Friday, April 3, 2015

Guest Post by Prof. Michael Sycophant: I am not addicted to the satisfying, smooth, and flavorful taste of six-figure grants from the noble and highly-regarded tobacco industry.


Paul Campos of the University of Colorado is once again confused by my independent research with Joe Camel and Marlboro Cowboy. Our masterwork, The Cardiovascular Value of Smoking, was not funded with grants, and is the product only of the scrupulously objective analytical rigor made possible by my absurdly cushy and well-paid job as a Junior Valet at the Smoker’s Union. 

Two follow-up studies-- "The Best Time to Start Smoking is Right Now" and an upcoming study of the comparative pleasurability of smoking according to college major, race, and gender, are funded through grants from Chemotherapy is Fun Inc., an independent provider of health care solutions, and from the Smokers Emissions Council, which is an important provider of research into why adorable dolphins would be totally heartbroken if you don’t light up immediately. 

The funding provided through these grants is used to acquire software and equipment (Dude, I’m getting a Dell!), a teaching buyout to relieve my beautiful mind of the burdensome time-suck of yapping at a couple of classes of thick-headed losers who couldn't even get into Harvard, a staff of obsequious flunkies to cater to my every whim, and summer vacation stipends, as well as to attend conferences at important luxury resorts. 

There has never been an effort by the Smokers Emissions Council or Chemotherapy is Fun, Inc. to censor our findings in spite of the fact that our results are completely favorable to them. Joe Camel, Marlboro Cowboy, and I are proud of our success in securing funding from such highly-regarded organizations. Furthermore, grant funding of important scholars like myself is extremely common. For instance, just off the top of my head, I can name a host of researchers who have received grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, and who have conducted research into weighty matters like antibiotics development and child abuse. Are you against science? Antibiotics? Saving children? 

Critics claim that my alleged addiction to nicotine money is some kind of hushed-up little secret, but actually the sound of my morally diseased hacking could rouse the dead. I believe in transparency, and these critics are clearly blinded by the obfuscatory smoke of their own toxic jealously. With better data, obtainable by placing $220,000 in my transparently outstretched palm, everybody can win—be they smoker, nonsmoker, tobacco company, or dolphin. 

23 comments:

  1. Law school. You've come a long way, baby.

    Old Guy

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    1. Just a silly millimeter longer. Law 101.

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  2. "Most doctors and dentists recommend law school over other post-graduate educational options."

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  3. Warning: Outside the Law School Scam has determined that attending law school may be hazardous to your wealth.

    Old Guy

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  4. My question is, who are they trying to convince? Those +170 LSAT prospective students are the ones who ditched the scene. The smart money left. The dumb money does not care about industry-funded, "economic" studies written by...law professors...they don't even know such exist.

    Are these "studies" just a mantra the industry is chanting to itself to comfort itself as it blows apart? Rocking back and forth in a security blanket, "it's worth a mill...it's worth a mill."

    In the last two days, Ave Maria showed up on a cash monitoring list from DOE because of financial instability, and Rutgers announced its merger with Rutgers. [DOE did not list the 69 worst schools in its trouble list - the ones its probably preparing to unwind - and I would not be at all shocked if Vermont and Thomas Jefferson were on that bad list since they both under the gun from private creditors.]

    Hamline and Mitchell merged and dozens of other stink pits are slashing faculty, staff, and operating in the red.

    The jig is up.

    Law professors can write all the 'studies' they want. I'd bet a lot of money the most rotten part of the federal government's loan portfolio is the loans made to law school students.

    The law school industry is going down.

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    1. It's true that the sorts of people who go to Thomas Jefferson and Indiana Tech and Appalachian and the many other Cooleys don't read "studies" written by law professors. But they, and people close to them, do pick up on bullshit announcements in the media to the effect that a law degree is worth a million dollars.

      And that's precisely the point: those "studies" are meant to be cited, not to be read.

      Old Guy

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    2. And you get a million bucks from a law degree just like you can get the clap from sitting on a public toilet.

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    3. @ Old Guy,

      Yes, that's correct. It's so CNN Money can put out a paid piece to keep asses in seats.

      It's still not going to be enough to save them. The whole of higher education is starting to pop - the government is facing massive and eroding non-repayment, for-profits are being picked off by regulators, price keeps going up while enrollment goes down, and just about none of these damn "schools" are solvent as is.

      These scribblings from law profs will be a looked at in the future as transparent, rotten, but ultimately ineffective and pathetic.

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  5. What noble "men" and women, huh?!?!

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  6. I have a proposal for how the scamblogging movement can make a real difference in ending the law school scam.

    Many law professors teach bar preparation classes and earn large sums of money for it. What if the scam blogging movement created bar preparation lectures, put them on Youtube, and gave them away for free? Written material and possibly Q&A could be added.

    Free bar preparation would enable students to keep more of their money and end the law professor racket of charging thousands to teach what they deliberately refused to teach in school. Ending this duplication of legal education would result in a net benefit to society.

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    1. I bought the Barbri books for $500 off Craigslist and used Adaptibar which was $300. Passed CT bar easily. I knew people that dropped over 3-4k for bar prep plus another chunk of money borrowed to study all day. Law schools are disgusting pigs who don't even help their students pass the entrance exam needed to practice.

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  7. The fictional Professor Sycophant appears to be a "white male." Therefore, Dybbuk's satire--some might even call it a "play"--is fully protected by the First Amendment.

    There is also a fictional narrative that seeks to deny First Amendment protection to any criticism of self-serving scholarship excreted by law professors who are not white males. Pease consult Brian Leiter--who is not an expert on defamation or the First Amendment--for whatever details he can muster.

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  8. This was a good entry except you forgot the last line:

    "CHA-CHING BABY!!!"

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  9. Wow, if you were in the middle of BL's shitlist after the Sevel stuff, I'd guess this is sending you straight to the top. Congrats.

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    1. I believe that Mr. Leiter ran a PSA on his blog a couple of years ago hawking Simkovic as a bright young scholar in need of stable employment. We must assume that Lieter's massive influence led to numerous job offers, but that Simkovic simply prefers the edgy urbanity of downtown Newark.

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    2. I would consider it an honor to be on BL's shitlist.

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    3. It could also be quite lucrative to get on Leiter's hitlist. He has an uncontrollable compulsion to denounce and defame the people he hates. Just stand up to him over time and he's absolutely sure to tell a whopper that will look really bad in front of a state judge.

      And Leiter admits that the state judges despise him. I'm not sure why, possibly it's because of his amateurish misuse of legal terminology to smear other people. Or it could be due to his extremely meager practice experience. We'll never know exactly why he left any of his previous jobs until someone performs discovery in a reckless and groundless civil action initiated by Leiter.

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    4. If I never hear the name Brian Leiter or Nancy Leong again, I will be so happy. Please stop talking about these miserable people; they don't matter.

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    5. If you think the law professors are miserable, you should talk to some of their students who receive the debt sentence. They will cease to matter when they can no longer trick students into funding their crappy blogs and articles.

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    6. 2:05 here. Yes, 7:55, I agree with you, but enough is enough. We all see them for who they are, and those two already don't matter.

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  10. Let me make this real simple:

    The law schools are marketing law degrees like its 1975, except with 2015 price tags attached to afford the roaches their standard of living, of course.

    It's like watching old videos of Kenny Huston and card counting. The schools claim you can make One Million Dollars!! with your 1975 law degree. Problem is, it's 2015. Casinos use 8 decks, automatic shuffling machines, or even CSM's (continuous shuffling machines), and pay 6:5. They simply changed the game to make it unbeatable - unwinnable.

    It's 2015. Law is super-saturated. The casino (the gov't) changed the rules re: bankruptcy and dischargeability for student loans, and starting salaries for lawyers haven't increased due to over saturation in 10-20 years.

    So Lemmings, do you still wanna play?

    If you do, P.T. Barnum was right: There really is a sucker born every minute.

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    1. And, as with blackjack (which was already almost unwinnable twenty-odd years ago, when I counted cards), the only sound decision is to avoid the scam altogether.

      Old Guy

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    2. "Listen to me beh beh, the Scam Bloggers won. They won."

      Arrogant law professor with beady eyes and crooked teeth pulls out a suitcase.

      Opens suitcase and flashes the contents - stacks of cash - at his team associate.

      "They won? I don't think so..."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0cv1QLI6Rvo#t=36

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0cv1QLI6Rvo#t=268

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