“Dr.” John M. LaTourrette, “Ph.D” and his sites www.mentaltrainingsecrets.com, www.realspeedhitting.com wins
Here’s a verbatim quote from the scam.com site dissecting Mr. Tourrette:
(taken from http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=17885)
(Partial thread from http://www.scamfraudalert.com/showthread.php?t=2548 Scamfraudalert.com published below)
Flim Flam Man “Dr.” John M. LaTourrette, “Ph.D”
——————————————————————————–
LaTourrette is a slippery fellow currently selling a number of trainings and DVD type courses such as “Silva Ultramind’s Remote Viewing and Remote Influencing The Next Evolution in Mind Power by Dennis Higgins and John La Tourrette, Ph.D.”, which contains a fraudulent claim regarding the author John M. LaTourrette. LaTourrette is most certainly NOT a Ph.D, and in fact purchased his Ph.D from a non-accredited corresponce degree mill called Columbia Pacific University. This phony degree mill was found to be illegally operating in the state of California and shut down. A simple Google search under the Columbia Pacific University will provide you with ample proof of findings of fraud and the closure of the phony degree mill.
I consider degree fraud in the marketing of online courses on a web site to be a very serious matter,.
Check out this Dr. Quack, with a fake Ph.D from Columbia Pacific University.
http://www.mentaltrainingsecrets.com has now been shut down by his internet service provider for fraud.
Snake oil saleman LaTourrette is now operating under 2 new web sites which he obtained fraudulently by using the well known phishing and internet scam service provider www.myprivateregistration.com and contact@myprivateregistration.com to illegally obtain new URL’s. The new web sites he is selling his phony courses on are www.realmindcontrolsecrets.com, and www.realspeedhitting.com.
Here is a link on Columbia Pacific University, an illegal degree mill which was shut down.
http://www.quackwatch.org/04Consumer…/News/cpu.html
LaTourrette claims to know the secrets of ancient Kahuna magic, which can do everything from making you rich to healing you of all illnesses. Just for a start, of course! And John M. LaTourrette has scammed millions of dollars from suckers for this nonsense. A recent advertisment he sent out was called “The Secret Kahuna ‘Master-Keys’ On How-To-Manifest Your Own Destiny!”
www.realmindcontrolsecrets.com
www.realspeedhitting.comRe: Flim Flam Man “Dr.” John M. LaTourrette, “Ph.D”
——————————————————————————–
Apparently now LaTourrette’s latest 2 web sites have also been shut down by his ISP.
For more information and debate refer back to full original thread http://www.scamfraudalert.com/showthread.php?t=2548.
Disappointing isn’t it?
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Does John M. LaTourrette really need to cheat people out of their money?
Your comments on Columbia Pacific University are libellous. For accurate information on CPU please see
http://www.cpuniv.us and the introduction on CPU in Wikipedia.
Paul Hartal
Seems we even have shills promoting substandard schools on this site.
Shamelessreviews, do not heed this scambag Paul. Columbia Pacific is a lowbreed!
The ODA itself condemns CPU as unaccredited:
http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
The GAO lists CPU as Diploma Mill:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04771t.pdf
Quackwatch describes how CPU was closed by court order:
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/News/cpu.html
and Wikipedia discusses CPU’s fall from grace:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Pacific_University
Let the truth shine free Shameless!
John M. La Tourrette obtained his questionable non-accredited, unlicensed Ph.D from Columbia Pacific Univerisity, a scam degree mill that was later shut down for operation illegally.
Paul, you are a liar and a fraud. How could one libel a phony degree mill that is no longer in business? You are obviously covering up something you have done that is dishonest. That makes you a loser.
Mr. Espinoza,
You’re an abusive Internet bully. A civilized and decent person doesn’t slander, defame or libel someone for having a different opinion, as you do. Unfortunately, the Net is full of irresponsible and misconstrued information, and you’re one of the “shameless” knights of its garbage. It seems that the story of Columbia Pacific University (CPU) is too much for uncritical minds to grasp, and like you, they regurgitate false and biased information. The facts: CPU received in 1986 “full institutional approval” from the State of California, and approval was equivalent to regional accreditation in the US. CPU never was a diploma mill. The court shut down CPU in 2000 for not being able to meet changing state regulations. It also ruled that CPU degrees awarded between 1978 and 1997 are legal and valid. CPU was a pioneer of distance education, praised by many, including The Times Educational Supplement in London (TES), UK, August 5, 1983. Education expert Sarah Bayliss in her TES article pointed out that CPU was a serious school, “which boasts many reputable names among its faculty and honorary award holders”. She also noted Professor Tudor Jones of Bangor University examined CPU PhD theses and “found them to be at least of the standard that he would expect at his own university”. For a serious and factual discussion on CPU, see my articles in the Discussion section on Columbia Pacific University in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Columbia_Pacific_University
as well as these web sites:
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:e3b9RsNDgygJ:www.degree.com/articles/distance-learning.htm+%22chttp://www.columbia-pacific-university.net/history.html
http://www.columbia-pacific-university.net/history.html
http://netnotes.altcpualumni.org
http://www.cpuniv.us
http://www.bppve.ca.gov/press_releases/cpuweb_dec2000.htm
Paul Hartal
I tend to believe the ODA and the US government agencies on this matter. CPU is labeled unaccredited, substandard and anyone using a degree from CPU could be prosecuted criminally.
Wikipedia is a pathetic resource on the matter of CPU’s legitimacy. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. In contrast, the GAO and the ODA are government institutions and are near infallible.
Hello Jane Hogan,
Thank you for your comment, but your belief that the GAO and the ODA “are near infallible” sounds as a naïve veneration of administrative authority. Let me point out that history provides many examples of the dangers of a mindset that blindly follows political leadership.
ODA lists CPU as an “unaccredited” school. This is an utterly misleading and pejorative categorization. While CPU was never regionally accredited, it was supervised and approved by the California State Department of Education. Since approval was the equivalent of regional accreditation, CPU was an “accredited” institution. The US Department of Education recognized CPU as an accredited institution as evidenced, for example, in the 1984 Higher Education Directory, published in Washington DC. For documented information on this and other reliable sources of academic recognition, please, contact http://www.cpuniv.us.
CPU was not a “substandard” school, as you claim, but a pioneer of distance education with innovative programs for highly accomplished individuals. Thousands of its alumni teach at accredited colleges and universities, work in key positions in business and government. The ratio of successful professionals to the number of CPU alumni surpasses most traditional universities. This can be verified on the Internet. Also, please, look with Google Scholar, for example, for CPU dissertations.
The court in California ruled that CPU degrees are legal and valid. Being prosecuted by Oregon for a legal, valid and scholarly accomplishment might sound as a joke in Britain or France, but it is an Orwellian and Kafkaesque reality in an odd State of the US, showing the crisis of democracy and the closure of the American mind. Organized religions, Communists and Nazis burnt books that they disagreed with. Maybe now it is the turn of Oregon to take out from the university and public libraries hundreds of books written by authors holding CPU degrees and throw them into ceremonial bonfires.
Your accusation against Wikipedia does not hold water. Studies published in Nature and other highly respected sources have found that the accuracy of Wikipedia matches the Encyclopedia Britannica. The cyber encyclopedia is written by experts from many disciplines. Editors apply the pros and cons method, which affords quite considerable objectivity.
I am a recognized expert on distance learning and I can tell you that ODA is far from infallible. And every university is unaccredited at some time. Accrediting agencies require a school to operate from 2-5 years before they will consider accreditation. Furthermore, at the time Columbia Pacific University was operating no regional accrediting agency would have accredited an entirely nonresident program. Today, there are several regional accrediting that have changed their policies to keep up with the times and they now accredit entirely nonresident programs. This only substantiates the idea that Columbia Pacific University was a pioneer and ahead of its time.
Columbia Pacific University was, at one time, a highly respected school and its leadership was consulted for advice on distance learning.
As far as US government agencies, several of them listed Columbia Pacific University as equivalent to accredited because CPU credits were accepted by three or more accredited universities.
By the way, ODA lists me as a source of reliable information.
Rodney L. Merrill
DegreeFinders.com
Would you hit a fly with an elephant gun?
Of course not! This rabid defense of a diploma mill condemned by the US government is suspicious because the thread isn’t about CPU in the first place. It’s about a scammer, Mr. Tourette.
Why firing big guns at a fly that’s already water under the bridge?
CPU is already defunct, considered substandard and illegal in various states.
Leave it at that.
Your defense for a degree mill in an inappropriate thread leads me to believe you’re either shills or graduates of that sham
How ironic that your name is “morales”. A moral person respects the facts and does not libel or slander, as you do. Your accusations are irresponsible and malicious. CPU never was a diploma mill. CPU was a California State accredited (approved) school and its degrees were equivalent to regionally accredited degrees. Whether you like it or not, the court in California ruled that CPU degrees are legal and valid. CPU is not defunct at all. Moreover, the US government recognizes it as a legitimate and serious institution and recently awarded federal non-profit status to CPU under section 501 (c) (3) by an IRS review, http://www.cpuniv.us . Also, the CPU Press just published a new book, by Allen Jang, Ph.D., distributed in affiliation with Pepperdine University, http://www.columbia-pacific-university.net/index/html. Many highly accomplished CPU graduates teach as honored academics on faculty at traditional universities. Here are three of them: Professor Dave Thiessen, PhD, of Lewis-Clark State College, who has been invited to a prestigious Roundtable on History (2007) at Oxford University
http://www.lcsc.edu/collegeinfo/viewitem.asp?ID=1528;
Professor Gerti Heider, PhD, recipient of the 2006 SN Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey;
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:e8wK1ZgcDr0J:www.umdnj.edu/about/
annualrep/2006/10.htm+new+
jersey,+gerti+heider&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1; and
Professor Frank Prochaska, PhD, of Colorado Technical University,
http://www.columbia-pacific-university.net/
index/html, winner of a second Fulbright scholarship.
If CPU is not the issue then why all the shameless mob, including you, vilify it? Due to the bigoted opinion pieces that people like you post on the web, the Internet became an utterly unreliable source for accurate information and serious research. If you care about intellectual integrity, then before you make your comments, you should study the history of CPU and the published documents at http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles , Wikipedia and elsewhere, showing how CPU was closed by miscarriage of justice by a severely flawed and fabricated report. I hope that you are not too small-minded to realize that the judicial system is not about justice, but power and money. It is about winning the case. The major sources of the falsities, distortions and misinformation concerning CPU are uncritically copied from the politically motivated dirty rhetoric of the prosecutor of CPU in the California trials, from the scandal mongering yellow journalism of the Point Reyes Light and from the web site of “Quackwatch”. Regarding the latter this is what Judge Haley J. Fromholz had to say in a 2001 suit: “Their testimony should be accorded little, if any credibility”,
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/
quackpots/california_superior_court_judge_.htm.
Paul, you are liar and a cheat for slandering others on this site. Why ARE YOU defending the illegal degree mill? Did you obtain a phony degree there yourself? You did, didn’t you? Scumbag. You have some sort of personal interest here. You are a loser. Why don’t you go to a real university, and, assuming you can even pass freshman classes, you’ll perhaps then have enough knowledge to make an barely informed decision. Until then, shut up.
Rodney, you are a liar and you are attempting to mislead people. If you think degree mills like CPU are ok, then you are ok with defrauding people. Are you running a scam of online learning too?
Apparently, Rodney and Paul, you have a lot in common with John M. La Tourrette. John M. La Tourrette apparently used a claim of a non-accredited and barely legal Ph.D to mislead people. And that is what you are doing. Isn’t it interesting that 2 more scammers like have shown up on this forum? What’s the matter, you afraid if you are found out you won’t be able to steal people’ money and fool them anymore. Scumbags.
Rodney, I just checked out your web site. You actually had the nerve to use this forum to promote your products by listing your web site selling distance learning books. You are a piece of garbage for using this commercially. Go rip off your friends. I will be SO glad when all the internet scam artists like you are locked up behind bars!!!
http://www.osac.state.or.us
Rodney, the ODA site link above does not contain any mention of you or your firm, as you claimed in your post here! Why did you lie about this too???? You are complete fraud for misrepresenting yourself.
Paul, you are liar and a cheat for slandering others on this site. Why ARE YOU defending the illegal degree mill? Did you obtain a phony degree there yourself? You did, didn’t you? Scumbag. You have some sort of personal interest here. You are a loser. Why don’t you go to a real university, and, assuming you can even pass freshman classes, you’ll perhaps then have enough knowledge to make an barely informed decision. Until then, shut up.
Apparently, Rodney and Paul, you have a lot in common with John M. La Tourrette. John M. La Tourrette apparently used a claim of a non-accredited and barely legal Ph.D to mislead people. And that is what you are doing. Isn’t it interesting that 2 more scammers like have shown up on this forum? What’s the matter, you afraid if you are found out you won’t be able to steal people’ money and fool them anymore. Scumbags.
Rodney, you are a liar and you are attempting to mislead people. If you think degree mills like CPU are ok, then you are ok with defrauding people. Are you running a scam of online learning too?
http://www.osac.state.or.us
The ODA site link above does not contain any mention of you or your firm, as you claimed in your post here! Why did you lie about this too???? You are complete fraud for misrepresenting yourself.
And, Rodney, I just checked out your web site. You actually had the nerve to use this forum to promote your products by listing your web site selling distance learning books. You are a piece of garbage for using this commercially. Go rip off your friends. I will be SO glad when all the internet scam artists like you are locked up behind bars!!!
Rodney, I just checked out your web site. You actually had the nerve to use this forum to promote your products by listing your web site selling distance learning books. You are a piece of garbage for using this commercially. Go rip off your friends. I will be SO glad when all the internet scam artists like you are locked up behind bars!!!
I like to browse Shameless Reviews from time to time. Joe, your arguments, to an outsider such as myself, are way past reasonable. Paul Hartal is obviously articulate and well educated. You may not agree with him, but to use such nasty attacks is totally unnecessary to state your case. Bottom line- He proves himself more educated and articulate by how he presents himself to convince anyone that is nonbiased to listen to him. You just keep spreading venom.
I am not a cpu grad myself, but I did graduate from an accredited university. Such nasty attacks make me think that you, more than they, are the Crud of the Month.
Amber, actually, if you would bother to read the thread, the caustic attacks were started by Paul Hartel. His arguments, including put downs of other members and lies about CPU, were unacceptable. You are obviously a shill, and I do not believe you graduated from any accedited university. The scam of people claiming degrees from illegal degree mills is deserving of venom.
Actually, I nominate you Amber B for Crud of the Month for supporting online fraud in the form of degree mills. I hope you end up in jail for your clever attempt to masquerade as reasonable, when you are in fact supporting educational and internet fraud.
Amber B. since you are apparently incapable of reading more than a few lines at a time, I’ve made it easy for you by quoting one of Mr. Hartel’s comments from a previous post on this forum:
“How ironic that your name is “morales”. A moral person respects the facts and does not libel or slander, as you do. Your accusations are irresponsible and malicious. CPU never was a diploma mill.”
What I find so interesting about this thread is that it resulted from a Crud of the Month award to a scammer named John M. La Tourrette, but was the thread was hijacked by supporters of an illegal degree mill called Columbia Pacific University where La Tourrette got his fake Ph.D. Paul Hartel, Rodney Merrill, and Amber B all had no interest in the schemes of John La Tourrette, but chose only to focus on CPU. They are apparently either paid shills for CPU, or they have obtained fraudulent credentials from CPU themselves, and wish to deceive the public by obscuring the truth about their phony backgrounds.
Dear Amber B,
Thank you for your comment. It is good to know that intelligent and fair-minded people, like you, also read Shameless Reviews and express their opinion here.
For those who are interested in information about my educational background:
I hold academic degrees from well-known accredited universities, including a Master’s from Concordia, a major Canadian university in Montreal. I also completed all my doctoral courses at Concordia. I was a teacher and published author long before Columbia Pacific University (CPU) was founded. In the 1980s I became interested in experiential education and Dr. John Bear, a renowned expert on non-traditional schools, recommended CPU. In 1986 I completed all the academic requirements for a PhD at CPU, including a dissertation on The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science. The thesis was published also in book form as The Brush and the Compass by University Press of America (Lanham, Md, 1988, 341 pages). It has been internationally acclaimed, studied and taught in North America and overseas. In the 1980s CPU was a California State accredited (approved) university, and its degrees were equivalent to regionally accredited degrees. In spite the misinformation and the venom spewed at CPU, the school’s degrees awarded between 1978 and 1997 are legal and valid.
With best wishes,
Paul Hartal
Well, Paul, you must truly be desperate for some kind of validation, if you needed to hijack this thread about another scammer named John La Tourrette in order to push your views of CPU. I have no idea if you are lying or not about your other degrees, but I do wonder, if you really completed all your doctoral courses at an accedited university as you claim, how you could be stupid enough to not graduate from there but to instead get your “Ph.D” from a degree mill. This makes me think you are not being totally straight with us here. Even if your CPU “degree” is legal and valid, it is worthless, has no value and is not accredited.
So you screwed up by not finishing your studies at a legitimate university, and now you want everyone to agree with you that it is ok. You are a blow hard just like La Tourrette, trying to push a scam on the public. Many of the reader on here are not fooled by your forked tongue, although you have managed to deceive Amber B.
I have run a search on all scholarly research published in the last 50 years, and you have not one study or peer-reviewed publication attributable to you. So, you are a liar for claiming that. Perhaps you published some kind of essay somewhere, and who cares? That is not Ph.D level work. The fact you don’t know that is very disturbing.
If you want respect, go get your Ph.D from a real school. I stand firm in my position, no matter what you try to do to fool people. Until you get a real Ph.D from a real university, with valid peer-reviewed research, shut up.
Attention: SITE OWNER and INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER of
Shameless Reviews,
An Oxford English Dictionary defines libel as “a false and defamatory written statement”, or “a published false statement damaging to a person’s reputation”. Certain individuals have published false and defamatory statements on this forum about thousands of honest people, graduates of Columbia Pacific University (CPU). The malicious allegations of Joe Espinoza and others pubhlished above on CPU and its alumni are libellous. Contrary to these libellous allegations, CPU degrees are legal and valid. Please, see for yourself at the official BPPVE website of the State of California:
http://www.bppve.ca.gov/press_releases/cpuweb_dec2000.htm .
Although I feel sorry for Mr. Espinoza, who obviously excels himself as an Internet bully but is unable to engage in an intelligent dialogue, I have to draw your attention that his insults, and those of others, are libellous.
FACTS ABOUT COLUMBIA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY (CPU):
CPU was a pioneer of distance education. Its graduates were accepted by leading universities, including Harvard and Yale.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:e3b9RsNDgygJ:www.degree.com/articles/distance-learning.htm+%22columbia+pacific+university%22,+pioneer+of+distance+education&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2
At present CPU is recognized as a non-profit educational institution by the US Government, and the CPU Press is active. Hundreds of CPU graduates teach as respected academics at traditional colleges and universities.
http://www.cpuniv.us
THE ACADEMIC INTEGRITY OF CPU
In 1986 CPU had received Full Institutional Approval as a California
Degree-Granting Institution by the California State Department of
Education, after the Superintendent of Public Instruction impaneled
a qualified visiting committee and conducted a comprehensive on-site
qualitative review and assessment of the institution and all
programs offered.
Full Institution Approval pursuant to California Education Code
Section 94310(b) means:
(1) The Institution has facilities, financial resources,
administrative capabilities, faculty, and other necessary
educational expertise and resources to afford students, and require
of students, the completion of a program of education which will
prepare them for the attainment of a professional, technological, or
educational objective, including but not limited to a degree;
(2) The curriculum is consistent in quality with curricula offered
by appropriate established accredited institutions which are
recognized by the United States Department of Education or the
Committee of Bar Examiners for the State of California and issue the
appropriate degree upon satisfactory completion of specific
qualitative academic programs; and
(3) The course for which the degree is granted achieves its
professed or claimed academic objective for higher education, with
verifiable evidence of academic achievement comparable to that
required of graduates of other recognized schools accredited by an
appropriate accrediting commission recognized by the United States
Department of Education or the Committee of Bar Examiners for the
State of California.
http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles/1986approval.pdf
For an example of a doctoral program at CPU, please, see this:
Dr. Ronald M. Reuss, Professor at Buffalo State College, State
>University of New York who was also adjunct faculty at Columbia
Pacific University was assigned as James Allan Matte’s mentor and
faculty advisor for the entire period of his matriculation at CPU
and in that capacity conferred directly by meeting several times
weekly to discuss and evaluate his progress in fulfilling his
academic contracts with CPU. The academic program at CPU was similar
in structure to that of Empire State College, State University of
New York where Dr. Reuss also served as mentor and faculty advisor.
Matte’s 228-page doctoral dissertation “Validation Study on the
Quadri-Zone Comparison Technique” on file under LD 01452, Vol. 1502,
1989 at ProQuest Information and Learning, formerly known as
University Microfilm International (UMI), which maintains the
definitive bibliographic record for over 2 million doctoral
dissertations and master’s theses, was published as three separate
studies in Polygraph, Journal of the American Polygraph Association,
which were subsequently cited in the National Research Council of
the National Academies’ 2003 Report on The Polygraph and Lie
Detection. The NRC of the National Academies accepted only 7 field
research studies as meeting their criteria and one of them was from
Matte’s doctoral dissertation published in Polygraph.
At the time of Dr. Matte’s matriculation at Columbia Pacific
University, Bear’s Guide to Non-Traditional College Degrees 9th
Edition in its evaluation of Columbia Pacific University stated
that: “Columbia Pacific is the largest university in the United
States and one of the largest in the world offering non-resident
Bachelor’s Master’s and Doctorates. Despite the size, students
report an extremely high level of personal attention from the
faculty and staff. The faculty numbers more than 400, nearly all
with traditional Doctorates. Two former presidents of major
accredited universities serve as two of the deans of Columbia
Pacific, and their president Richard Crews, is a prominent
psychiatrist with his medical degree from Harvard. No other
non-resident Doctorate-granting institution has the staff with the
credentials, reputation, and experience of Columbia Pacific. Many
major universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton have
expressed a willingness to accept C.P.U. degrees.”
Unfortunately, Columbia Pacific University was unable to meet changing State regulations and in 2000 was closed by court order. However, the court and the California Bureau for Private
Postsecondary and Vocational Education stated and decreed that CPU
degrees awarded before June 25, 1997 are legally valid.
Mr. Espinoza,
I don’t think that I have to prove myself to you, and I don’t care if you refuse to recognize even my high school diploma. You cannot even spell correctly my name and must be a very sloppy researcher. What are exactly your accomplishments? Your thuggishness, malice and libellous accusations clearly show who you are. It sounds as a joke but unfortunately with your warped mind you really believe that people who do legal academic work that you don’t understand, or sell books that you don’t like, should be behind bars. This makes you a very dangerous person for society, an enemy of academic freedom, of free speech and democracy.
It is a fundamental fallacy to believe that there is only one correct way in education. Besides, formal education does not grant genuine authority, nor automatic success in life. Take, for example, the Wright brothers , who without a college degree invented the airplane, while leading scientists insisted that objects heavier than air cannot fly. Faraday became one of the greatest physicists and chemists in history although he never attended university. Lincoln practiced law but was a self-educated lawyer. And to demonstrate his contempt for the narrow-minded traditional university, Arthur Koestler dropped out from the University of Vienna just before graduation.
The Internet is full of misinformation and your words flow into the published sewage of the Net. The reason that I post comments on this “shameless” site is to set the record straight about CPU and defend the honour of its alumni.
Paul Hartel, while your mouth runs non-stop, you are still a liar. You are scamming the public by misleading them. Calling you on your lies is NOT libel, and does not make me an internet bully. The only person you feel sorry for is yourself. Your lying should stop. You graduated from an illegal degree mill, and your degree is barely valid, is NOT accredited, and is NOT an approved degree with peer-reviewed research. You are a fraud for attempting to mislead people in a public forum.
As was posted above by You’re An Idiot,
Seems we even have shills promoting substandard schools on this site.
Shamelessreviews, do not heed this scambag Paul. Columbia Pacific is a lowbreed!
The ODA itself condemns CPU as unaccredited:
http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
The GAO lists CPU as Diploma Mill:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04771t.pdf
Quackwatch describes how CPU was closed by court order:
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/News/cpu.html
and Wikipedia discusses CPU’s fall from grace:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Pacific_University
Let the truth shine free Shameless!
ATTENTION SITE OWNER AND INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER OF SHAMELESS REVIEWS, it is time that Paul Hartel was banned from this forum, for off-topic postings, abusive comments toward myself and other members who dare to disagree with him, and for his threats that posting the truth about the illegal degree mill called Columbia Pacific University are “libel”. This man is a liar and a fraud, has no scholarly research ever published, and is attempting to claim he has. That is academic fraud.
Please consider removing and banning this vile individual from this forum.
While doing a bit of research on Columbia Pacific University, since Mr. Hartel has made such a big fuss over it while spreading his lies and false statements, I discovered another well-known quack got his Ph.D there, none other than John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Gray did no research at all for his fake Ph.D. (As stated earlier, Paul Hartel has not a single scholarly article or research study authored by him).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(U.S._author)”Gray’s books and other publications typically refer to him as ‘Doctor John Gray’ or ‘John Gray, Ph.D’. According to his website, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Columbia Pacific University[1] - a correspondence school that was forcibly closed by the California Department of Consumer Affairs in 2001 after a judgement that found that CPU “awarded excessive credit… to many students” and “failed to meet various requirements for issuing Ph.D. degrees”[2]. Gray’s website[3] notes that degrees issued by CPU before June 25, 1997 are legally valid (approved in California by the BPPVE but never actually accredited). Gray’s site further claims that “at the time John Gray graduated and received his degree CPU was a highly respected school in its field”; however, in 1997 California’s Deputy Attorney General Asher Rubin called it “a diploma mill which has been preying on California consumers for too many years”[4].”
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/women_rebuttal_from_uranus/school.htm “but I became concerned when I was unable to find a reference to Columbia Pacific University in any volume of Dissertation Abstracts. After all, Gray acts quite the authority throughout his publications and on talk show appearances; I fully expected the man to have a degree from an esteemed and widely respected institution. As a result, I did some checking on Gray’s alma mater and here is what I found.
One master’s-degree student was given credit for “a learning contract describing how he would continue taking dance lessons and watch dance demonstrations in order to improve his skills as a Country Western dancer.”
A Ph.D. dissertation written in Spanish was approved by four faculty who cannot speak the language.
One dissertation “had no hypothesis, no data collection, and no statistical analysis. A member of the visiting committee characterized the work as more like a project paper at the college freshman level.” The dissertation, The Complete Guide to Glass Collecting, was 61 pages long.
At least nine students who received Ph.D.s in 1994 had been enrolled less than 20 months, four of them less than 12. [Point Reyes Light, December 24, 1997]…So, armed with the power to meditate and a mail-order Ph.D., “Dr.” Gray builds his empire and sells his snake oil to the vulnerable. Something worth thinking about the next time you preceed John Gray’s name with the empty title “Doctor.”"
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/News/cpu.html This is the article from QuackWatch.
So we have a scammer like John La Tourrette, , a quack like John Gray, and a liar like Paul Hartel, all associated with the same illegal degree mill. It all screams SCAM to me.
Updated link on John Gray at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(U.S._author)
Ok, one more time…this should take the reader directly to the Wikipedia article on John Gray. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_%28U.S._author%29
So, let’s see if we can tie this long thread together. I obviously didn’t write the information on Columbia Pacific University, in fact, I only found it after Paul Hartel made so much noise I figured he must be guilty of something.
Sure, he and others like him can fool some people, like the bimbo above, Amber B…people like her may be too lazy, stupid or gullible to even bother to do any research, or even read this whole thread. Instead they are taken in by the silver tongue of the snake oil salesman like Paul Hartel. Good con men always sound well spoken, that is how they get the job done!
But my research comes from sources that are easily found, and I am simply providing it for the forum to review.
So, Paul Hartal, or whatever your name is, you accuse me of endangering free speech? YOU and con artists like you are what is dangerous to our society. Where did you get the criminal idea that free speech includes the right to claim fake degrees? To lie that you have published research when you have not? To attempt to deceive this forum that CPU was anything other than an illegal degree mill?
You are the bully, and you are a con artist. If you don’t like the fact you cannot fool me, and want to attack me, go right ahead. You are nothing but a liar and a manipulator. Sewage, you call my words?
Little man Paul Hartal, the only sewage here is the excrement coming out of your mouth. You are a filthy little urchin who wants to try to use your fake Ph.D to fool people. When they don’t go along with your con, you get angry and vengeful.Your attempt now to claim a fake Ph.D is just a different form of learning and that you are somehow like Abe Lincoln shows you to be the huckster you are. You aren’t worth one drop of President Lincoln’s spit.
You talk of the “honor’ of CPU grads??? You have no honor; if you did, you would stop lying and admit you are a phony with no Ph.D.
While I really really think I should lock this thread, you boys are amusing me no end. In fact, I quite enjoy reading your posts more that I do posting on my own site.
Well, since you are the owner, why not join in the fray here? Use your forum to help rid the internet of fraud and deceipt like CPU and the likes of Paul Hartal.
Dear Info,
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. Notwithstanding the truth and the honesty of my arguments, I apologize to the intelligent reader for being dragged into this debate with a deeply disturbed individual who cannot spell properly even my name.
Sincerely,
Paul Hartal
Most doctoral theses, or dissertations, do not qualify for being published in book form. My dissertation on the Interface Dynamics of Art and Science was published as The Brush and the Compass, Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1988, 341 pages, ISBN 0-8191-6847-5. It can be found in major public and university libraries , including Harvard, Yale and McGill. The excerpts presented here are from an expert Reviewer’s Report concerning The Brush and the Compass: The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science. Dated August 5, 1986, and signed by James E. Lyons, Publisher of University Press of America, the Reader’s Report, among other things, says: “Contrary to the popular belief, promulgated by C.P. Snow and others, the author believes that science and art are not distant polarities, but rather complementary symbolic systems through which humanity structures and interprets reality…Very few writers are capable of writing on art and science with this amount of depth and grace. The author demonstrates a thorough acquaintance in the disciplines of mathematics, physics, computers, painting, philosophy, and psychology…Most definitely this work is a significant contribution, namely to the history of ideas, a discipline which Arthur Lovejoy made famous…Because of sophistication is required of an author in more than one discipline, there is not much being written in the history of ideas in today’s specialized age, an age in which more than any other, this kind of thing is required…Despite the fact that this work seems to have been a Ph.D. dissertation…it shows a high degree of learning and creative thinking, going far beyond the normal expectations of dissertations in general”.
The Brush and the Compass has been used as a university textbook in interdisciplinary studies, anthropology, mathematics, architecture and art. For information, citations and references on the Internet, please, see for example:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnjja/anth404arttechnology.pdf
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:RKAptkLU1igJ:www.owu.edu/~jbkrygie/krygier_html/art_sci.html+%22The+Brush+and+the+Compass%22,+university&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=16,
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/wilson.artscibib.html,
http://www.pde.state.pa.us/arts_hum/cwp/view.asp?A=151&Q=71753,
http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=paul+hartal%2C+the+brush+and+the+compass&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.msstate.edu/Fineart_Online/Backissues/Vol_3/faf308&w=paul+hartal+brush+compass&d=DDc4l5IFNhE-&icp=1&.intl=us,
http://bibcat.gallery.ca/search/ahartal%20paul%201936
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:aEC2HXouhw8J:laboratoiregeorgesfriedmann.univ-paris1.fr/lgf/IMG/pdf/FOURMENTRAUX.pdf+%22Hartal%22+%22Brush+*+*+Compass+*%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=31
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:_4j4Q2WWyqsJ:www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/Publications/Tech_Reports/91/91-15.pdf+kuhn,+%22the+brush+and+the+compass%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnjja/anth404arttechnology.pdf
Dear Info, I also apologize to the reader and the forum that a vile and dishonest person like PH was able to hijack and misdirect the original thread for his own selfish and fraudulent purposes. He attempts to impugn mental illness on anyone who does not agree with his lies. He is actually mentally ill himself, with narcissism and other personality disorders. In short, he’s a sociopath preying on society under the guise of freedom.
PH (no little d) your lies have fooled no one. You’ve lied about CPU, lied about your background, lied about the government’s closure of your degree mill, and tried to fool people on here that you are smarter than everyone else, even the government, the ODA and the Wikipedia. You’re not only a sociopath but also suffering from delusions of grandeur. Have fun in your pathetic little world. I really do feel sorry for the public that people like you exist. But what fun would life be without guys like you trying to rip off the rest of us with some scam or other?
A Selected List of Peer Reviewed Papers and Articles By Paul Hartal
1.Perceptual ambiguity and metaphoric conceptualization, Contemporary Philosophy, 13 (4), 1990; citation: Clifford A. Pickover, Mazes for the Mind, NY: St.Martin’s Press, 1992, http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/PICKOVER/bookscp.html
2. Space Art or Space Science? Pulsar, November-December 1990; citation: Pickover, Mazes for the Mind http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/PICKOVER/bookscp.html
3. The songs of the double-helix: symmetry and lyrical conceptualism, Wenner-Gren Volume 80: Symmetry 2000, Edited by I. Hargittai, and T. Laurent, London: Portland Press, January 2002 http://www.portlandpress.com/pp/books/prod_det.cfm?product=9781855781498
4. Antares, Leonardo, ISAST, MIT Press, V 26, No. 2, 1993 http://www.cdemusic.org/store/cde_search.cfm?keywords=leonardospecial
5. Homage to a Blue Planet: Aeronautical and Astronomical Artworks, Leonardo, ISAST, V 25, No. 2, 1992 http://www.olats.org/space/biblio/leonardoArticles/Hartal.php
6. Space Art: Visions of Space, Orbiter, NASA National Magazine, January - February 1995
7. Planetary consciousness and the imperative of space exploration, Ylem, Artists Using Science and Technology http://www.ylem.org
8. Space in vision, vision in space, Ylem, September 1991 http://www.ylem.org
9. A Unique Path for India: Foreword, in Communication and Rural Development by J.B. Ambekar, Shivaji University, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1992 http://opac.ide.go.jp/cgi-bin/exec_cgi/ibibdet.cgi?CGILANG=english&U_CHARSET=utf-8&ID=TY00018435&HOLSERKEY=:::::::
10. SARS in Perspective, The Montreal Gazette, April 11, 2003 http://www.canada.com/health/sars/story.html?id=5e18bb85-1b9e-4e41-ae76-79222c30545d
11. Georg Lukacs: Aesthetics and History, Master’s thesis, Montreal: Concordia University, 1977 http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org&q=paul+hartal&submit=Search
12. Debunking “Quackwatch”: Why the medical establishment attacks Columbia Pacific University, published on line by Columbia Pacific University http://www.altcpualumni.org/wholisticed/hartal2001.html
PH, I am not disagreeing with you that you are a published author. However, these publications and articles are not peer-reviewed research, backed by validated scientific studies. Not one of your articles was published in a known scientific journal, but instead are in miscellaneous publications.
Your #12 above, showing your support for the Columbia Pacific degree mill, is very suspicious, and is your opinion, not scientific fact. The remainder of your articles do NOT qualify as scholarly research. I make no comment on your writing other than that, as you have proven my point. You may even be a good writer; but that does not entitle you to a Ph.D.
While I had hoped when I saw your list that some of the acrimony might be cleared by finding that you had in fact valid scientific research (and if so would have apologized to you for saying you had not published scholarly research), you have have only proven you have published material. That does not make you a Ph.D, nor does it show CPU to be anything more than what it was found to be, an illegal.
If you are confident of your writing abilities, why do you feel the need to claim a Ph.D from a illegal degree mill, and continue to try to support the degree mill in your writing? Why not just give up the fake Ph.D and be a writer? Lots of people are successful doing that; you don’t need to fool people if you are good.
A MESSAGE OF LOVE FOR 2007
The world is a dangerous and hostile place but the human condition is not hopeless. We are capable of transcending ourselves. I believe that the greatest force in the universe is not gravitation, electricity or nuclear energy but love. It is a redeeming force. Salvation comes from love. It comes from people such as Gandhi, who committed himself to nonviolent resistance, Mother Theresa who spent her life helping sick people and orphans, or Albert Schweitzer who committed himself to the service of humanity. They affirmed their towering love for the oppressed, the persecuted, the hungry and ill, by taking personal responsibility for them, by living a meaningful life of high compassion, lofty benevolence, exalted joy and majestic dignity.
Can we treat people with respect and love even though that they do not treat us with respect and love? The Bible advises us to care for others, to respect and love not only our own families and neighbors but also our enemies. Similar ideas can be found in Buddhism, as well as in other religions. The ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu wrote in Tao Te Ching that when we love the world as we love ourselves, all reality becomes haven reinventing for us our own heaven. Among other things, Taoism teaches us how to acquire peace of mind, reminding us that to know tranquility is to embrace the needs of all people as our own. This implies that that we should be good not merely to those who are good to us but also to those who are still absorbed in their own needs.
I wish you a Happy New Year!
PH (no little d), bravo on yet another off-topic post! Nice dodge of the question on your degree mill degree too. So, now, after trying to deceive us all about an illegal degree mill, and with zero credibility, you have the gall to lecture us on religion and what the Bible says?
Maybe you should first practice what you preach pal.
This thread is very interesting but is being argued on 2 very different levels- the articulate, civilized posts of Paul Hartal (and a few others) and the mad,hateful mud slinging of Espinoza.
We can all disagree, but why all the vile and insults by Espinoza? I am also interested in Mr Espinoza’s own educational background, writings and the like. For someone who claims such authority on academia. he make a lot of judgements, but the style of his writing and the level of his debate does not sound very articulate or informed. He should gladly prove his credibillity, since he challenges EVERYONE who dares disagree with him, and makes such damning evaluations of CPU. Oh, and credibility is more than slinging mud and crude insults at people. Bully does NOT equaly credibility.
Surprise me, Mr Espinoza (or whatever your real name is ) and respond like a decent high school grad, rather than an unschooled bully.
Aquarious, and whatever your real name is, the answer to your question, in case you are really too stupid to understand: I am insulting to PH and people like you because you are unworthy of respect, which needs to be earned.
Why did you show up here? Why are you involved at this late stage? This article is about a scammer named John La Tourrette, not PH. You must have an agenda to cover up the CPU scam too. Do you also have a fake degree from there? Is that your real motivation???
PH is a liar, and you holds a fake degree. There is nothing to argue about. There is no disagreement, nor is there any argument. I’m not disagreeing with him; I’m calling him a liar who posted off topic (he still are doing this), attempted to use clever words to deceive. He doesn’t belong here. He hijacked this thread, and tried to insert his dishonest arguments regarding your illegal degree mill, even though he knew they were off-topic posts in a thread regarding John M. La Tourrette, another scammer. This thread had nothing to do with him.
The only high school grad here is you, if you even made it that far. You don’t even know what peer reviewed research means. After all, you even tried to fool us into believing you had real scholarly research, when you were actually lying and had only a few old articles published that had no scientific proof.
HE is the bully for lying, deceiving, posting off topic; and the in short, you’re an asshole. Why doesn’t he crawl back under whatever rock he came from?
By the way, it is none of your business what my background is, I’m not the one who showed up here with a fake Ph.D and off-topic posts. I make no claims and have nothing to prove. And yet, I find it suspicious that you do nothing but comment in defense of PH for his lies, yet you add nothing to this comments section except to try and attack me. I wonder why that it is??? It’s very suspicious, and makes me think again that you are trying to assuage your guilty concience, as a fake Ph.D holder or CPU grad. I have no respect for people like you. Again, there is no debate here. If there were no scam involved, a civilized debate would be the way to go. But for those who have been using fake degrees to deceive others, there is nothing but contempt.
By the way, Aquarius, why don’t you publish informaton regarding your real name, and the fake degree you purchased from CPU? Also, why don’t you explain why you aren’t posting on-topic regarding the original article these comments are related to?
Why don’t you surprise me, and yourself, and tell us who you really are, and why you are attempting to defend the illegal degree mill CPU and PH, who purchased his degree there too?
To all, it really shows the sad state of affairs when we have paid shills showing up on this scam forum to actually defend their fake Ph.D ’s from the illegal degree mill Columbia Pacific University. Apparently they noticed John M. La Tourrette, the scammer profiled in the original article also purchased his fake Ph.D from Columbia Pacific University. Their feeble attempts to defend their fake degrees and beloved fake illegal degree mill are absurd as a thief defending his right to steal because this is a free country!
I hold these inviduals in contempt not because they disagree with me, but because they are liars and are trying to deceive the public. In fact they are beneath contempt and are deserving only of the most vile treatment.
This is exactly the treatment I’ve been giving them, and will continue to give them. They think by attacking me for giving them what they deserve, they can somehow hide or cover up their true purpose, to deceive the public into accepting their fake degrees and degree mill. How disgusting. Their words mean nothing to me.
Civlized people worthy of respect do not purchase fake degrees from an illegal degree mill, and then try to deceive others into believing they have a real degree.
Also, to all, at this point, it would be useful to read the entire thread. Until the shills for CPU showed up, my only comment was regarding the original article, regarding John M. La Tourrette. However, Paul Hartel then showed up, hijacked the thread, accused the site of libel, and attacked other posters. Only then did I let him have it, as I knew what he was up to.
CPU UNFAIRLY DEFAMED BY A VIGILANTE
There are approximately 7,500 graduates of Columbia Pacific University. Insulting and defaming one of them for being affiliated with the school is slandering all CPU graduates. The California court that closed CPU did not accept the prosecutor’s accusation that the school was a diploma mill and in fact adjudicated that CPU degrees awarded between 1978 and 1997 are legally valid. Joe Espinoza does not understand the complexities of the closing of CPU. Moreover, he does not recognize the adjudication of the judicial system in California. Instead, he acts as a self-appointed and above the law VIGILANTE, someone who takes law enforcement into his own hands. Vigilantism is considered to be a form of criminal behavior, associated with lynch mobs, Neo-Nazis and other hate groups.
A diploma mill is a bogus school selling fake degrees. CPU was a real school where students earned their degrees by meaningful academic work. Anyone genuinely interested in the truth can check this out easily; for example, on Google Scholar, which lists hundreds of CPU citations. There is nothing deceptive or dishonest to put a CPU affiliation on a resume, stating the fact that the school was a California State approved institution. On the other hand hiding a CPU affiliation is dishonest.
Joe Espinoza conveniently ignores Paul Hartal’s highly acclaimed doctoral thesis published as The Brush and the Compass: The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science. The author researched his subject matter for a number of years, and as described in the book, collaborated with renowned artists, writers and scientists, among them the Nobel laureate physicists Aage Bohr of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and Sir Nevill Mott of Cambridge University.
Mr. Espinoza’s contention that Mr. Hartal’s did not publish papers in known peer-reviewed journals is simply not true. Mr. Hartal’s scholarly writings appeared, for example, in Leonardo, the leading journal of the International Society for Art, Science and Technology, published by MIT, and in Symmetry, under the aegis of the Biochemical Society. Mr. Espinoza also reveals his ignorance regarding the meaning of PhD, the Doctor of Philosophy degree. The social sciences, the arts, the humanities and the natural sciences employ very different methodologies, although doctorates are earned in all of them. The hermeneutical disciplines of philosophy, history or literary theory interpret human behavior, past events and traditions without using laboratory tests or empirical experiments.
I would like to point out that the legality of using CPU degrees is not the issue here. The issue is the misguided and dishonest attack on the academic integrity of CPU. The undeniable documented facts show that CPU was a California approved university, and approval was equivalent to regional accreditation. The US Government in the 1980s listed CPU as an accredited school. As mentioned above, the court that closed CPU never ruled that the school was a diploma mill and established that CPU degrees earned between 1978 and 1997 are legally valid.
ODA does not say either that CPU was a diploma mill. Its designation of CPU as an “unaccredited” institution is misleading the public because regional accreditation is not the only form of legally valid authorization for operating a good school. CPU was State accredited (approved). To say that it was not accredited is like saying that VISA is not a credit card because it is not American Express. Just because CPU was not regionally accredited it does not mean that it was illegal or substandard. The accomplishments and success of its thousands of graduates prove that it was an excellent trail blazing nontraditional university. Students at CPU contributed to the advancement of human knowledge. A simple search with Google Scholar will confirm this. Nowadays traditional universities copy the innovative programs of the school. The alumni of CPU are proud of their alma mater. There is nothing illegal or dishonest to earn a well-deserved degree through distance education. The problem is not CPU, but Mr. Espinoza and the mob allied with him. Their narrow-mindedness and vigilantism endangers the rise of new ideas in education, hinders educational experimentation, oppresses academic freedom, creates a hostile environment for the advancement of knowledge and harms the cause of social progress.
The defamation of CPU results from the politically tainted theatrical rhetoric of the prosecutor in the school’s trials and the scandal mongering media. CPU alumni are interested in constructive criticism. They welcome intellectually honest debates. However, since they believe that educational pluralism serves the public good, they consider CPU bashing through the regurgitation of the already clichéd and biased contentions against the school as counterproductive.
Wow. We’ve really got the flies out buzzing around this pile of dung called Columbia Pacific University.
Highly acclaimed, is his thesis? Based on who’s opinion??? Scholarly research, published with NO scientificly validated studies in a university magazine? A university magazine is not a scholarly journal.
The information regarding just how worthless degrees from CPU are is publicly available, and has been long before this thread started. I merely availed myself of search engines after Paul Hartel started his rant, as he made me very suspicious. In searching, I found a great deal of negative information on this degree mill. There is no slander. I did not create the information, in fact, what has been said here has barely scratched the surface of this shoddy degree printing scam. Readers can do the same research and come up with the same information.
Why don’t you publish your name, “Reader”? Why are you hiding? Because you’re full of bull, that’s why.
If you don’t like being thought of as a phony, go get your degree from a legitimate and accredited university.
Reader, the person who posted the garbage without using your real name, the only criminal here is you. You are attempting to defraud the public, and support fraudulent degree mills like Columbia Pacific University. Vigilante? No, not me. I agree with the authorities in there action to shut the dung pile CPU. That does not make me a vigilante, it makes me a supporter of law and order.
The obscene and slanderous comments of Joe Espinoza lend support to the argument that CPU has been a victim of the dirty politics of education. His insistence that he is not a criminal vigilante because he agrees with the judicial decision of the closing of CPU is ridiculous. He respects only that part of the law that suits him. His posture is similar to the gangster who admitted that he was a mobster but said he was innocent because he did not rape the neighbour’s daughter. The Superintendent of Public Instruction in California appointed qualified visiting committees that conducted comprehensive and qualitative assessments of CPU and in 1986 granted full institutional approval to the school. Approval was equivalent to regional accreditation. It was the same State of California that both accredited and closed CPU. By refusing to accept the judiciary right of the State of California to accredit schools, by refusing to respect the judicial decision that CPU degrees are legally valid, Mr. Espinoza does act as a vigilante.
Please read the statements posted on Wikipedia by Mark A. Gardner, Earon Kavanagh, Allen Wai Jang, Rosemary Facteau and Paul Hartal,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Columbia_Pacific_University#Graduate_defends_school_April_25.2C_2006
Mr. Espinoza makes a real fool of himself by judging a book that he never saw.
Unlike most dissertations, which are obscure, unpublished and hardly available to the public, Paul Hartal’s critically acclaimed doctoral thesis has been published as The Brush and the Compass: The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science, Lanham: University Press of America, 1988, ISBN 0-8191-6847-5. Although one must assume some degree of honest competence for this, if Mr.Espinoza had really been interested in the truth he could go to a major library to see for himself that the book is a major study and not a short paper, as he asserts. Apart from the XXXII pages of the Acknowledgments, Preface and Introduction, numbered in Roman numerals, the book comprises 341 pages. There are 6 chapters in the book:
1. The Creative Process: Newton and Constable
2. Mathematics as Applied Science and as Subject Matter in the Visual Arts
3. Visual Perception and Painting
4. Beyond Technology: The Aesthetics of the Subway
5. Artificial Intelligence and aesthetics: Cognitive Machines, Consciousness and Computer Art
6. The ‘Two Cultures’ and the Problem of Inclusive Knowledge
The book also includes Conclusion, References, Bibliography, List of Illustrations and Index.
Documented evidence has already been provided elsewhere in this thread
that the Brush and the Compass serves as a textbook for university courses and cited in scholarly publications. An easily available chapter on Paul Hartal’s work, including The Brush and the Compass, can be found in Clifford A. Pickover, Mazes for the Mind: Computers and the Unexpected, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pp. 277-79. An IBM Research Staff Member, Dr. Pickover received his Ph.D. from Yale University. Dr. Elena Marchisotto, Professor of Mathematics at California State University at Northbridge, said of The Brush and the Compass: “A Wonderful book. I assign it to my students as a resource to explore connections between art and math”.
Oh, goodie! Another attack on me because I agree with the authorities for shutting down the dung pile Columbia Pacific University! Now Steven Coblin says I’m a “gangster who admitted that he was a mobster but said he was innocent because he did not rape the neighbour’s daughter.” Oh, is that supposed to slander me for agreeing with the authorities? I am a vigilante because of my agreement? You are an idiot, and your pathetic attempts to attack me show you as such.
Coblin, you can’t even get your analogies straight. No matter, you also can’t seem to understand or accept that the authorities DID shut the CPU degree mill down, and it is now illegal, whether you like it or not. YOU are the criminal here, for not making that clear to the public. You are a criminal liar attempting to deceive people into believing that an illegal degree mill was shut down wrongly by the authorities. Hey dummie, did you happen to read who shut it down? It was not me! That should be a clue! It was shut down by the California authorities. I have not the power you seem to want to annoint me with. I am only an observer. Unlike you, however, I’m also an honest one. Stop lying. CPU was shut down and is illegal.
And, many graduates from CPU were found to have been basically sold degrees for which they did little work. The work they did do was not supervised and not of the quality of legitimate institutions. The fact that degrees issued prior to 1987 are somehow “valid” because of a legal loophole in NO way means they are accredited. They are not. You are a liar to say that they are. The documents clearly show these degrees are NOT accredited. I’m not a vigilante, but you are a liar to state that I’m acting as a vigilante by stating the truth. Legally “valid” is not the same as accredited.
Take your degree scam somewhere else Coblin.
The criminal scam artists above are attempting to cover up the legal truth that has been already published about Columbia Pacific University. Therefore, I’m supplying the details again, so the read will not be confused by their attempts to deceive:
From Wikipedia, it is clear that graduates and officials of CPU have previously attempted to deceive and that is what they are doing again now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Pacific_University
“Judge Lynn Duryee on December 2, 1999, granted a request by state deputy attorney general Asher Rubin to impose a permanent injunction against the school’s operation, and to refund fees to all of its students. In addition, Duryee issued four separate fines totaling $10,000 for the university’s “deceptive and unfair practices” in continuing to operate without authorization and make false claims about its status.”
From the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
“The following list of unaccredited degree suppliers is maintained by ODA for the protection of the citizens of Oregon and their post-secondary schools by identifying those degree suppliers that do not meet the requirements of ORS 348.609(1)…Columbia Pacific University. California. Closed by court order”
From the GAO http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04771t.pdf
“In December 1999, the Marin County Superior Court ordered Columbia Pacific University to cease operations within California. The court determined that Columbia Pacific failed to meet various requirements for issuing PhD degrees, awarded excessive credit based on life experience, and failed to employ duly qualified staff.”
From Quackwatch.org http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/News/cpu.html (Here is what Quackwatch found about the so-called “valid” degrees)
“This merely means that the school was allowed to issue degrees. It does not mean that the school was accredited or that employers should regard the degrees as representing education equivalent to that of accredited schools. During the 1980s, an official of the California Postsecomdary Education Commission confirmed to me that CPU had been authorized to operate but was not accredited [4].”
Folks, read the above citations and follow the links. Columbia Pacific University is a scam and consumer fraud, pure and simple.
Any decent reader can see that the obscene and irrational Joe Espinoza cannot handle the complexities of CPU. Bureaucrats get confused and contradict each other. GAO? The fact is that CPU today is a federally recognized non-profit university, http://www.cpuniv.us. As already pointed out above, ODA misleads the public by saying that CPU is “unaccredited”. CPU was California State accredited (approved). Quackwatch? Courts found that its credibility was next to zero (please, see above).
Both Wikipedia and the Columbia Pacific University web sites http://www.altcpualumni.org, http://www.cpuniv.us, document the dirty politics of higher education in California that led to the closing of CPU. The shutdown of the school was implemented by people like the Deputy Attorney General of California, Asher Rubin, who boasts that he got his expertise in education by stealing female underwear :
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/connection/connect/mycu/12.html
A Just Education
Asher Rubin, Alum, Parent
Columbia College 1958
When I was a freshman I led a panty raid on Barnard. We had at least 100 guys storming the Barnard dorm in search of underwear. (What trophy could be more valuable?) In the pandemonium I hit one room and snared some underwear which I hid under my jacket. As I emerged I was confronted by a burly cop who snarled, “And what do you think you’re doing?” I replied, “Sir, I’m just trying to get an education.”
Editor’s Note: Asher Rubin, author and hero of this tale, now serves as the Deputy Attorney General of California.
_______________________________________________
CPU WAS CLOSED BY FLAWED AND BIASED REPORT:
THE EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT RACISM AND IGNORANCE WERE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
________________________________________________
The California private postsecondary education act of 1989 was brought in, at least in part, by a lobby from independent accredited institutions who were concerned that state approved private institutions were taking too much of their business. This can be inferred in part from comments by Spille and Stewart (1988: see Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud). The 1989 Act only allowed traditional curricula and disallowed anything innovative. In effect, the 1989 act created a hierarchy of learning and eradicated innovation. Under pressure the State turned its back on innovation, giving the rights to innovation to accredited schools only.
CPU was closed on the basis of a fabricated report. According to the visiting committee which refused CPU’s request for re-approval, CPU was unable to meet the new regulations. An independent consultant reviewed the findings and found “88 errors of fact” by the committee. CPU failed one re-approval visit but passed other re-approval visits for almost 20 years. Schools also lose their accreditation from time to time or end up “on notice” or on probation. CPU was given no such opportunity to correct its failings.
In one error the committee stated that two Africans serving as Deans at CPU were unqualified to be Deans because they had graduated from “unaccredited” schools. In fact their PhD’s were from established and respected European universities (University of Wales and the University of Bremen). CPU appealed the committee’s decision. Another absurd accusation in the report said that Richard Crews was unfit to be president of CPU because he was an MD and not a PhD (presidents of numerous accredited colleges and universities have no doctoral degrees). The complaint about “the Spanish dissertation” is a myth. According to this myth the readers who evaluated the thesis spoke no Spanish. In reality the thesis director was fluent in Spanish and parts of the dissertation were in English. Another accusation concerned the allegedly insufficient length of a thesis. In actuality it was more than three times longer than Albert Einstein’s doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Zurich in 1905, ” A new determination of molecular dimensions”, which was only 21 page long (see, Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 1972, p. 73). The report on the CPU dissertation clearly confused quality with quantity, because it is not the number of pages that determines the merits of a paper or a thesis. By the way, at some point CPU established that the minimum length of a doctoral thesis should be at least 150 pages.
For a complete refutation of the committee report used in the trial see documents and discussions in Wikipedia as well as http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles/dex5cpuchronicles.html , http://www.Columbia-Pacific-University.net and http://www.altcpualumni.org .
In 1997 the administrative judge hearing the case refused to give CPU’s president time to find an attorney. The president, Richard Crews, MD, had to act as CPU’s attorney, and lost in court. CPU was ordered to close as of June 21, 1997. A high level state official turned whistleblower and later testified in court that she was told that the state agency (now California’s BBPVE) had planned to close down CPU. She testified that this conspiracy was in the works going back to 1992.
Facts about Columbia Pacific University have been twisted out of context by some self-serving website owners who are trying to increase their website traffic. Other detractors have included media who do not do their homework and appear to prefer yellow journalism than real full reporting.These “reporters” and website “critics” often select only facts and rhetoric that meet their own agenda.
COLUMBIA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY TRUTH OBFUSCATED BY DISHONEST, SELF-SERVING GRADUATES WITH FAKE DEGREES
As any intelligent reader can plainly see, the attempts by Coblin, Hartal and their ilk to defame me are feeble attempts to obfuscate the truth regarding the closure of the illegal degree mill Columbia Pacific University.
Of course, these hucksters are really trying to demean and discredit all of the authorities who closed the degree mill. As in the above post by posting slanderous, unsubstantiated allegations against the Deputy Attorney General of California, etc.
Surely, any intelligent reader can see these scam artists for what they are. My purpose in continuing this debate is to not let them muddy the waters. I certainly had nothing to do with the shut down of the degree mill, and have no axe to grind. But I am fed up with internet fraud and the like, just like everyone who is an honest person.
Interestingly, the scammer profiled in this Crud of the Month article, John M. La Tourrette, has not appeared here to defend the degree mill he received his fake Ph.D from. So, he must know it was a scam, and decided to accept he has no Ph.D.
Columbia Pacific University was closed down by the authorities and a court order. There is no other truth. That means that those on hear saying otherwise are trying to deceive people. Don’t let them get away with it.
CRIMINAL LIAR COBLIN ATTEMPTS TO DECEIVE PUBLIC AS TO CURRENT STATUS OF COLUMBIA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
Coblin also tries to deceive the reader by claiming “CPU is today is a federally recognized non-profit university, http://www.cpuniv.us.” However, clicking on the link shows that it is ONLY a a non-profit CORPORATION. All it is a group of alumnis who have banded together to try to hold on to the “degrees” they purchased. After all, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“Columbia Pacific University is registered as a nonprofit corporation and has recently been awarded federal nonprofit status under Section 501 (c) (3) by an IRS review.”
Coblin, the only obscenity on this site is you, Hartal, and your ilk who have tried to defraud the public by misleading them about the closure of your beloved illegal degree mill. Well, tough luck, guys, you can yell all you want, insult all you want, but the end is the same. You’re wasting your time, and your degrees are worthless.
Sorry, could NOT resist asking…Coblin, you seem to have left out a reply to the Oregon authorities, as their decision was posted above. I’ll repost it to save you having to conveniently miss it again. Now, in your slovenly attempts to discredit the authorities, do you also want to find a way to insult the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization. Were they too, fabricating evidence according to you, who seems to have a lie to cover everything?
From the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
“The following list of unaccredited degree suppliers is maintained by ODA for the protection of the citizens of Oregon and their post-secondary schools by identifying those degree suppliers that do not meet the requirements of ORS 348.609(1)…Columbia Pacific University. California. Closed by court order”
Looks like they, along with the rest of us, could not care less what you think, or how many lies you tell. You’re still done.
COLUMBIA PACIFIC “UNIVERSITY” IS NOW NOTHING MORE THAN A PUBLIC CHARITY ACCORDING TO THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
Incredibly, amazingly, the link provided by Coblin http://www.cpuniv.us./ does not show Columbia Pacific University to be a non-profit “university”, but instead, is actually a Public Charity according to the IRS! Not a “university” as claimed by Coblin, but a Public Charity. Coblin is nothing more than a liar and fabricator.
Read the entire letter from the IRS here http://www.cpuniv.us./images/irs2.jpg
Oh, and in the I should have known it category, this scumbag Coblin did in fact attack the Oregon Degree Authorization Department, by saying in his post “ODA misleads the public by saying that CPU is “unaccredited”. You’re the one trying to mislead the public here pal. The rest of us know the ODA and related agencies are there to protect us from con men like you.
Re: John M. LaTourrette, has a valid state approved Ph.D.
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My name is John La Tourrette, and one of my clients brought this post full of lies and intentional distortions to my attention.
I don’t know the fellow who posted these distortions (he posted under an alias), and I am posting for the sole purpose of answering his sleazy distortions, deletions, negative assumptions, incorrect references, mind reads and on purpose lies.
>LaTourrette is a slippery fellow currently selling a number of trainings and >DVD type courses such as “Silva Ultramind’s Remote Viewing and Remote >Influencing The Next Evolution in Mind Power by Dennis Higgins and John La >Tourrette, Ph.D.”,
Assumption! I must be slippery because I sell something? You are grasping for straws!
Yes. I am good at selling.
Yes, when I was a Silva Mind Control Trainer, I was very good at teaching their course, their way, word for word.
So what?
That’s a sign of expertise, a sign of good training, and a sign of respect and loyalty to those that you work for.
I helped the Silva Mind Control people do that product with Nightengale-conant because an old friend, Ed Bernd (of the Silva UltraMind Group) asked me to help them with it