa society) since they still bring in solid medical and law schools at the graduate school level. When people bring up the talking point that Missouri isn't "strong enough" academically, I'll point to Nebraska who's currently ranked at #133 as far as public universities goes.

Let's say the Big Ten stays at 14, with no newly added universities leaving, I'd still want Pitt and Missouri to be considered heavily given talks to expanding to 16 members was on the table when 14 was on the table. 

I'd also like to see the Big Ten divisions to be scrapped. It's not entirely needed. 

Big Ten Conference Members Wish List

Dismiss: Rutgers and Maryland

Invite: Missouri and Pitt

Illinois

Northwestern

Wisconsin

Minnesota 

Iowa

Indiana

Purdue

Michigan

Michigan St.

Ohio St.

Penn St.

Nebraska

Pittsburgh

Missouri 

Keep it at 14 members. There's no true need to be bloated like Big East or, even, the ACC. The Big Ten creates better rivalries and keeps a strong academic profile as a whole (thank you Northwestern being ranked in the top ten).

Of course there's Notre Dame to consider, but they're too in love with themselves and their Independent status for football. It would be great though. 

A Quick Comment on Obergefell v Hodges (2015)

It is said that people could not marry of the same sex and that this was unfair. This was marriage inequality. 

Originally the landmark case was because a person of the same sex could not have visitation rights, inherit money or have tax benefits etc. as compared to couple of the opposite sex who were married. On the national stage the narrative morphed into "bigots don't want gays to have equality via marriage." Now this is an interesting case on both the state and federal level. For now I'll just focus on the national narrative.

The national narrative is more or less false. The concern was that marriage was between one man and one woman. Pretty simple. But then The Left threw in the concept of love. This further muddled any sort of actual fair reasoning and logic. Here's the raw truth that defeats those in favor of Obergefell v Hodges: As previously noted, homosexuals (and bisexuals) had the right to get married all along - to the opposite sex. The standard was the same for every single person in the States. And it's been done before.

Numerous people with same-sex attraction have married people of the opposite sex. Probably a good amount of spouses had no idea that the person they married was either a homosexual or bisexual. The latter party had to "come out" to their partner. Maybe some had an idea that something wasn't "straight."A number of couples even had children. Some "came out" decades into their marriage. To parrot and drum on that people with same-sex attraction weren't allowed to enter marriage is a complete and utter lie. It's a false belief. 

Exceptions to the rule make for bad law. Obergefell v Hodges is a case that led to bad law.

Sex Education Doesn't Really Matter (Sort of)

 The push for "comprehensive sex education" has always made me tilt my head to the side in interest and concern. As a product of parochial schools from K-12, the concern to learn how to put a condom on properly or to know the "options" of how to delay pregnancy when a female is in her early teenage years has truck as immensely odd and disturbing. People will say it's a health concern. I say it's a campaign disguised as concern to infiltrate the homes of parents without being the student's parents. It's an insidious plan. It's the invisible social worker influencing the very intimate actions of a child. It's government saying they're just merely concerned.

One reason I think sex education, at least how public schools handle it in general, is one big joke is that the act of sex isn't rocket science. Boys are naturally curious. Girls are naturally curious. Growing up, for whatever reason, no one that I knew of in either my grade, the grade below me or the grade above me, got pregnant before the age of 20. I suppose we either had decent parenting or just had good self-control. I think both. I don't think we were anymore mature than our public school counterparts, just that we had been taught that sex is intimidate and "special." I mean, I'd bet that we instinctually knew this and we respected more so than others, especially in comparison to any teenage John Hughes characters. 

The approach to public school sex education is also warped. It's mostly done out of a public health concern. It indirectly says that sex outside marriage is okay and that to avoid pregnancy and STDs you can use many options of artificial birth control (ABC). Physicians in the forms of OB-GYNS support this push for ABCs on young teenage girls. Why? Simply put: it reduces STDs and pregnancies. Fair enough. But they are oddly not concerned about the effects of ABCs on what is biologically natural in the form of ovulation and eggs and so forth. Public studies triumph over the decline of teenage pregnancies due to the advent and use of ABCs. No concern is followed up by how ABCs effect the view of sex, children and marriage. No OB-GYN that I know of has raised an eyebrow. It's an odd mix. an OB-GYN deals with something that is natural yet they don't care much about the effects of what they push onto their patients.

Another reason I think public sex education is a crock is that it's rather immature. Sex is seen as something you sorta snicker at and if you've listened to the OB-GYN, Masters in Public Health expert, and you're "taking control of your sexuality" you might get an IUD implanted in your uterus. You want to the O but not the child. People mock abstinence in that it doesn't work, citing the failure rate. Stupidly enough they don't cite the failure of alcoholics getting a sip of wine instead of abstaining from it. Proof that abstinence is 100% effective are those who dedicate themselves to religious life or those who choose not have sex in general, either out of religious or health concerns. No sex. No kids. No STDs. If people are going to tout the brilliance of ABCs in its effectiveness while laughing at abstinence then they should also laugh at the failure rate of not using ABCs and having sex. Hello pregnancy. 

Self-education, in this case, is better than having some government program waltz into your classroom or gymnasium or library extolling the wonders of ABCs. Heck, anecdotally, most of my friends who never had a "comprehensive sex education" never had any real issues regarding sex. They dated, got married and had kids. Unless you're some weird pasty loser, religious or otherwise, with underdeveloped social skills a Chesil Beach isn't likely gonna happen. 

Better yet, I think my own sex education which was regulated to an annual visit to an outside secular agency dedicated to relatively neutral sex education starting in six grade (though I'm not sure how much the agency has changed since then), was more dignified and respectful to sex in general. Aided with my school's religious themes, we walked away with a somewhat balanced view of sex minus the touting of ABCs. At the end of the day we realized that if you don't want to get pregnant the best way is to not have sex. We were reminded of common sense that isn't all too common today.

Public "comprehensive sex education" is an exercise pushed by your agenda driven Masters in Public Health Overlord of Wokedom. This Overlord doesn't trust that kids can indeed figure it out without the government's help. 

Even medical doctors can have a lack of perspective.

From SDN written by an attending physician:

There are a dozen other ways to help people in the medical profession, but only one of these ways requires grit and determination and years and years of tough self-sacrifice to do. If you don't want to eat, sleep, breathe, LIVE BEING A DOCTOR, think it over. Because that passion and drive is the only thing that will get you to the finish line.

I will agree that the road to becoming a physician is a long and hard one when compared to other health professionals, but to say that becoming a physician is the only one that requires grit and determination is immensely myopic. Certainly determination is needed, but grit? Here are some sheer facts about medical school:

• Medical school is hard just by the volume and diversity of information one needs to process and understand in the first two years which are considered pre-clinical years.
• Medical schools try their very best to not let anyone flunk out because administering a medical education isn't cheap; it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to educate just one medical student. It's harder to get into medical school than it is to be let go due to poor grades. Medical schools do not want to admit people who they feel, or know, cannot hack the curriculum, hence, those given admission have demonstrated the ability to persevere a hardcore science curriculum.
• Medical school is self-selecting. This simply means those that want to become physicians have wanted to become physicians for years so they craft their resume to show their dedication to the sciences and to the field. 
• Medical school is pretty straight forward. In general, you have classes for the two years and then rotations for your last two.  There aren't any surprises in the curriculum.
• It is greatly emphasized to have support systems in place during medical school to help with the mental toll of studying. This is why many say choose a school near family and friends or, if not, that you have a significant other to make up for that.
• Residency is a pain due to the hours and consecutive days being scheduled, but then again it mirrors attending life. You may have a 24 hr work day, but how many hours are you "on" and treating a patient? Unless you're in the ER, you're sitting on your butt during the night for the most part.

Let's not make medical school and residency equal to The Crucible where Marine candidates must successful complete in order to be officially called a Marine. And compared to medical school and residency, which can take anywhere between seven to ten years if we don't include a fellowship, The Crucible is "only" 54 hours long.

Well that's just prejudice!

 WARNING: This is going to be rather crude.

Says an anon when commenting on homosexual anal plunging and sex between infertile couples, whether due to old age, choice, or medical issues.

Anon writes:

"What you need to add to accept sex between infertile people (either from old age, medical condition, the use of contraceptive or not the right time of the month) and refuse it to gay people is prejudice. So yes, it worked better in the good old days.

Any time a straight couple have sex knowning that they are not fertile, they are doing it only to give pleasure to their partner, which is arguably one of the primary function of sex.

You can't have it both way. Pleasure-sex is either moral or immoral, for everyone.

Each "exception" (rape, non-committed or non-monogamous relationship, ...) has to be considered as immoral on its own."

Now sure what "good old days"  mean unless you're referring to a time where you'd personally feel uncomfortable where "pride" wasn't seen as awesome.

The above quote is an argument that is used by those want to point out the supposed hypocrisy of allowing sex between opposite sex couples who know that they will not conceive, or know that it's highly improbable. The argument doesn't work out - at all.

Why? Because even though couples who have sex strictly for pleasure they haven't misused their sexual organs: it's still penis in vagina, not penis in anus. Only the fucked up do anal. The primal urge to have sex with the opposite sex is as old as time; couples have sex without abandon giving no thought to whether to use contraceptives or to get fixed (this is a relatively new phenomenon for modernists). The natural consequence is a child - if the role of the dice allows it.

Homosexual acts are intrinsincally disordered. Let's face it, the act of two guys anal humping each other is neither beautiful nor erotic to a vast majority of the people on planet earth. The same with two girls rubbing their clits together. The vagina and clit are like "Where's my dick?" It's like other depraved sexual act e.g., fisting. that step one good step away from what what raw sex is: penis in vagina. Ain't that hard of a concept to understand.

Comparing real sex with homosexual acts misses the point of what makes opposite sex couples so different than same sex pairings. They just aren't the same no matter how much the LGBT+ activist wants it to be.

If old people have sex knowing that the chances of the woman becoming pregnant is quite low it's not actually a mistake nor equal to homosexual acts because the couple is still using their sexual organs for its main purpose written in our DNA. Even if the consequence of child bearing was not met it still a natural good due to the urge to mate. That's what sex is irregardless of whether the couple wants a child: mating, and all the emotions leading up to it.

You see, this is the issue with those who want to play the "gotcha card." They suck at it. The anti-sodomy camp says that the main purpose of sex is to conceive a child (which is true) so then the LGBT+ activist says "Well X  opposite sex couples can't conceive so what now! Homo sex is okay!" Not the silver bullet as they thought it would be.

Then there's this on birth control:

"There is nothing inherently morally good about creating life. Just as there is nothing inherently morally evil about not wanting to create life."

When the couple actively does not make themselves infertile, yes there is inherent good when life is created. With that said, using birth control to stop the creation of life is evil since it obstructs the natural purpose of ejaculation and when are "in the heat." It detaches the very real consequence of sex and children. But is that the same as two people committing homosexual acts? Nope. Not even close. Penis and vagina. It's that simple.

So, what can we eat?

It's been said eggs are bad.

It's been said sugar is bad. Okay, how about artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Stevia? Bad also.

It's been said olive oil is bad, so move to coconut oil.

It's been said tofu is bad.

It's been said all-purpose white flour is bad. Move to brown everything.

What if I want to make a cookie when using these standards? Diabetic cookies taste no where near as good as traditional cookies that use butter, or some sort of fat, and sugar. Let's face it, as American Test Kitchen bluntly admits, that it's about "health", not taste. One probably has to trick oneself into believing that diabetic cookies damn fucking good.

I like your sport, not your fans.

I enjoy sports. Being a spectator is awesome (depending on the weather) and participating in organized and non-organized sports has been a favorite pastime of mine. But remember I like sports, not so much its fans or whatever politics snags the shoes of its players.

Out of the major sports played in the States the following ranks how liberal/regressive each fanbase is.

 

1. Soccer (MLS): Simply the most liberal and there's no other way to go about it. I have a good feeling that many, many liberals found a sport to attach themselves to since the MLS is still fairly new and soccer (or football) is most popular sport worldwide, so it's where they saw fertile land to insert their politics. Growing up I'm quite sure the MLS was never this liberal, but in the past decade liberals have felt empowered to watch the sport while wearing scarfs of their favorite team when it's 65+ degrees outside. They probably couldn't make enough in-ways in American football, baseball, hockey and basketball, so they chose soccer.

Note: I for one loved the old MLS logo. Get ready to cringe: The new logo has symbolism to it.

2. Baseball (MLB): I read that baseball has liberal fans but conservative players. I think this is somewhat accurate. I've been on the receiving end of arguments where I basically was swarmed by 4 or 5 fellow baseball fans who disagreed with me. Irregardless of my arguments the spectators tend to keep politics out of the game.

3. Basketball (NBA): Yep, there are liberals here. I akin the liberalism within the basketball fanbase as the liberalism found in the parents whose kids are involved in Boy Scouts of America. Not a majority of liberals, but when the moment strikes they'll express views that would forever change the organization if not the game (e.g., had parents admit that they wanted to make BSA co-ed as far back as the 90's and while whole fully supporting openly gay scout leaders in).

4. American Football (NFL): There are liberals here, but they're more so about the game. You'd be surprised how many fans support Colin Kapernick and the kneeling as they express how racist cops are. You'll even get vets who gives zero shits about the flag.

5. Hockey (NHL): I bet there are fair amount of liberals it's just I never really saw an argument where liberals were in full force.