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Man, did you ever see the Syrian-to-Israeli ratio of downed jets during the Lebanon war? It's was like 200:0 (still top secret, supposedly, but in generalities it's pretty well known). There's only so much we can attribute to shitty Soviet technology...



I remember reading about the 1967 and 1973 air wars, along with the early 80's encounters (my Dad worked for Defense at Pratt & Whitney, where they made a large portion of the Turbo Fan engines for the F-15 & F-16s) and the combat results...The Defense Department projected during an encounter with the russians themselves that the two planes would have a 5 or 6 to 1 kill ratio, but we would LOSE some planes for sure. When I saw the Syrians (and Egyptians too) couldnt fucking shoot ANY down, it made me wonder "just how dedicated ARE these muslims...I mean hell if they all tried to crash their plane into one of the ZOG Flyers, essentially turning themselves into a missle, SOMEONE would have gotten a kill....whats interesting, the few Israeli planes shot down in most of their wars have been F-4s (vintage 1960s US) or French pieces of shit the Frogs sold them back in the late 1960s/early 1970s (like the APTLY named 'Mirage') when they were trying to compete for Israel's love against Uncle Sam, only to be told they smell really bad by the sweaty Rabbi-warriors in Tel Aviv...NO HOLOCAUST MAKING AMENDS FOR YOU FRENCH FAGGOTS!

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This is why all of us hate you Ivy Leaguers. Northwestern and University of Chicago have some minor alumni connections (at least more than University of Michigan, thank God) but you guys divide the world up between yourself and mock people like me and Gordon Gekko. Your education is a hate crime.



Yessss....Gordon Gekko: "I bought my way in now all these Ivy League Schmucks are Sucking my Kneecaps. Most of these Ivy League types dont amount to Dog Shit....gimme' a man whose poor, smart and hungry."


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all of those schools are the same, harvard's got two things going--name recognition and jack meyer's work. a 19-year old working at some cellphone-kiosk in utah recognizes versace-does that mean much? williams and amherst are better schools if you're talking about the word in the "a place bright kids go learn things" and that kid hasn't heard of them, but everyone at a top-25 school sure has.

jack meyer was the dude who just left managing the endowment to go out on his own when people freaked to learn some people under him were making like 8 million a year. mistake to fire anyone managing 27-billion dollars at an annual return of over 15%. that's sick. that guy singlehandedly dropped over ten billion dollars of free money for the school in the decade he managed the endowment. that pretty much means if the school realizes it's slipping in any area, they can go out and buy the faculty they want and build a fancy building for the department. it's kinda like watching the yankees in free-agency.

if you're acclimated to being around smart people, you figure out there are fifteenish places that produce the same talent and none of them stand out.

the clearasil-kid at the mall's seen good will hunting or whatever and will be impressed to the point he'd assume everyone who went there grasps quantum-mechanics and spent their college years in a blazer with elbow patches in libraries instead of throwing things out of windows at people walking to church on sunday morning because there was still too much cocaine left to consider anything else a good idea.

so dumb people know us and we can buy rockstars of academia and give them toys to play with and get them sweeter deals on whatever they publish. the playing field evens out in the real world.



James, have you ever done an Alumni interview yet for a kid applying in your area? I have done two...The first one was easy, I had a kid who was from Southern Connecticut and was an amazing centerfielder and point guard...He made it to something like the next to next-to-last cut for the McDonalds all American Team(s)... 1390 SAT, very intelligent, well spoken. I asked him where he had considered applying besides Harvard..."Yale (obviously), Penn State, Boston College, Syracuse, and U.S.C (Baseball mainly there)...a few others, mostly local " He had already essentially been offered a free ride to Penn State and almost a Free ride to USC. I asked him why he wanted to go to Harvard, and he gave the patented year book answer, "Because it's the best...best school period." I then tapdanced around telling him essentially what you just typed, plus the athletic angle was a cinch...I never heard back from him or found out what he chose, but it is so true about the perception. If I could do it all over again, I'd have chosen Stanford (the weather, and the fact I can get into all my class rooms and administrative buildings without asking someone to lug my chair up the stairs while I scooted on my ass to see Archie Epps to talk about the latest Saturday night run in with the Harvard Police in the yard regarding some "Reports of Urination in Public" would have been a HUGE plus, on top of a great education.)

Actually my favorite Ad-board moment was Sophomore year, the infamous "Six Kegs Over Quincy House Party" where all sorts of mayhem was unleashed. Anyway, the House security guard wrote up in his report that the residents of room 319 were "throwing full cans of beer against the walls and windows in their room"...I replied, to the House Master and Senior Tutor who would be representing us at the Ad-Board meeting..."Sir, we would NEVER throw a FULL can of beer, period."
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Are you gonna eat that?