Concerning lists of blogging tips

Lists are always a big item on the internet, like "100 movies to see before you die." An item titled Blogging Tips For Business included a warning about plagiarism:

Plagiarize- do not plagiarize. This is one of the things you must remember. Make sure you post original content. Plagiarism is stealing. If you are running out of ideas or time to create contents for your blog then you can hire a virtual assistant to blog for you.

Hmmm, "a house divided against itself cannot stand"? Plagiarism is bad, but ghost writing is all right? Don't think so.
[Of course, as Dean Velvel suggested in the Laurence Tribe matter, one can have unusual problems when your ghost rider (writer) plagiarizes and you get caught.]

Another tip was:

Allow comments- allowing comments is important in blogging because comments serve as feedback. You can use feedback to improve your products and services.

A lot of "comments" coming into IPBiz have little to do with the post, and a lot to do with promoting someone else's website. They do not serve as feedback.

**Text on Dean Velvel's blog:

Dear Dean Velvel:

We thought you might want to be alerted to our latest post, here: Has it occurred to you that the reason Summers and Kagan were so "firmly convinced" Tribe's plagiarism was the product simply of "inadvertence" was that Tribe's defense was, basically, "my ghostwriter did it"? That would be a valid defense to intentional plagiarism, wouldn't it? Kagan seems to have some personal experience with Tribe's extensive use of ghostwriters, as it seems she was one of Tribe's ghostwriters in the1980s as a student. Someone with a sense of humor (maybe a warped one) is impersonating Tribe at thebigmahatma.blogspot.com, and there "Tribe" talks about the 32 students who wrote the second edition of his treatise. I thought it was a joke, but the preface actually lists 32 students (obviously they drafted much of it, which is why he needed so many students; as you pointed out with Judge Posner, it takes many fewer helpers if one writes a book oneself, and typically Posners books have only one to three research assistants). And one of the students is "Elena Kagan," who I assume is the same Elena Kagan who is now dean. Of course, that defense, which was pretty much Ogletree's, when you laid bare his September statement about his "corrections" to the"errors" in his book, seems ultimately more devastating to Tribe's reputation than the idea that Tribe personally copied from Abraham, especially coming after the November statements in the national media by Professor Hoffer (on CSPAN's "Booknotes") that Tribe may be merely a "compiler" of material ghostwritten for him by others, and by Professor Gardner (in the New York Times) about the phenomenon of "managed books."

**In passing, at least one blog has suggested Elena Kagan to be the nominee to replace Justice Stevens, after he announces
his retirement from the Supreme Court.

**IPBiz could not pass up a comment on a different list on 4 Jan 10: Not Getting Hired? 10 Reasons Why

First up on the list:

1. You lie

Any lies you tell in your job search, whether on your résumé or in an interview, will come back to haunt you. In a 2008 CareerBuilder survey, 49 percent of hiring managers reported they caught a candidate lying on their résumé; of those employers, 57 percent said they automatically dismissed the applicant. Everything you tell an employer can be discovered, so it behooves you to be honest from the get-go. If you're concerned about something in your past, invention is not the answer. Use your cover letter to tell your story, focusing on your strengths and accomplishments and explaining any areas of concern if needed.

IPBiz notes the previous post Resume of Trump's E.J. Ridings questioned

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2006/11/univ-montreal-discusses-poehlman-issue.html [including the text: Eric Poehlman was already under an investigative cloud when he was being recruited by the Universite de Montreal in 2001.

Trouble is, he never bothered to mention it before he was hired with great fanfare, landing a $1-million research grant as the Canada Research Chair in nutrition and metabolism at U de M.

"Obviously, we were none too happy that he didn't inform us," Pierre Boyle, vice dean of research and post-graduate studies in U de M's faculty of medicine, said this week. ]

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2005/04/journal-science-reports-another-fraud.html

**Also, concerning the investigation by Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, of the background of Ben Domenech:

Brady said his staff did "a fair amount of checking" into Domenech's background before the hiring but that "we could have and should have done a better job."

As in many plagiarism cases, the charges here were likely politically motivated. That, of course, does not excuse plagiarism, but it does suggest that the cases one hears about are not randomly selected.