I'm new to this site. I found this interesting, especially since I own not only my duramax, but a backhoe and diesel generator affected by CARB rules. Below is a quote from another site. Links below that.
"The California Air Resources Board has yet to honor my request to see the 38 exhibits in the Hien T. Tran academic fraud case. Tran was the lead researcher on a scientific study that was used to justify sweeping, costly new diesel emission rules proposed by the CARB staff. He admitted Dec. 10 to CARB that he lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from UC Davis. Instead, Tran said, his Ph.D. was from "Thornhill University." Nevertheless, the air board still voted unanimously to adopt the rules based on his research Dec. 12 -- without acknowledging Tran's deception.
Anyways, I obtained the exhibit showing Tran's fake Ph.D. from another source. How impressive -- the $1,000 got him a "magna cum laude" plaudit from Thornhill University, not just a diploma.
Check out the web site of the diploma mill here. Those running it can't even be bothered to put up a good fake site. Click on the "Prospective Student" link and you go to what appears to be the home page of an Israeli domain registration site.
Is this significant? Maybe. A Google hunt turned up this amazing twist -- a January 2008 story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Avrohom Mondrowitz, an alleged serial child molester who posed as a rabbi and "community psychologist" and who escaped prosecution in New York by fleeing to Israel:
As far as the Israel Police know, Mondrowitz is currently devoting most of his energy, in the many leisure hours at his disposal, to the Internet. There he gratifies his deviant inclinations by watching clips of sadistic activity and pedophilic material. In his remaining time he makes a living by issuing bogus academic degrees to all comers, particularly to students from the Third World. He has emblems and logos from various universities, as well as seals, examples of signatures and registration forms. He refers most of the students to Thornhill University, in London, which grants degrees by correspondence and has a branch in Brooklyn.
So Tran's degree comes from an Internet diploma mill associated with someone Haaretz calls a notorious, depraved pedophile!! Too bizarre.
Now will you cover this, California media? Now is it interesting enough?
It's been six days since I broke the story that the air board unanimously approved sweeping, unprecedented rules based on the work of a scientist that the board knew had been lying about his credentials. Isn't that, yunno, news????
But according to Nexis, the only newspaper to detail this is my own, in this editorial.
Meanwhile, the Sac Bee recently had the room to run a 900-word piece about how homeowners can get rid of bermuda grass without killing the surrounding fescue and other crucial gardening issues. It also had room for a 600-word analysis on "Keep white shirts white: How to avoid perspiration stains."
But report on a juicy scandal with great twists -- the fact that Tran wasn't fired; the Mondrovitz stuff; the other challenges to the air board's veracity -- involving a high-profile agency whose actions are often copied by environmental regulators around the world? Nah, there's no room for that.
Mary Nichols is the luckiest woman in the world.
Posted by Chris Reed at April 30, 2009 12:14 PM"
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/033291.html
and
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/apr/25/lz1ed25top192452-air-board-knew/?uniontrib
"The California Air Resources Board has yet to honor my request to see the 38 exhibits in the Hien T. Tran academic fraud case. Tran was the lead researcher on a scientific study that was used to justify sweeping, costly new diesel emission rules proposed by the CARB staff. He admitted Dec. 10 to CARB that he lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from UC Davis. Instead, Tran said, his Ph.D. was from "Thornhill University." Nevertheless, the air board still voted unanimously to adopt the rules based on his research Dec. 12 -- without acknowledging Tran's deception.
Anyways, I obtained the exhibit showing Tran's fake Ph.D. from another source. How impressive -- the $1,000 got him a "magna cum laude" plaudit from Thornhill University, not just a diploma.
Check out the web site of the diploma mill here. Those running it can't even be bothered to put up a good fake site. Click on the "Prospective Student" link and you go to what appears to be the home page of an Israeli domain registration site.
Is this significant? Maybe. A Google hunt turned up this amazing twist -- a January 2008 story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Avrohom Mondrowitz, an alleged serial child molester who posed as a rabbi and "community psychologist" and who escaped prosecution in New York by fleeing to Israel:
As far as the Israel Police know, Mondrowitz is currently devoting most of his energy, in the many leisure hours at his disposal, to the Internet. There he gratifies his deviant inclinations by watching clips of sadistic activity and pedophilic material. In his remaining time he makes a living by issuing bogus academic degrees to all comers, particularly to students from the Third World. He has emblems and logos from various universities, as well as seals, examples of signatures and registration forms. He refers most of the students to Thornhill University, in London, which grants degrees by correspondence and has a branch in Brooklyn.
So Tran's degree comes from an Internet diploma mill associated with someone Haaretz calls a notorious, depraved pedophile!! Too bizarre.
Now will you cover this, California media? Now is it interesting enough?
It's been six days since I broke the story that the air board unanimously approved sweeping, unprecedented rules based on the work of a scientist that the board knew had been lying about his credentials. Isn't that, yunno, news????
But according to Nexis, the only newspaper to detail this is my own, in this editorial.
Meanwhile, the Sac Bee recently had the room to run a 900-word piece about how homeowners can get rid of bermuda grass without killing the surrounding fescue and other crucial gardening issues. It also had room for a 600-word analysis on "Keep white shirts white: How to avoid perspiration stains."
But report on a juicy scandal with great twists -- the fact that Tran wasn't fired; the Mondrovitz stuff; the other challenges to the air board's veracity -- involving a high-profile agency whose actions are often copied by environmental regulators around the world? Nah, there's no room for that.
Mary Nichols is the luckiest woman in the world.
Posted by Chris Reed at April 30, 2009 12:14 PM"
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/033291.html
and
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/apr/25/lz1ed25top192452-air-board-knew/?uniontrib