One of the cats is Colby Nolan and here’s the story from Wiki:

Colby Nolan

Colby Nolan is a housecat who was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas, Texas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general‘s office.^[1]

Colby Nolan belongs to a deputy attorney general. In looking to expose Trinity Southern University for fraud, some undercover agents had the then six-year-old Colby Nolan obtain a bachelor’s degree in business administration for $299. On the cat’s application, the agents claimed that the cat had previously taken courses at a community college, worked at a fast-food restaurant, babysat, and maintained a newspaper route. Then the school informed Colby that, due to the job experience listed on his application, he was eligible for an executive MBA for $100 more. The agents then sent for Colby’s transcript, which claimed that Nolan had a 3.5 grade point average.

Jerry Pappert, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit against Trinity Southern University upon learning that the cat had received the degree.^[2] In the lawsuit, Pappert also told the diploma mill, which had used e-mail spam to sell degrees, to provide restitution to anyone who had ordered a degree from them.

In December 2004 the Texas Attorney General obtained a temporary restraining order under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act against Trinity Southern and its owners, Craig B. and Alton S. Poe. The court also ordered the school’s assets frozen.^[3] In March 2005 the Poes were assessed fines and were ordered not to market or promote fraudulent, substandard degree programs or to represent their university as being accredited or affiliated with legitimate universities.^[4] It was reported that the Poes also were associated with the names Wesleyan International University and Prixo Southern University.^[4] Since 2005 Trinity Southern University’s website at www.trinitysouthernuniversity.org is offline.

The cat’s life is good.

Will California become America’s first failed state?

… California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kenneth Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: “California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America.”

… California is currently cutting healthcare, slashing the “Healthy Families” programme that helped an estimated one million of its poorest children. Los Angeles now has a poverty rate of 20%. Other cities across the state, such as Fresno and Modesto, have jobless rates that rival Detroit’s. In order to pass its state budget, California’s government has had to agree to a deal that cuts billions of dollars from education and sacks 60,000 state employees. Some teachers have launched a hunger strike in protest. California’s education system has become so poor so quickly that it is now effectively failing its future workforce. The percentage of 19-year-olds at college in the state dropped from 43% to 30% between 1996 and 2004, one of the highest falls ever recorded for any developed world economy. California’s schools are ranked 47th out of 50 in the nation. Its government-issued bonds have been ranked just above “junk”.

Read it full at Guardian

It has this chilling effect for me.

Controversial content in AWARE’s sex education programme sparks debate

SINGAPORE: The debate over the sexuality education programme by the Association of Women for Action and Research boils down to a 15-minute segment of its three-hour workshop, TODAY has learnt after obtaining on Wednesday pages of the group’s Comprehensive Sexual Education: Basic Instructor Guide.

The section in question defines terms such as “anal sex”, “virginity”, “teenage pregnancy” and “homosexual”. As part of the workshop exercise, students are asked to associate these terms according to three categories: Positive, neutral and negative.

The rest of the guide deals with topics such as body image, HIV/Aids, contraception and relationships. But it is the description of terms such as homosexuality and anal sex that appears to be at the heart of the contention raised by self-declared “feminist mentor” and senior lawyer Thio Su Mien.

She took issue with homosexuality being seen as a neutral, not negative, word.

AWARE’s former programme manager Deeksha Vasundhra said the definitions are for instructors to facilitate discussions.

The “private and confidential” guide is never given to students, she said.

While the majority saw the importance of educating their children on sexuality and making the right choices, many also questioned the handling of controversial topics and the explicitness of the material.

“It’s okay to let them know (about sex) but not to this extent. I don’t want my son to learn such explicit things,” said Ms Nor, a mother of three.

Father of six, Rizan Jantan, 45, felt children could approach parents and “we can explain to them (right from wrong).”

A mother of two boys said it was “all natural”, while businessman Chung Toh Keong, 56, felt such issues should be taught, since we “don’t dare talk about such taboo topics”. (Source: ChannelNewsAsia)

What caught my attention is Ms Nor’s comments where she agrees with sex education but prefers it to take a slightly conservative approach where issues such as “anal sex” and so on are not discussed. Is ignorance really bliss? Should there be limits as to where sex education should discuss? Wouldn’t it be just a matter of time (at the rate things are going) these issues become common discussions?

Anyway, here’s YouTube EDU:

Science of Watchmen

Bill Gates: How I’m trying to change the world now

It’s a good speech. But what a badass! Haha!

And when congratulated by Microsoft, the 8 year old Casalan’s reaction was gold “The Microsoft officials gave me computer games and DVDs with cartoons when I passed the exams because I am a child. That was nice, but I’m not really interested in those things.” I somehow think the Microsoft officials did what’s most appropriate.

Marko Casalan, 8, is officially world’s youngest IT whizz

At the age of 8, Marko has become the world’s youngest certified computer system administrator and was deemed the Mozart of Computers by the press after passing exams for IT professionals with the computer giant Microsoft.

“The Microsoft officials gave me computer games and DVDs with cartoons when I passed the exams because I am a child. That was nice, but I’m not really interested in those things,” young Marko told The Times.

“I’d like to be a computer scientist when I grow up and create a new operational system.”

His parents, who are IT experts and run a computer school for children, are considering sending Marko abroad to a specialised institute of learning for gifted children, as none exists in Macedonia.

“Marko displayed exceptional learning abilities at a very early age. He was able to replicate a computer operation after only reading about it on the internet. Now we ask him for help when we have some IT related problem at work,” Marko’s mother, Radica Calasan, 38, told The Times. (Source: TimesOnline)

I generally don’t agree with putting kids through these gifted programs. They’re hardly that beneficial. I feel a kid who enjoys his or her childhood with other friends of similar age gain a hundred times more experience than a kid with an Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA). Well, just saying.

To me, it is because they cannot accept the language as it is. They question why are things done this way? Why not another way? The modern programming language is so abstract. It’s hard to see how the lower level components interact.

Some learners need to fiddle with the lower layers to accept and understand the higher level components. We just build tools on top of the lowest layer and then establish more and more layers thinking it is making life simple.

I lost my patience before and said to a friend, “Why can’t you just memorize it? It’s by design, if you don’t like then design your own language.” Actually it’s just an excuse because the real reason is too long to explain. It’s like telling a primary school kid that light travels in a straight line even though you well know it doesn’t and thank god it doesn’t.

Perhaps it does make life simple for the already programmers, but it makes learning a lot harder.

“Finally visited a girl’s school,” he announced.

“Yeah, is that in your things-to-do-before-I-die checklist too?”

He laughed, “Yeah, finally… Finally the day has come.”

“Checked.”

“Yup, checked.”

Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ School (Secondary) (Abbreviation: PLMGSS) is an all-girls school located in Hougang, Singapore, running on a single session catering to pupils in the Special, Express, Normal Academic and Normal Technical streams, hence fulfilling its mission of opening its doors to the very able as well as the less able. Since 1995, PLMGSS has been offering Higher Chinese (HCL) to her pupils. There are 61 teachers, 80% of whom are committed Christians. Approximately 25% are old girls, a special feature of the school. (Source: Wikipedia)

Erm, what are old girls by the way? Or is that one of those Wikipedia nonsense.

Suppose Singapore only needs 0.1% to have Masters, 10% to have Bachelors. But the population has this desire to push themselves to a university. In the end there’s just not much people with the diplomas, not much people willing to do the more labor-intensive work.

The solution is to bring foreign workers into Singapore.

So why are people complaining about foreign workers in Singapore? They are here because we have this perception that a university degree is most essential.

Getting a university degree to maintain competitiveness? Nah, that’s probably a misconception. Getting university degree simply increase competitiveness amongst the degree holders.

The JC Lightbulb Joke

Q: How many RJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4 whole faculties. One to design the new bulb, one to
manufacture and test it out, one to write a proposal on it and one to market it.

Q: How many HCJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. To compete with RJC.

Q: How many VJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. One student to screw it in and the rest to cheer and wave flags and banners to give him/her support.

Q: How many NJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They can study without light.

Q: How many AJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They’re too busy trying to be one of the top 5 JCs.

Q: How many ACJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They’ll rather use all their money to employ YJC to do it for them.

Q: How many YJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Only one teacher to tell them what a light bulb is in the first place and to demonstrate how to change the light bulb. (So how do you think they’re able to change it for ACJC?)

Q: How many CJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They’ll prefer it to be darker. (Hmmmm?*raises eye-brows* )

Q: How many JJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Their physics is so bad that they made their macho male physics teacher cry.

Q: How many TPJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Would they even bother?

Q: How many SAJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They believe in praying for it.

Q: How many NYJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are still using oil lamps.

Q: How many SRJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Huh, what litebarb?

Q: How many PJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Heck the light bulb lah, the principal would do something about the rightbarbs. Let’s do 300 jumping jacks for not wearing the proper school attire.

Q: How many MJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are too busy trying to get promoted.

Q: How many IJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are Innovians. They’ll find ways out of the dark.

Q: Who wrote all this?
A: A TJCian.

Q: How many TJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They think they are already very bright.