They came for the Ivy League Presidents, and I laughed at the SNL skit about it...

[PeterMP]

In terms of his tweet and them being upset that she wouldn't be fired, I'm pretty sure they thought she was still at MIT and wanted confirmation because she's still on MIT's web site and based on the web site she still has a MIT e-mail.

 

https://neri.media.mit.edu/

 

She might not be full time/regularly paid faculty, but it seems unlikely that MIT is years behind in updating their web page of people that no longer have any kind of affiliation with MIT.

[PleaseBlitz]

I think the Ivys and Harvard should go full Elon and be like "This guy is blackmailing us?  With money?  Go **** yourself.  Is that not clear?  GO **** YOURSELF."  

[TradeTheBeal!]

Ackman has now spent the last week breathlessly endorsing/fellating some schmuck named Dean Phillips for president.

Edited January 22 by TradeTheBeal!

[Fergasun]

A few quotes from his Wikipedia page.  I'm not sure why a $billiaionaire would support another $70 Million-dollar man for Presidency.  

Quote

Phillips was born to DeeDee (Cohen) and Artie Pfefer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1969.[11] Artie was killed in the Vietnam War when Phillips was six months old. DeeDee married Eddie Phillips, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company and the son of advice columnist Pauline Phillips (popularly known as Dear Abby),[12] in 1972. Eddie adopted Dean, who took the last name Phillips. 

...

Quote

Phillips served as the company's president and CEO from 2000 to 2012. He then stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014.[15] In 2016 he founded Penny's Coffee, a coffeeshop chain he still owns, which has two locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area as of 2022

...
 

Quote

In January 2024, Phillips floated the idea of putting billionaires Elon Musk and Bill Ackman in cabinet positions during his presidency.

I dunno, Dean Phillips.... just a guy who "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" to buy a Congressional seat.  Yes - he sounds exactly like the type of guy that i want for President.

 

Not sure why the investor class seems to hate Joe Biden.  I'm not saying he's a "man of the people", like truly a man of the people.  Mitch McConnell's net worth is $34M.  Joe Biden has an alleged net worth of around $10M (and most of it came post Veep).  Seems like he's had to spend a bit of money helping Hunter and other family members. 

 

The media sure seems to act like Dean Phillips has a shot of primarying a sitting incumbent President.  Ackman also just "invested" -- opps! I mean "donated" $1M to the Phillips campaign.  Phillips himself is worth $70+ Million dollars.  

 

Just watched an interview where Phillips says 100% he would put his money on Trump prevailing in a Trump-Biden matchup.  So, I get it.  If he really believes that, than yes.  Running Biden is a colossal mistake.  Than you have the never Trump people -- who have got to be larger now vresus November 2020. 

[DCSaints_fan]

5 hours ago, Fergasun said:

A few quotes from his Wikipedia page.  I'm not sure why a $billiaionaire would support another $70 Million-dollar man for Presidency.  

...

...
 

I dunno, Dean Phillips.... just a guy who "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" to buy a Congressional seat.  Yes - he sounds exactly like the type of guy that i want for President.

 

Not sure why the investor class seems to hate Joe Biden.  I'm not saying he's a "man of the people", like truly a man of the people.  Mitch McConnell's net worth is $34M.  Joe Biden has an alleged net worth of around $10M (and most of it came post Veep).  Seems like he's had to spend a bit of money helping Hunter and other family members. 

 

The media sure seems to act like Dean Phillips has a shot of primarying a sitting incumbent President.  Ackman also just "invested" -- opps! I mean "donated" $1M to the Phillips campaign.  Phillips himself is worth $70+ Million dollars.  

 

Just watched an interview where Phillips says 100% he would put his money on Trump prevailing in a Trump-Biden matchup.  So, I get it.  If he really believes that, than yes.  Running Biden is a colossal mistake.  Than you have the never Trump people -- who have got to be larger now vresus November 2020. 

 

Its already too late for primaries, I believe.  Unless they rearrange the schedule.

 

But if anything happens, it will be because Biden has some black swan type of event, maybe a health scare,  between now an the convention and decides not to run again.

 

I've already heard rumblings that certain "aspirants" like say, Gavin Newsom are trying to place loyalists as convention delegates for this contingency.

[mcsluggo]

On 12/12/2023 at 2:21 PM, Destino said:

You can’t just waive your hands and dismiss something like this. Not after years of safe spaces, microaggressions, and mandatory anti-racism training. You can’t ignore what Jewish students are saying after being told, forever, that it’s not our place to tell someone else what is and isn’t offensive. Our place is to listen and change. We’ve spent years seeing racist graffiti make headlines. We’ve heard that words are violence, that silence too is violence. Watched campuses launch investigations to make sure students feel safe in response to graffiti. It became so predictable that white supremacists successfully trolled colleges with posters reading “it’s ok to be white”, to which they also responded with investigations and screams of outrage. 
 

Thats the context. Thats the backdrop college leaders created for this latest drama. Yet in this moment, we’re supposed to believe college presidents view liberal interpretations of free speech as the priority?
 

They can’t just set down their own playbook when it becomes inconvenient and expect everyone else to play along. Of course this is being mocked. The jokes practically write themselves. 

 

 

for a smart guy... you fall for the dumbest **** sometimes.

[Destino]

3 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

 

for a smart guy... you fall for the dumbest **** sometimes.

It’s possible, though I’m not sure I’m seeing the scam in this. My positions remain unchanged. It’s not like I’m going to support Trump because schools shot themselves in the foot in their handling of with what should have been a straight forward issue. 

[mcsluggo]

On 12/13/2023 at 2:52 PM, Spearfeather said:

 

From the polls he cited people are losing faith in and are less inclined to apply to universities. 

 

Why do think that is  ?

 

it seems like you are implying that you think that people are losing faith in universities because they believe that the universities are "political".   Is that correct?

 

however, this is not a static (just right now) nor one-direction effect.    We have also had one of the two political parties increasingly and pointedly attack universities/"elites"/experts-in-general, and this CAUSES people they are targeting to view the universities as politicized, by design.   Unfortunately they adopt this strategy because there are increasing situations where they want people to disregard what experts say as "fake-news", and this is an easier message to push when you have already demonized "the messenger" (as an entire "elite" villain grouping:  the universities, the scientists, the teachers, the press, the government....). but the common denominator there is that all of those groups are snooty college educated fig-eating effete social warriors.

 

If any of you are still on facebook (and since we are all geezers, many of you probably are still on facebook, like me) you HAVE to have seen more and more knee-jerk posts attacking ANY technical position that says anything inconvenient to a previously held position as biased, while arguing for people to "do their own research". (disregarding professional research, but instantly believing the rigor of like-minded memes or tik-tok videos).   

 

Along side of this, there are now constant streams of memes showing snotty-individual with "insert any college degree here, but some favorite choices are african-american studies, art history and philosophy" asking "WOULD YOU LIKE FIRES WITH THAT??"   har-har-har... and then literally thousands of replies from people insisting that "insert noble trade here" makes much more money anyway.   There is nothing wrong with trade jobs, they ARE noble.. just not more (nor less) noble than jobs that require college degrees.   they just generally pay less -- anecdotal individual stories aside it is CLEAR that college continues to provide a significant return for the average or median individual.   the chart below uses census data (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/demo/p70br-183.pdf ) and shows that the median college grad (median is much more telling than average for this data... the average would be MUCH higher, but scewed by very rich individuals)  accumulates five-times as much wealth as the average highschool grad.   

     

correlation is not causation.... but correlation does paint at least part of the picture.   

  

[Destino]

I think this mark Cuban discussion started with Harvard and DEI. It took an interesting turn today.

 

 

[Fergasun]

Don't tell that to hiring managers in the STEM field.  Females get promoted and hired all the time.  We don't even question it.  When 90% of your team is male and a suitably qualified female wants the job. She will get the job.  No one is even going to complain to be honest. Well... for the most part.  I know someone that is two management levels higher than she should be. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

As a person who has hired/trained/curated many, many “sales floors”, I can echo the sentiment that diversity is often a competitive advantage in my business.

 

After all, Miata enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes so why shouldn’t Miata salespersons?

[Destino]

40 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

As a person who has hired/trained/curated many, many “sales floors”, I can echo the sentiment that diversity is often a competitive advantage in my business.

 

After all, Miata enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes so why shouldn’t Miata salespersons?

I don’t know about miniature cars, but I agree about sales teams. You also want multiple languages spoken if there are large immigrant groups in the area that might appreciate it. 
 

the rule has always been though that you don’t say the quiet stuff out loud. You can’t just come right out and say anything like “hi I’m the boss and I’d like to hire race x, gender y, and religion z.” 

[PleaseBlitz]

44 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

As a person who has hired/trained/curated many, many “sales floors”, I can echo the sentiment that diversity is often a competitive advantage in my business.

 

After all, Miata enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes so why shouldn’t Miata salespersons?

 

It's the same in gigantic law firms, which are currently 80% white and were probably 90% white 5 years ago.  A ton of prospective clients WANT diverse ideas from their outside counsel and so they demand diversity of the firms they hire.  That's just capitalism, meeting the demands of the market.  So the current trend in hiring is slanted towards people of color (who still generally have Ivy League educations) and other folks who are dramatically underrepresented.  I find it funny when I hear white people complain about it, I'm like, it was favorable to white people for 200 years, and now you are upset because it's the other way for 5 years. 

Edited January 29 by PleaseBlitz

[Spearfeather]

On 1/22/2024 at 5:12 PM, mcsluggo said:

it seems like you are implying that you think that people are losing faith in universities because they believe that the universities are "political".   Is that correct?

 

Like I said earlier in the thread  ..

For some maybe, but probably not for most.

 

[Jumbo]

Of course there are issues to be taken with any huge social construction like "universities."

 

Same with churches, political parties, unions, local, state, and national branches of govt, hospitals, ad infinitum.

 

I have a lot of informed, logical, rational reasons to think that the majority of people who are "losing faith in universities" are not offering an objective, informed, rational take  on the overall nature of all the pros and cons of such a vast construct and are more driven by their emotional reactivity to aspects of current sociocultural and political matters that as a whole they find very troubling. 

 

 

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

I hope a significant number of households “lose faith” in elite universities so my kids have a marginally better chance to get into one. 

[Jabbyrwock]

13 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

I hope a significant number of households “lose faith” in elite universities so my kids have a marginally better chance to get into one. 

 

No idea about the field of law.  But in science I can think of no other CV entry that prospective candidates expect you to consider as predictive of their capability, that simultaneously fails to have any correlation with their actual capability, more than "attending an elite university".

[PleaseBlitz]

19 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

 

No idea about the field of law.  But in science I can think of no other CV entry that prospective candidates expect you to consider as predictive of their capability, that simultaneously fails to have any correlation with their actual capability, more than "attending an elite university. 
 

 

 

In law there are 14 elite schools, with Harvard, Yale and Stanford at the top. In my experience, attendance at one is actually an outstanding signifier that a person has the intelligence to be be a very high-level lawyer, but it’s still 50/50 that they have the capacity to grind out the workload that the highest levels of practicing law demands.
 

To your point, if you attend one, you can pretty much do anything you want to do and people will hire you to do it. 
 

Also anecdotally, in my experience people that went to Ivys are kind of weird and I have numerous stories of really smart people doing really strange things socially. My favorite involves a Harvard alum, an elevator and Barack Obama. 

[Jabbyrwock]

Yea, I kind of figured law was different than science.

 

3 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

in my experience people that went to Ivys are kind of weird 

 

I don't know a single scientist, ivy league or otherwise, that isn't suffering from some crippling mental affliction.  Except me.

 

4 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

My favorite involves a Harvard alum, an elevator and Barack Obama. 

  

Oh do tell.

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

22 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

Oh do tell.

Ok so my law firm used to be in a building where Obama has his post presidency office at 24th and M (we have since moved), so we (our attorneys and staff) would run into him occasionally on the elevator. I also know his main Secret Service guy, but that isn’t important for this story. I ran into him like 6 or 7 times, this is one of them. 
 

My colleague who had the office next to mine “Liz” was double Harvard and smart AF. She was in our small appellate practice and the only non Partner that was allowed to work on any Supreme Court briefs we did. She also had social skills that, if I had to pick one word, the word would be “absent.”

 

Liz has an infant at this time, who she had picked up from the daycare in the building which closed at 6, brought the baby back to the office so she could work for another hour, and me, she and another colleague all leave together at like 7. We are in the elevator, heading down. Elevator stops on Obama’s floor. Door opens. Obama and 2 SS get in. So it’s me, Liz, baby in stroller, other colleague, Barrack, and 2 agents in a now quite crowded elevator. 
 

Obama gets in and everyone is a bit star struck, so there is a moment of silence, which he breaks by asking how everyone is. Before I can say anything, and without even looking up, the first thing that Liz thinks to say is “my baby has norovirus” in a flat monotone. 

 

A very silent and awkward last 10 seconds of elevator ride follows. 

Edited January 30 by PleaseBlitz

[Destino]

15 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Obama gets in and everyone is a bit star struck, so there is a moment of silence, which he breaks by asking how everyone is. Before I can say anything, and without even looking up, the first thing that Liz thinks to say is “my baby has norovirus” in a flat monotone. 

 

A very silent and awkward last 10 seconds of elevator ride follows. 

That is hilarious. Zero chance I could hear that and not laugh. You just don’t run into that sort of dark humor everyday in the wild. 

[Jabbyrwock]

1 hour ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Ok so my law firm used to be in a building where Obama has his post presidency office at 24th and M (we have since moved), so we (our attorneys and staff) would run into him occasionally on the elevator. I also know his main Secret Service guy, but that isn’t important for this story. I ran into him like 6 or 7 times, this is one of them. 
 

My colleague who had the office next to mine “Liz” was double Harvard and smart AF. She was in our small appellate practice and the only non Partner that was allowed to work on any Supreme Court briefs we did. She also had social skills that, if I had to pick one word, the word would be “absent.”

 

Liz has an infant at this time, who she had picked up from the daycare in the building which closed at 6, brought the baby back to the office so she could work for another hour, and me, she and another colleague all leave together at like 7. We are in the elevator, heading down. Elevator stops on Obama’s floor. Door opens. Obama and 2 SS get in. So it’s me, Liz, baby in stroller, other colleague, Barrack, and 2 agents in a now quite crowded elevator. 
 

Obama gets in and everyone is a bit star struck, so there is a moment of silence, which he breaks by asking how everyone is. Before I can say anything, and without even looking up, the first thing that Liz thinks to say is “my baby has norovirus” in a flat monotone. 

 

A very silent and awkward last 10 seconds of elevator ride follows. 

 

Hilarious.  I needed this laugh.

[dfitzo53]

4 hours ago, Jumbo said:

Of course there are issues to be taken with any huge social construction like "universities."

 

Same with churches, political parties, unions, local, state, and national branches of govt, hospitals, ad infinitum.

Don't forget sports message boards. 

[ixcuincle]

Billionaire Ken Griffin calls Harvard students "whiny snowflakes" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ken-griffin-harvard-whiny-snowflakes-donations/

"Are we going to educate the future members of the House and Senate and the leaders of IBM? Or are we going to educate a group of young men and women who are caught up in a rhetoric of oppressor and oppressee and, 'This is not fair,' and just frankly whiny snowflakes?" Griffin said at the conference. "Where are we going with elite education in schools in America?"

[Fergasun]

Here we go again at Columbia University and Yale.

 

https://apnews.com/article/columbia-yale-israel-palestinians-protests-56c3d9d0a278c15ed8e4132a75ea9599

Quote

The protests have pitted students against one another, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Some Jewish students, meanwhile, say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into antisemitism and made them feel unsafe, and they point out that Hamas is still holding hostages taken during the group’s Oct. 7 invasion.