…Another Simpsons quote (sorry), would you have preferred that I say something like, Michigan’s Government is spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Amsterdam? Because I’m not sure how else to describe the situation – the State is staring at an impending $1B budget deficit, yet there is a proposal to buy iPods for every student.

What an iPod has to do with education is absolutely beyond me. For a fraction of the price you can buy a flashdrive, so even if the iPod’s data storing and portability make it appealing, the smaller and cheaper flash drives should beat it hands down in that department. As for the iPod’s auxilliary features – video, mp3 playback, etc., these are all great functionalities, but they don’t serve any pedagogic interest whatsoever.

And today, the Free Press is reporting that the AG’s office wants to build a gym for its investigators. How charming.

The lead says it all: “The Michigan Attorney General’s Office is planning a workout facility at its headquarters in Lansing, and has been shopping around for dumbbells, treadmills and elliptical trainers.”

And the clincher is fun, too: “Besides, Hills said, a gym is urgently needed: ‘Folks in state prison are lifting weights right now, as we speak.'”

Did it cross anybody’s mind that the equipment in Jackson, you know, the equipment that is giving the criminals such a leg-up on the investigators, could easily be moved from one place to the other? Two birds, one stone.

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Update 4/12 — Kip just got back from vacation in Spain, so I’ll cut him some slack. Here’s his take: No iPod Left Behind