The Pathway Paved with Good Intentions Goes Where Again?

iPods.  Fun technology that allows folks to wander around with their music and video collection at the ready.  Great marketing by Apple, slick design and boom, a piece of technology that many can't live without in their daily routines.  A few years ago, Duke University experimented with giving their incoming freshmen an iPod for the purposes of education.  Made some kind of bleeding edge sense:  students could download the profs curriculum, maybe some of the class seminars and likely some video.  A public university thinking outside the box...kudos.

Now, pardon the rage, but why are Michigan legislators even thinking about giving every Michigan student an iPod?  I agree with the headline of the Detroit News editorial; yes, they are idiots!

A $1 billion deficit and the mental midgets along Grand River are considering dumping more money into something that has not been shown to have tangible educational benefits!  Nevermind the school systems (Detroit) that are closing schools because of decreasing enrollment.  Nevermind schools that don't have the budget to update their textbooks.  Let's throw Technology at the students and they will all learn!  And to pay for this, they propose to....say it with me...Raise Taxes.

       "6 percent tax on some services, and taxing junk food and soda"

Wha?  So to pay for someone's kid to listen to music, CPA's, Attorney's, Real Estate Professionals, Doctor's, etc will have to charge their clients more to cover the 6% tax on services?  Taxing junk food and soda?  Wait, didn't we try to do this with tobacco? 

Does this make sense to anyone, besides a legislator, that we tax the very things that we as a society are trying to minimize?  So either they are banking on the fact that as a society we will not be successful in reducing the consumption of junk food and soda, or they are simply opening the door to further tax hikes when we are succesful.  After all, little Johnny needs his iPod when he's munching on his carrot sticks.

Who do the legslators think they are kidding?  If I was in school now and received an iPod, the last thing I would be thinking of would be using it for school.  I'd be looking to fill that bugger up with episodes of The Office and my whole music collection.

Having worked spent time done my time in Lansing, I came to the view that it has two distinct characteristics:  it is an echo chamber and it is a vacuum.  Whatever is thought or spoken of in Lansing seems to resonate their but not travel much further than the I-496, 96 and 69 borders around the city.

Can we downsize our legislators?  Can we get some foreign competition in here to rival our "public servants?"