"Throwing" is kind of a misnomer. You know the stories about ping pongs being launched across rooms...
Throwing soap? I think they are worried about frisky showertime fun.
"ping pongs"? What language do I speak, anyhow? "Ping pong balls". And I was thinking of a different orifice. O elusive clarity, someday we shall meet, and I'll accidentally trip over you.
Suspended for possessing porno? I'm assuming this college exists in an internet-free bubble.
Campus officials reportedly discovered Mr. Gechter's alternate identity, Vincent DeSalvo, when a student browsing the Internet forwarded a few images, via e-mail, to others at the college.
So will said student be receiving the lash as well, or is there some sort of whistleblower protection?
(Because nobody believes he was just "browsing" the internet.)
Why do all these gays keep showing up in my browser?
4: indeed. In the modern era, you can love porno, but can you ever truly possess it?
I also assume the prohibition against premarital gay sex is like the tax stamp requirements for marijuana, where it's in there just so they have more charges to pile up against you when they catch you "throwing" "soap" in some campus tea room.
In the modern era, you can love porno, but can you ever truly possess it?
Of course not. One can only be possessed by it and its associated demons. Totally hottttt demons, no pun intended, but demons all the same.
All this makes me want to start a Church of Gay Porn and then say to people, "I'll be praying for you, just as hard as I can."
Wow! And from right here near Pittsburgh.
10: Exactly! I figure it can't be that difficult to get recognized as a church and subvert the dominant social norms in hilariously perverted ways. Now if you'll excuse me, there are some golden discs I've got to be shown by a guy who swears he's an angel.
(They have dirty pictures drawn on them.)
See, if only the christians (government, whoever) made higher education available for free, young people wouldn't be forced into sin like this. I blame the college itself for creating the occasion for sin.
Good luck, ManlyPants, all the Reformed Egyptian-English translators were excommunicated for being straight.
A girl from my high school graduated from Grove City and became a minister. A guy from my high school graduated from Grove City and sells (earthly) insurance. A third cousin graduated from Grove City, was a farrier for a while, and now is a Marine pilot. A multitude of career opportunities await if one attends Grove City!
Let's see: a minister, an insurance salesman, and a Marine pilot. Just a couple more and they could start "The Grove City People", a cover band focussing on the Village People ouvre, but with Godlier lyrics.
13: Or here, if they just accepted federal financial aid.
The backstory here is that the guy had to resort to prostitution to pay his tuition because his mom got so upset that he was living in a single sex dormitory and cut him off.
a minister, an insurance salesman, and a Marine pilot. Just a couple more and they could start "The Grove City People", a cover band focussing on the Village People ouvre, but with Godlier lyrics.
"Y.M.C.A" and "In the Navy" are naturals, under the circumstances.
The unfairness of it all is that if the fellow had had the good sense to go to Reed College, he could have petitioned the dean to get his gay prostitution businessto approved as an independent study project and gotten six semester hours of credit.
I can see a kid getting thrown out of a Christian college for being a porn star: Private schools can make their own rules and all.
But what's a Christian college doing with a molecular biology department?
But what's a Christian college doing with a molecular biology department?
Looking for evidence of irreducible complexity, I'd say.
Quick general survey question: How many of you actually believe in the existence of "some obscure fetish euphemism that had managed to escape [Apo's] attention"?
Sometimes I'll pray to the existence of some obscure fetish euphemism that had managed to escape Apo's attention, but really it's just a Pascal's Wager kind of thing.
It seemed unlikely to me that Apo was unfamiliar with the lather fights that break out so frequently in men's locker rooms.
How many of you actually believe in the existence of "some obscure fetish euphemism that had managed to escape [Apo's] attention"
Hah! Don't make me laugh!
20: Reed doesn't tally by semester hours and has no business curriculum, but otherwise you've got the right idea. It'd make a good thesis for an economics/theater double major.
a minister, an insurance salesman, and a Marine pilot
WHAT ABOUT THE FARRIERS, YOU DAMN UNION-BUSTER?!
Without farriers, ostlers would be out of a job.
Yes, but lather fights are well addressed in the literature and cinema, are they not? The scooping of bubbles, throwing and giggling don't sound familiar to you?
lather fights are well addressed in the literature and cinema
Um, I only read the non-fiction articles.
Lots of people in my extended family went to a similar college, where dancing is completely forbidden. (Or was, until recently.) Not all graduated. In his senior year my uncle was caught celebrating the end of finals with a beer; he was told not to walk at graduation and waited all summer before finally receiving his degree in the mail.
Grove City isn't at all a super-Christian college like Wheaton or Regent University or something. It's affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA for gosh sakes. It's more affiliated with right-wing economists than right-wing ministers.
But it is a Christian college, people are required to attend chapel every two weeks or so, there's a set of rules which prohibit both hetero and homo premarital sex. Of course it would normally be tough to prove that someone had engaged in premarital sex, but this case is pretty clear-cut.
Am I the only one who now hears Johnny Cash singing "You dirty ol' pot-crapping dog"?
38: To be honest, that sounds more like a Willie Nelson song to me.
WHAT ABOUT THE FARRIERS, YOU DAMN UNION-BUSTER?!
Tell it to the Marines.
Lather fights in men's locker rooms ARE NOT FICTION.
They are now, Megan. Water use restrictions, you know.
41: Hey, you could now benchpress me as of any time before I had kids.
I'd put it on a level with Wheaton, actually.
as of any time before I had kids
I think we need to standardize the Lizardbreath as a unit of weight to prevent confusion.
And we could abbreviate it as lb.
Oh, wait...
Efforts in that direction have proven unsuccessful in the past.
Lather fights in men's locker rooms ARE NOT FICTION.
Or so the Megans would have you believe.
I think just thinking about it has gotten Megan in a lather.
I WILL CRUSH APOSTROPHON LIKE A SOAP BUBBLE!
50: Then she's ready for her debut. (not safe for work, my peeps)
52: You misspelled "peepers", I think.
I told you I walk around in the world, eyeing people to decide whether I could bench press them or would have to deadlift them?
I can't click on the link while I'm here, so I am not sure whether to be happy that I am ready for my debut.
Ψ
NYTimes finally comes right out and says that it's torture. Perfect.
Ψ
I can't click on the link while I'm here
Lather fight videos.
Also, Ana's got a disLexus!ic.
Fixed.
They are now, Megan. Water use restrictions, you know.
I promise to use all the influence and power I have to make lather fights the most protected aspect of our lifestyles during droughts. Landscaping, agriculture, commercial and industrial process water will all be sacrificed before lather fights.
One of the best days of my life* was the day I bought a used musical composition textbook which had a DISCLAIMER slip in it. Apparently before my book wandered the majestic veldt of the used bookstore, it was owned by a Bob Jones U student.
The DISCLAIMER was all about how BJU had to teach some things for accreditation status, but the opinions of the textbook were not necessarily those of the university. No scandalous theories about twelve-tone godlessness for the BJU music students, thank you.
I assume that had to go in all the textbooks, because other than the heresy of Schoenberg and such I can't imagine what would be so terrible in the book I bought.
If they have to put those kinds of disclaimers in music textbooks, surely other Christian schools frown equally upon frolics with soap.
*yes, my life is indeed that dull. I take pride in it.
18 My college eliminated the coed bathrooms in the main freshman dorm a few years after I graduated. Apparently they had gotten sick of dealing with outraged parents every orientation week. They'd been around since the seventies.
BJU press supplies my HS with all their textbooks. I tried to use the (very short) section in the bio text that explained how man and dinosaurs co-existed as proof that my parents were paying for a substandard education. Sadly, I was unsuccessful.
And slightly OT (though this is Unfogged), another sci teacher at the school explained to our anatomy class that masterbation wasn't a sin the first time you do it because it's "self-discovery". After that though, you're screwed.
Megan just go for the intimidation factor: bring A---- in and bench press him as a demonstration of your might and the powers that be will adopt as law your every whim.
cheerylilgoth: are you in HS currently? Your parents really are paying for a substandard education. Don't give up the argument.
Bob Jones University is not an accredited institution. Their publications have as much credibility as any random dude spouting off on the internet.
65: As a random dude on the Internet I second what rob says. Via Washington Monthly, a resource you might use in your discussion is the website of the BioLogos Foundation, an organization started by Francis Collins, the geneticist who led the Human Genome Project and who is an evangelical Christian.
BioLogos is led by a team of believing scientists who are committed to promoting a perspective of both theological and scientific soundness, which takes seriously the claims of theism and of evolution, and finds compelling evidence for their compatibility.
OT: Can anyone explain this to me?
In the official stress test results, regulators published losses only on credit cards held on bank balance sheets. The $82.4 billion figure did not reflect another element in their analysis: tens of billions of dollars in losses tied to credit card loans that the banks packaged into bonds and held off their balance sheets. A portion of those losses, however, will be absorbed by outside investors.
This whole mortgage thing has made clear to me that banks were bundling together groups of mortgages and selling them to other people, who were gambling that that the homeowners would continue to pay their mortgages at more or less predictable rates.
Am I to understand from the above paragraph that credit-card companies were doing the same thing, with the outstanding balances on credit cards? Please tell me I am wrong and misreading this.
I cannot understand why an investor would do such a thing. Unlike a mortgage, there is no underlying property to acquire if the debtor doesn't pay up. What would be the security? Why would you do such a thing? Am I nuts or is this just another example of the insanity of the financial world?
Oops, that quoted bit was from this article.
No, I think it isn't you, Witt. I heard of this before, too.
The idea of "property to acquire if the debtor doesn't pay up" hardly applies to mortgages anymore, either. What investment bank wants to own a bunch of houses? Talk about yawnsville. After these things get foreclosed on and people get driven out of them, they just sit there, periodically requiring the police to drive out the previous owners, other squatters, ,or anyone else who would disrupt the house's rightful empty state.
is this just another example of the insanity of the financial world?
I don't want to drive the outrage factory, but I just don't know why anything surprises any more. This from the NYRB that I read this morning:
In the same effort, the Financial Accounting Standards Board--the independent organization designated by the SEC to set accounting standards--acting at the strong urging of Congress, recently changed its rules to allow banks more latitude to claim that assets on their balance sheets are worth more than what anyone is willing to pay for them. (Next time you apply for a loan, try mentioning FAS 157-4 and telling your banker that you should be allowed to calculate your net worth with your house priced not at what comparable houses are selling for now but at what you paid for it and what you hope you'll get for it if you hold on to it for some years. The banker will laugh, even while the bank applies just such standards to its own balance sheet.)
The quotation is about a quarter of the way down the page.
I'm not qualified to say whether or how these kinds of things make sense in terms of an economic recovery plan.
Witt, doesn't your logic imply that credit cards themselves shouldn't exist? Why does the credit card company loan you money when there's no underlying security? And yet they do.
Why does the credit card company loan you money when there's no underlying security?
1. They get 3-4% fees per transaction from the merchant.
2. They get late fees and interest from me* (and I have an interest in at least making the minimum payment each month, so I can keep making new charges to the account).
3. They get a phenomenal amount of user data, which I have to believe is worth as much or more to them in terms of tracking consumer buying habits and behaviors than the actual money spent. That kind of data must be repackaged and sold over and over again to marketing departments everywhere.
4. Plus, isn't there some fine print in the agreement that says I owe them my house and car and firstborn kid if I don't pay up? (Seriously. I know there are restrictions on what creditors can take from people, but I didn't think there were many, particularly after that "reform" that Congress passed a few years ago.)
*Actually, not me, since I pay it off every month, but most versions of me.
Witt, even in crappy times most people continue to make payments on their credit cards to avoid getting hassled by the repo man and screwing their credit history. If you aggregate a bunch of credit card debt and assume a certain amount is just going to go stale*, why shouldn't people buy it? Why is "debt that most people are going to pay up to avoid tanking their credit rating" so much weirder than a lien against four factories of Chrysler stamping equipment nobody wants?
* Which then gets sold to the repo man. In fact, that may be the "outside investor" in question -- companies like Encore that buy old debt for pennies on the dollar and harass you into paying it.
67 -- The return compensates for the risk. Or that was the theory, anyway.
You could securitize anything. I'll bet someone somewhere owns a security backed by magazine subscription renewals.
Does the interest have a positive value to the credit card company? Then it probably has a positive value to someone else. As long as the interest payments are greater than zero, then there's some price where it's worth owning the rights to the payments. Plus, in principle, whatever recourse is available to the credit card company is available to current loan holder. (In practice, I wouldn't be surprised if they fucked that up.)
But since you pay it off every month, you are worthless to the loan holders.
74.last is interesting. I was overlooking those kinds of cleanup/vulture organizations as "investors," but of course they can be.
in principle, whatever recourse is available to the credit card company is available to current loan holder.
Really? Here's where my ignorance really comes in. I would have assumed that there was automatically a whole new set of rules once you bundled and sliced up a bunch of debt, especially if the buyer was not based in the U.S.
Of course, this is all based on my extremely hazy notion of what constitutes a contract and who can be said to have agreed to it.
So if I have an outstanding balance, and Citibank decides to sell it to Greater Iceland, Inc., then GII (in principle) takes over not just the debt but the existing contract (that is, credit-card agreement) with me? How do I know this? Am I informed of it the same way I am if my bank gets taken over, or is it invisible to me the same way it is if my bank decides to bundle up and sell my mortgage?
I guess (here comes the naivete), I would have thought that there were laws forbidding this whole practice. Silly me.
The first thing of this type I was puzzled by was by Andrew Wiederhorn, who started out by buying up that rights to lots and lots of bad debt. He parleyed that into hundred of millions (in play with his business). He was flying pretty high before he went to jail, and when released was still probably worth more than anyone on Unfogged ever.
Through the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility, the Federal Reserve is now buying securities backed by credit card receivables. So we all own such securities (if you think of the Fed balance sheet as backed by the taxpayer, at least through the implicit tax of inflation).
Most credit card funding is done through securitization
78 -- Witt, you've undoubtedly agreed to further assignment of your debt as part of your loan agreement.
80: You guys are totally not helping. I was hoping that someone would come along and patiently explain that no, I had completely misunderstood the article, and credit card companies weren't doing any such thing.
Instead, it's worse than I thought. Bah.
And it's Sunday night, and the !$&(!$&! newspaper has given !^($!%*!$^!$ John Yoo a bully pulpit again. And they've hidden the name of the current editorial page editor, so I don't even know to whom to address my outraged snail-mail letter.
/end complaints
74
... If you aggregate a bunch of credit card debt and assume a certain amount is just going to go stale*, why shouldn't people buy it? ...
Because it is too easy for the seller to misrepresent the average credit quality. A classic Market for Lemons .
