back to article Cat awarded online high school diploma

A cat belonging to a US and Canada Better Business Bureau exec has been granted a high school diploma. Yes, it's an online high school. According to a report by msnbc.com, the two-year-old feline graduated from Jefferson High School Online (JHSO), an institution so confident in its pedagogical perfection that it offers a money …

COMMENTS

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  1. Herby

    Why not issue a MCSE from the same place

    For $199.00 it is probably worth the same amount of money. Included with "hints" and four chances for the correct answer.

    Sounds like a deal to me.

  2. Col

    $199? They saw you coming, pal.

    Didn't Ben Goldacre do something similar a while back? I think it only cost him about $60 to get his cat a diploma. His cat was dead, though - maybe he got a discount.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    I nuw I cud gat

    my high sckool deploma soomeday!

    (Where the hell is the cat symbol! PH - cause.....)

  4. James O'Brien
    Joke

    HAH I have a cat who couldnt pass shit

    I doubt that my cat could pass this at all. In a 24 hour day he spends an hour to 2 hours active (active includes going to take a shit, running into doors before someone close them AFTER he went through them and eating), 12 hours worth licking his floppy sac or ass and the final 32 hours sleeping.

    Yes I know the math is wrong but I swear to god my cat has figure out how to extend time. But he is an absolute total moron.

    Another question is this. Rik you sure this article is you and not Lester? Could have sworn he deals with the funny shit and you dealt with Apple :-P

    So anyway unless there is a 'degree' for being a total idiot and managing to bend space time to sleep more time then there is in a day I doubt it.

    /Though its funny if you think about it. This article on the day I decide to go $18k in debt each year for 2 years to work on Masters.........weeeeee

    /Im going to go drown myself in beer because I dont remmeber it costing this much before......

  5. chris swain
    FAIL

    British is best!

    We have accredited courses over here that are as easy to pass and I suspect that the organisations delivering them make a shed load more than $199. Wasn't there an article on here yesterday about a kid who got a Unit 1 pass in 'catching the bus'?

    You can get half a GCSE grade C in maths or english by taking a multiple choice online test, if you fail you can retake it immediately and I've heard of teachers giving pupils hints while they take them! Gotta hit them targets...

    'FAIL' because, ironically, you can't.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    bet it couldn't catch a bus though

    Or any of the other things our wonderful AQA will test you on.

  7. /dev/me
    Paris Hilton

    The cost of education, by comparison

    "Oreo could have saved twenty-five bucks. Dumb cat."

    And there's your accounting skill at 'basic' level.

    Still, considering all the time and money (and yes indeed, effort) that went into my (local equivalent of) High School graduation, that $25,- all of a sudden doesn't seem very much.

    Paris, for obvious reasons

  8. J Ford

    A good earner

    I'm sure these sort of scams only make money out of investigative journalists.

  9. Dave Bell

    What would Ceiling Cat do?

    I mean, this is a clear case of impersonation of a cat. For a High School Certificate.

    I mean, come on. Don't our felines deserve better qualifications than that?

    And a Cheezburger.

  10. Number6
    FAIL

    Dumb cat?

    With a name like that, you should have said she's not a smart cookie!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    I don't think

    this has been thought through. Teaching cats IT skills. Is this cat part of an internet ring with the one that downloaded kiddie pr0n? Ya gotta watch 'em, theys no morals, unlike goggies. Wuf!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Question

    Does this rank above or below the Diploma for using Public Transport highlighted yesterday????

  13. bluesxman
    Flame

    @ James O'Brien

    I trust that the English Language won't be the subject of your Masters...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oooooh!

    THAT's why so many Merkins have "degrees"

    Makes so much sense now.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re:dumb cats

    There doesn't seem to be much middle ground, cats are either stunningly bright or ridiculously stupid.

    Bit like helldesk people, only without the stunningly bright bit.

  16. Anonymous John

    <Title>

    Yes, but can the cat travel by bus?

  17. Jesse Dorland
    Stop

    How about college?

    Seriously, I wouldn't mind buying my dog a diploma. It worst it just to be on the news :)

  18. G Fan

    @Col

    "Didn't Ben Goldacre do something similar a while back?"

    Homeopathy course.

    I suppose the difference is that the High School Diploma at least pretends to be something useful.

  19. Marina
    Go

    She could have paid with a credit card and had a money back guarantee!

    A guy I worked with in Seattle, WA, about 15 years ago got his cat a credit card after his wife got turned down for one because of some meaningless detail. The dog's application went through without a hitch, despite the doggie being only 6 years old, while one has to be 18 to legally have credit in the US.

    When the credit card arrived, the dog of course headed straight to the local pet store for a large supply of his favourite food, and paid with his new credit card. The clerk was a bit skeptical to a paw print for a signature, but admitted this was the best a dog could do.

    I imagine a cat's paw would have fit the signature line better?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's how Gillian McKeith

    got her PhD

  21. Steven Jones

    Barely qualified

    Indeed Ben Goldacre's dead cat Hettie did get awarded a diploma from American Association of Nutritional Consultants, the very same institution that awarded Gillian McKeith a PhD and allowed her to bring a whole new level of talking shit to UK television.

  22. Mark_McA
    FAIL

    It could be worse...

    ...at least Oreo the cat didn't dress up in a white coat, surround itself with lab equipment and pretend that a mail-order 'PhD in holistic nutrition' from ToyTown College, Alabama makes her a real doctor...

    Eh, Gillian McKeith?

  23. Jonathan McColl
    Boffin

    Skill level:

    Of course nowadays, when petrol stations and supermarkets don't take cheques, and we use credit and debit cards, and perform online shopping for things like certificates in life skills, the cheque-book balancing skill is about as useful as adding up £sd columns--both of which I can do, but who needs 'em? The kitteh is welcome to the diploma but I still won't hire her.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A transparent ploy

    He's just setting kitty up so that when they discover his stash of child porn he can prove his cat really was clever enough to have downloaded it.

  25. Morten Bjoernsvik
    Headmaster

    Please use the diploma

    What's the point with a diploma if you don't use it. Please try applying for college/university, that would be fun. But it probably makes your cat a criminal.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    balancing a checkbook

    If i'm honest i might struggle with this one, but then again it has been 10-15 years since I last found it necessary to use a cheque.

  27. Lotaresco

    Clearly ripped off

    I gained my own prestigious qualifications from UniBOS for absolutely nothing. My cat appears to be eligible as well.

  28. James O'Brien
    Joke

    @bluesxman

    Hell no :)

    That and I have this problem of posting when I've had several pints (close to 8) at around 1-2am over here.

    Besides you got the point right? :)

  29. the spectacularly refined chap

    Balancing a cheque book...

    That is obviously a highly advanced skill.

    Look at how many bankers on six and seven figure salaries were somehow unable to grasp this level of financial competence.

  30. Mark Jonson

    O RLY?

    I CAN HAZ DIPLOMA?

  31. Anton Ivanov
    Flame

    Re:dumb cats #

    More likely smart than stupid. I had to stop for a ginger one yesterday. The bastard was using a marked pedestrian crossing. Properly. Could not believe my eyes, but hey, if a crow can do it why a cat cannot.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    We don't need no education

    Hey, graduating from Jefferson High School Online is better than a 21st century British GCSE though.

  33. Nate Atkinson

    Quality of education

    I doubt that people could distinguish between someone who received a "diploma mill" degree and one who received a degree from an American high school with any accuracy. What does that say about the quality of education happening in schools?

  34. Peter \Horne
    Go

    Cat catches bus

    This cat does catch the bus every day - it deserves a diploma!

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8174850.stm

  35. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Re: I have a cat who couldnt pass shit

    It must be getting quite large by now then?

    You probably don't want to be in the room when it inevitably explodes under pressure.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So the cat had help?

    Strikes me that's just fraud.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @James O'Brien

    Blaming the beer is even worse than illiteracy, American beer is like making love in a canoe and eight pints of Perrier is probably more intoxicating.

  38. Tyson Boellstorff
    Alert

    @Nate -- re education quality

    Too true. American HS degree consists of sitting on your arse in a chair collecting social promotions for 4 years. Only a total imbecile could blow that. Natch, the list of offenders from Hollywood is rather long.

    OTOH, the GED actually forces them to know something, since they have to pass a test, which the little snowflakes don't hardly have to do to graduate (it might damage their 'self esteem'.) Your only chance of an education in the US is to go to a university -- they'll take you if you're warm, but you have to pass a test to graduate. <cue music="tinytinyviolin">Oh, the pain of being asked to prove what you know.</cue>

  39. Random Coolzip

    Cats on the Helldesk

    Just yesterday I was working on a presentation for the office when ppt just "evaporated" -- no error dialog, no chance to save my work and no apologies. I swore and slapped the desk. Immediately, my cat jumped up, walked on the keyboard, stuck its tail in my face as it sniffed the screen, then turned around, meowed at me, jumped back down and commenced to licking its butt. Almost exactly the same response I'm accustomed to from our Helldesk, except they don't aspire to the same level of personal hygiene.

  40. Mike 61
    WTF?

    GCSE??

    What meas GCSE in the UK?? In the US GCSE is Giac Certified Security Expert, and is very hard to get and expensive also....

  41. Stratman

    re GCSE?

    General Certificate of Secondary Education.

    Exams in various subjects taken by students at age 16.

    I'll leave it to others to muse on their worth or otherwise.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    re GCSE

    Getting School Certificates Easily

    Gaining Supposed Certification for Education

    Generally, Sh*t-brained Cretins "Educated"

    Year on year, our wonderful Education establishment (the politicians who "run" it, anyway) tells us that exams are not getting easier, and that the modern GSCEs (introduced circa 1987, ISTR) are easily the equivalent of the previous system - even though it is increasingly difficult to find recent school-leavers who can do simple mental arithmatic (even working out change in shops is beyond most of them!), have even a basic grasp of the sciences (no understanding of even basic principles like where babies come from, Newton's laws of motion and how they apply to speeding cars, how concreting all your available land area leads to flooding and nowhere to grow food...) and certainly no grasp of history (Labour in, taxes and public spending go through the roof - Labour out, financial stability almost reached and then Labour get back in again... the rich may have got much richer under the Tories, but then so did the poor. Under Labour - especially New Labour - only the Chosen Few get richer; and to make matters worse, this time around, the biggest "winners" are the ones who caused the biggest part of the nightmare in the first place. Way to go Gordo, *really* punish those Bank execs why don't you?).

  43. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    re re GCSE

    "the rich may have got much richer under the Tories, but then so did the poor."

    Err what? Yes I remember those days, when I was one of these so-called 'rich' poor. I loved my lower wages, the introduction of double-digit VAT and making organised union activity all but illegal.

    I remember particularly a tax on the poor that allowed local governments the right to tax people for living in a house rather than owning one. Nowhere else in the western world does a renter pay property taxes. The owner of the property is responsible for those taxes because he or she is making money renting that property and responsible for there being an extra person for which services are required. It's part of the responsibility for the privilege of owning property. That's how it works in every country I've lived except Britain. In no way is it fair for someone to make money from a person as well as simultaneously push their tax burden onto that person.

    It would be like paying the property taxes of your local Blockbuster owners because you rented some DVDs. Without your custom there would be no one occupying the building, using city services, therefore you are responsible for the need for rubbish collection and street lighting at that location. Why not? What exactly is the difference? Why not shift the income tax of BP's CEO onto everyone that drives a car? If you didn't use the petrol he sells there wouldn't be any income, so it's your responsibility to pay his bills. Perfect logic in a world where rich property owners don't pay their own taxes if you ask me.

  44. pctechxp

    Kind of makes me want to....

    Set up a site offering certificates in just about anything

    Anyone want a certificate for getting up before 10 a.m. at 50 quid each?

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