Newmark's Door

So asks a faithful reader of the Door. Here are three answers.

1. Boilerplate from the University of Virginia:

The Vice President and Provost of the University is the chief academic officer of the University. The provost is charged by the Board of Visitors and the president with overseeing education, research, and public service in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, in each of the other schools of the University except Medicine and Nursing, in the University's libraries and museums, and in numerous other academically related units of the University.

2. A smartass answer from an anonymous person commenting at the Yale Daily News:

. . . a Provost is someone who stays for a few years and then leaves to become the President of a university. 

3. Finally, and best, a three-quarters serious, one-quarter funny explanation from the current provost of Georgetown University. (Read the whole thing.)

I know a lot about people. The tenure documents that I see every year provide a window into the private workings of departments, throwing light on the issues that faculty members will bring to the administration. Show me a tenure dossier from your department, and I can immediately tell you whether your group is on the rise or decline, whether it is a collegial place to work or a bus station, and whether we're going to have to hire an outside chairman in five years to unleash its energy.

"The 7 Hamburgers of the Apocalypse".

"O! Burger and 8 oz. Burger Bar go head-to-head".

"Five Hot Dogs That Will Kill You".

According to this blogger.

"Man gets burned while using lighter to siphon gas". (Via Fark.)

Wired magazine summary of an interesting hypothesis: terrorists are not so much political as they are gangbangers.

"Modern man is an impossible position when it comes to seduction".

"What's the best household paper shredder?"

Excerpts from "Edwards! The Musical".

"Affair To Threaten Whatever It Is John Edwards Does For A Living". (The Onion)

Holman Jenkins has some biting words for where the troubles of the U.S. automakers came from:

Our other concurrent bailout -- of the banking industry -- has been accompanied by a debate of laissez faire versus intervention. How amusing. Banking in fact illustrates what might be called the GM Effect, for both industries have been around long enough to have accrued an almost incalculable baggage of government intervention, which explains why more intervention is demanded today.

Why don't the auto makers limit themselves to paying competitive wages and benefits in line with what workers could earn elsewhere? Because, in the 1930s, Congress passed the Wagner Act with the nearly explicit purpose of imposing a labor monopoly on Detroit to keep wages at higher-than-competitive levels.

Why doesn't Detroit rationalize its musty brand lineups and dealer networks? Because, in the 1950s, legislatures across the country imposed franchising laws, including the federal "dealer day-in-court clause," to make such rationalization prohibitively expensive.

Why don't the auto giants do as Whirlpool and other manufacturers have done, and move their production to cheaper offshore locales? Because, in the 1970s, Congress enacted fuel economy rules to penalize homegrown auto makers if they don't build the lion's share of their cars in high-wage, UAW-staffed domestic factories.

In other words, same old, same old.

PhD Comics has the answer.

(I guess we know who has the bigger marginal revenue products now, don't we?)