well if you are going to read Michael Crichton books, you might as well read the best book of his, Timeline.

Fiction or non-fiction?

The single most important thing on Yom Kippur is fasting.

When I was younger I thought I was amazing in every way. Now I realize that I was “spot on.” (The quotation marks are for you, eclipse)

Exactly! Personally I am working on not letting extra quotation marks get me all worked up.

Moi: Are you suggesting that your relationship with your family isn’t an important part of who you are? No one is suggesting that a prospective date should be judged based on their family, however one’s family and their relationship with said family is important.

Perhaps the better question is “How far would you travel for your spouse?”

A ten hour drive.

Sam 2: Hear Hear. Well said. I especially appreciate how you explain the problem with the said dispute without engaging the merits. While I suspect I might disagree with you on the merits, I fullheartedly agree that most people cannot or will not debate the issue properly.

The reason litvish boys aren’t ready to get married before 22-23 is primarily because they aren’t expected to. Chassidic boys are ready at twenty because they are expected to be ready when they are 20. If it became the norm for litvish boys to start dating at twenty, they would be ready at twenty to start dating.

Mods, can you email me benignuman’s email address?

JFem: To get a big firm jobs now a days you need to have good grades in a great school, or great grades in a good school. Unlike several years ago, even a public interest or government job paying 45K-60K starting cannot be taken for granted for students with good grades in a good school.

Happy never said she is getting engaged. Lots of assumptions are flying around the room.

JFem: Plenty of doctors make more than 160K starting salary (a higher percentage than law school graduates making 160K), and I am not aware of any hospitals that still allow, let alone require, 36 hour shifts.

PBA: You saw someone who didn’t seem smart after sitting in a room for six hours answering the hardest multiple choice questions and essays you can imagine. I wonder what impression you would make on someone who is seeing you for the first time under the same circumstances.

benignuman: I understood your original comment perfectly. I was just making a lawyer joke.

notsuchalamdan16: It was probably Darth Vader using the force.

Pixelate: They look at your LSAT, but they look at your grades even more. The whole point of the LSAT is to attempt to predict grades anyway.

Either way, the smarter plan is to get a good LSAT grade, use that to get a scholarship at a worse school, then transfer after getting great grades. (still easier said then done though).

Pixelate: Yes

Torah: While there is no actual proof, most people believe the result of this study is due to hundreds of years of intense intellectual development. While plumbing can definitely help Sephardim in many areas, I am not sure it will close the gap.

As far as Yeshiva students go. Another study has shown the average verbal IQ of ashkenazic yeshiva students is over 125, about 30 points higher than average. This is even higher than their secular counterparts.

Yehuda: Yes I do. There are many forms of IQ tests and as a whole they provide the best measure of intelligence.

Ooh ooh, ask me.

Mark Levin by a mile (but that is mostly due to my bizarre interest in constitutional law)

Jfem: Drinking water before Kiddush depends on which rav you ask. I know some that say its okay, and some who are more machmir. But everyone agrees that if if you are feeling like you might get dehydrated, you may drink water before kiddush.

Jfem: I’m sure you are quite aware that the things frum yidden should or should not do isn’t limited to the Taryag mitzvos.

Avi K: While Rav Soloveichik may have said what you quote him as saying, his cousin, the other Rav Soloveichik (Brisker Rav), said that it is better to go into a church than a reform temple. He went as far to say that it might be Yaharog V’all Ya’avor. The reason he said is because the church is foreign to us, there isn’t a significant chance we would be influenced. As opposed to reform and conservative which are religions similar to ours there is a bigger chance that we may be influenced by their ways, c”v.

Goq: I totally agree with you that referring to R’ Schlanger as “schlanger would be horribly disrespectful. It is my belief, however, that institutions often develop names of their own. In this case the yeshiva has developed the name Schlangers. When people say Schlangers they mean to say the yeshiva known as Schlangers, Not R’ Schlangers yeshiva.

On a side note. does it bother you that many tannaim, amoraim, rishonim, etc. are referred to by their first names?