Links for 2012-09-05

How Kermit the Frog is the perfect model for an academic administrator.

From the people who brought you "Rutherford B. Hayes, Urban Vigilante," a movie about the only Union alumnus (so far) to be US President.

One of my most-visited sites on the web is Reddit.com, and one of my favourite subreddits is HistoricalWhatIf, an online community that debates historical hypotheticals. Earlier today someone asked the question, In a mass knife fight to the death between every American President, who would win and why? Someone beat me to the obvious answer that a final showdown would see Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt doing a dagger-wielding version of a Mexican standoff, so I took it too far and walked through how I thought every president would turn out. An hour later the result greatly exceeded the maximum 10,000 character limit for a post, so I’ve decided to blog about it instead.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney answer the top science policy questions picked by the ScienceDebate panel of experts.

Make way for ducklings, eh.

“Tardy again? Why can’t you ever get to class on time?” Does this reprimand sound familiar to you? I heard it so many times that I decided to make it a research question: “Why can’t I get to class on time?” I began this research effort by asking a friend to video my journey from one class, to my locker, and then to the next class. We put post-it notes on the lockers so that we could keep track of the distance travelled. The post-it notes appear on every five lockers. Here is an excerpt of the video showing my travel to my locker. In this excerpt, I only make it past 23 lockers. Imagine what I encounter when I pass the approximately 100 lockers between any two classes:

He clearly doesn't know instinctively what to do when he has to deal with voters one to one. He's awkward and uncomfortable and prone to gaffes. I don't mean what the press corps would prefer to call gaffes, all his deliberate and calculated lies. I mean what happens when his apparently instinctive goofiness gets the better of him. He says and does stupid things, like forgetting to thank the owners of a diner he's taken over and trashed for a photo op. In another mood, in another post, making a different point I'd probably say this is a sign that he's an arrogant elitist who can't be bothered to muster up ordinary sympathy for the Help. And maybe it is or it's part of it. But I don't know that it is or how much of it it is. I am, however, pretty sure that much of it is simply lack of practice. Campaigning for the Senate and then for Governor, Mitt didn't have to shake as many hands, kiss as many babies, or ring as many doorbells as George McGovern had to in just his first campaign.