Social media legal ‘experts’ to get Honourary Degrees

Citing the vast quantities of insightful expertise and legal opinion being offered incessantly on social media websites Facebook and Twitter, universities across the world have today announced their decision to confer thousands of Honourary Doctorates in Law to what they’re calling “the true legal geniuses of our time.”

According to Law Faculty Deans worldwide, what is most surprising of all is how these amazing and legally-literate opinions have all been produced after seemingly little to no prior study of the law, at any level.

“When we look back at some of the most popular and controversial legal cases of our time – the O.J Simpson trial, the Oscar Pistorius case, the Michael Jackson hearings, or even back as far as the Jacob Zuma inquiries – what we notice again and again is a wave, a veritable flood of thousands of social media users giving paragraphs-long and technically sound legal insights into these nuanced and complex cases,” said Dean of the Witswaterstrand University Law Faculty, Iona Gavel.

“Who would have known that so many hundreds of people, with little – if any – legal training or university knowledge of the Rome Statute, Constitutional Law, Due Process or even Crimen Injuria would be able to produce such lucid, confident, and not-at-all-pulled-out-their-arses legal commentary?” she said. “Often, at just a single glance at the case in question, they can instantly tell if someone’s guilty. Hell, I wonder why we even have universities or law faculties.”

However, many of the soon-to-be Honourary Doctors of Law are remain humble.

“It’s quite simple [how we did it],” explained mechanic and part-time understudy of famed Civil Law Barrister Judge Judy, Ree Parenjin. “You just look at the facts that they’ve reported in the newspaper and on my twitters, think about it for a few seconds, and the truth of the whole issue becomes immediately clear. Some people have an issue with what we say, but really there are some kinds of justice that are better and faster. Ag, some of these old judges have spent so much time in dusty libraries and boring classrooms reading cold, dull so-called ‘precedents’ that they no longer understand what justice is.“

And now, citizens everywhere are looking forward to the promise of a better, more efficient legal system.

“Oscar Pistorius was obviously guilty,” said Parenjin. “In a brighter future, we won’t have true justice delayed or cheated by pesky appeals processes or irritating subminimum standards of Reasonable Doubt. Oscar, those blerrie rhino poachers in the Kruger [National Park], and even corrupt ministers: they’ll all get the death penalty or life in jail, straight.”

Legal experts can’t wait.

“I look at some of the sentences and legal process changes these guys want, and I have to say I’m excited,” said Gavel. “I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”

Shocking new study finds “you’re not even my real dad”

The scientific community is agog today, after breath-taking new research showed undeniable evidence that “you’re not even my real father”.

The commissioned research, which was headed by 17-year-old Rebecca Evansfield and looked deep into the scientific field of Yourdaughterology, found many disturbing correlations and links between data previously thought impossible.

“The research really has swept at least one scientist off his feet,” said Evansfield. “I mean, we found a 75% probability that you’re not the boss of me, which gives rise to the disturbing revelation that it is highly, highly likely that I can do whatever I want”.

And that’s just the beginning, says Evansfield.

“Our findings are as bold as they are startling,” she explained. “Just a few years ago, who would have thought it possible that you can’t tell me what to do anymore, or that there exist a set of very particular theoretical physical models that showed that my being a proper grown up now who doesn't have to listen to you could potentially be more than just a random statistical glitch?”

The findings, however, are fraught with controversy, and are already being contested and criticised by at least one scientist, who - the study suggests - doesn’t deserve to be married to such an amazing woman.

The findings have already been criticised by once-divorced scientist Dr Bardensen.

“Yes, we can agree that there may be an element of truth to the findings,” said 49-year-old senior lab manager at the Centre for Chemical Studies, Michael Bardensen. “Sure, scientists now speculate that this shocking possibility could extend as far as, say, you getting a tattoo on your back, or that it even may have as far-reaching ramifications as your going out whenever you want to, but its whole premise is premature.”

Bardensen stresses that the findings are rash at best.

“The data might suggest that you should be allowed to date that Senior in the football team, or be able go to Tessa’s big house party next Saturday, but I guarantee you that these discoveries are all just a part of the ups and downs of scientific enquiry,” he said. “Already I have found contradictory data that suggests that, actually, you live in my house and don’t pay rent; and previous studies published by I. M. Hyorfahtha et al stress that just wait until your mother hears about this.”

Already Bardensen’s theory has been confirmed by eminent researchers, such as senior researcher for the Home Foundation, Jessica Bardensen nee Evansfield.

“Just wait a few years,” said the counter study in a joint statement this afternoon. “You’ll see that we were right all along.”

Asian schoolchild drops out to complete maths doctorate

Citing his inability to grasp basic concepts that his classmates have already mastered for months now, School Administrators at the Xin-Xu Juan Middle School in Beijung, China, have today announced their reluctant decision to temporarily expel eight-year-old Xiang Luan and send him on a remedial catch-up maths camp at Harvard University’s Department of Advanced Theoretical Mathematics.

“He’s been falling behind his classmates for some time now,” said class teacher Lu Shao. “It’s all that Grade 8 Master’s violin and Grandmaster Chess that he’s been spending his idle time on. If he’d focussed more, it wouldn’t have had to come to this repeating a year.

The Headmaster now hopes that the course at Harvard will help young Xiang to revise basic concepts covered in their lower grades so that he can one day re-join his classmates.

“It shouldn’t take him too long I hope,” said seven-year-old classmate Jiang Xu-bai (BSC, MA, PhD). “Hopefully we’ll see him for the start of the new year in January.”

This is just the latest in a string of controversies in the Chinese education sector. Earlier in May of this year, a scathing educational report found that over 70% of Chinese school children aged six and below had the mathematical abilities of only a 25-year-old American graduate.

“Our school system has taken a huge knock in the past couple of years,” said Chinese Minister of Education Byang Bai-Li. “Some of our middle-school entrants can’t even compete against their 28-year-old American counterparts.”

In any case, Luan’s parents say that young Xiang should graduate summa cum laude by November at least, making him eligible to go into grade 10 next year.

“We just hope that this minor setback and waste of a year redoing his childhood tutoring won’t knock his self-confidence too much.”