January 08, 2005
Like cats need any more reason to act superior
Recently, a particularly Devoted Reader sent along a link to this story:
The Pennsylvania attorney general's office Monday sued an online university for allegedly selling bogus academic degrees -- including an MBA awarded to a cat. Trinity Southern University in Texas, a cellular company and the two brothers who ran them are accused of misappropriating Internet addresses of the state Senate and more than 60 Pennsylvania businesses to sell fake degrees and prescription drugs by spam e-mail, according to the lawsuit.
Investigators paid $299 for a bachelor's degree for Colby Nolan -- a deputy attorney general's 6-year-old black cat -- claiming he had experience including baby-sitting and retail management. The school, which offers no classes, allegedly determined Colby Nolan's resume entitled him to a master of business administration degree; a transcript listed the cat's course work and 3.5 grade-point average.
What caught my eye was the subject line of the email sent to me: "Good News, Pippin and Alice can get their MBAs!" What's weirder - that a cat can now obtain an MBA, or that a complete stranger (in the face-to-face sense) knows the names of both my cats and thought of them when he read about this on CNN?
Here, Pippin studies his textbook on capitalism and the arts:
