California South University

it has a Canadian flavor

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/oh-oh-canada-wacky-fake-university

 

The school site, www.calsu.us looks as if someone (from Axact?) jumped the gun on pot legality here in Canada, which is supposed to happen late summer 2018. Wow! Some powerful buds, they got! Good job, guys! Pretty funny - even if meandering and rather pointless. Good use of graphics on buildings and courses I'm sure they don't actually have. Canadian humour at its best? What would Wayne and Shuster think? I don't think they envisioned this Alternate Universe!

Altered my consciousness for me .... completely scrambled!

 

There are now a lot of second-rate online universities, so people don’t have to feel pressured to signed-up to These Diploma mills. It is a shame when some people do actual work, and them submit to a mill.

 

"The current, and 23rd, President of California South University (CSU), Irvine, California, USA is the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau, who was appointed on November 4, 2015, by Governor General David Johnston, following the general election that took place that year."

I wonder if the PM of Canada is aware that he is the President of this University.

 

And there's this account by a UC Riverside professor:

http://groverlab.org/hnbfpr/2017-12-10-csu.html

A lot of the descriptive text here:

http://calsu.us/index.php/about-us/

and here:

http://calsu.us/index.php/history/

Seems to be lifted from the description of the U. of Alberta here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Alberta

 

Why are you saying this? It's blatantly, screamingly obvious that this is a JOKE - not a mill. NOBODY is going to sign up - ever. They can't. There's no facility on the website for some complete idiot to sign up. All this place will teach you is how to LAUGH. And that's needed, as it's particularly hard to laugh right now, if you're Canadian. Donald Trump is making sure of that.

Why aren't you laughing? Don't get the joke?

 

I continually wonder just what the PM is aware of, from day to day. He's self-aware; he knows that he's good-looking and he's constantly alert for photo-ops. That seems to be about it, sometimes. Look at his disastrous trip to India. The PM lets one of his top guys invite a known Sikh extremist, convicted of attempted murder in the past, to a high-level banquet, where the known extremist even got a photo-op with his (the PM's) wife! I'm sure that invite made a hit with Indian PM Narendra Modi, who has complained (justifiably, as I see it) that Canada is seen to be soft on Sikh extremism!

The extremist's name is Jaspal Atwal. He is a Canadian Sikh convicted of attempting to kill Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu on Vancouver Island in 1986. What is the PM aware of? Not very much, some days, it seems. President of a joke "University?" Yeah, I'm guessing he could handle that... Not important, whether or not he knows. I'm not telling him.

 

Don Rickles you're not.

 

Never claimed to be. The "University" was not my joke. It's a better joke than any of mine; I seldom joke - no talent for it. Same with lying - but do I find a well-told joke or cleverly-concocted BS interesting when it's tried on me by someone else.

 

Looks like an elaborate spoof.

 

Umm - Axactly. Right on both counts.

 

I don't think that it's remotely a joke. California South U. (CSU!) just isn't (currently) a conventional degree mill. It's apparently being used as an institutional affiliation.

https://www.omicsonline.org/editor-profile/Dr_Alireza_Heidari/

https://www.omicsonline.org/editor-profile/Alireza_Heidari/

https://stemcell.conferenceseries.com/asiapacific/ocm/2017/alireza-heidari-california-south-university-csu-irvine-california-usa-usa

http://www.imedpub.com/editor-profile/Dr_Alireza_Heidari/

https://www.scirp.org/journal/DetailedInforOfEditorialBoard.aspx?personID=10707

https://sciforschenonline.org/journals/systems-biology-research/alireza-heidari.php

https://www.meetingsint.com/conferences/nanoscience/ocm/prof-dr-alireza-heidari-california-south-university-csu-irvine-california-usa-usa

http://www.rroij.com/editor-profile/Dr_Alireza_Heidari/

https://www.scitechnol.com/editor-profile/Dr_Alireza_Heidari__PhD/

http://www.pharmaceuticalcongress.com/organizing-committee-members

http://www.researchanalytica.com/editorial-board.php

http://opusjournals.com/journals/gastroenterology-and-liver-clinical-and-medicals/editorial-board

https://healthcare.global-summit.com/ocm/2017/alireza-heidari-california-south-university-csu-usa

http://www.worldnanoconference.com/dubai/committee.php

http://lawarencepress.com/member/dr-alireza-heidari/

http://ihrjournal.com/editorialboard/

http://www.clytojournals.com/dr-alireza-heidari

https://europe.metabolomicsconference.com/ocm/2018/alireza-heidari-california-south-university-usa

https://publichealthcongress.nutritionalconference.com/ocm/2018/alireza-heidari-california-south-university-csu-irvine-california-usa-usa

http://scholarlypages.org/editorial-borad.php?jid=oral-cancer

And many more where that came from.

For some some commentary see this:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/02/21/down-the-rabbit-hole-with-alireza-heidari

And this:

http://groverlab.org/hnbfpr/2017-12-10-csu.html

Dr. Grover of UC Riverside notes, "If you look through Dr. Heidari's list of publications, you quickly realize that all of them are in predatory journals." And he asks, "If Alireza Heidari paid hundreds of dollars to publish each of his 116 journal articles, he would have paid tens of thousands of dollars to build his publication record. But why?"

It seems to me that there's probably method to the madness. Derek Lowe of Science - Translational Medicine writes: "Grover's best guess (and it's mine, too) is that "Heidari" is collecting a piece of the action every time someone pays for a paper in one of those predatory journals he's on the editorial board of."

 

Okay - I've read the complaints and diatribes. Although a couple of them are quite funny in themselves, "Heidari's" creation is still the most hilarious spoof of all, to me. What's goofier than publishing "papers" with 100% of citations being from your own works - and listing 90 references, again, all to works of your own ! Anyone who doesn't appreciate this absurdity has no sense of humour. And anyone who reads him and subsequently loses money by any means to, or because of, "Alireza Heidari" (whoever he really is) has neither a sense of reality - nor any sense at all.

"Send in the clowns
Don't bother - they're already here."

Apologies to Stephen Sondheim

 

@heirophant

The predatory journals are the real game? Why then make the CSU website such a bad joke?

 

Presumably, that pushes up your citation scores, if nobody looks at it more closely. And I'd bet that it's almost always computers making those counts. Google Scholar appears to count self-cites as citations.

 

" Not outlined in any constitutional document, the office exists only as per long-established convention (originating in America’s former colonial power, the United Kingdom) that stipulates the monarch’s representative, the president general, must select as president the person most likely to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons; this individual is typically the leader of the political party that holds the largest number of seats in that chamber. California South University (CSU) presidents are styled as The Right Honourable, a privilege maintained for life."
Wha-aaaa?

I love the "president general" bit. And America's "monarch" bit.

 

Clearly, because it is easier than making it more believable. "Heidari", or someone using this alias, cobbled up a site using copy stolen from elsewhere, and it's good enough to stand to a cursory scrutiny. It looks real to vast majority of people who will not look too closely (many abroad). Trying to do better will bring minimal marginal benefit.

 

That cursory scrutiny would miss this gem under Reputation:

"The university has been the subject of several recent scandals. In 2011, the school’s dean of medicine resigned after plagiarizing much of his graduation address. In 2012, the University’s Psychiatry department chair was placed on leave before officially beginning his duties after allegations emerged of an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient."

http://calsu.us/index.php/reputation/

 

That's hilarious! Like I said - the more you read, the more it's a joke. And if some very naïve person in a far-away land has nothing better to do than read the calsu.us site, where's the harm? Nobody is asking him/her to send money! NOBODY!
If somebody abroad is confused about this school - let that person consult you pundits at degreeinfo - Heirophant, Phdtobe, decimon and Stanislav. You can set them straight. I might be unavailable for a while. Stuff to do. OML!