And the winner is!

Those outside the upper Midwest are probably not aware of it, but each year, the Michigan and Minnesota state legislatures have a contest to see who can come up with the stupidest bill. They don't quite rank up there with California, but they're trying.

Michigan's entry this year was a doozy; facing a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars, lawmakers wrote a bill that would have given an IPOD to every student in their government schools under the banner of "improving education." Evidently a significant minority (whew!) of that august body believed that listening to rap and bubblegum pop makes children smarter--must be they had never heard of the soon to be former Mrs. Federline.

So the pressure was on in St. Paul, and WOW did they deliver! Arguments about the superiority of Minnesota's government (public) schools are sure to take a hit after many of their graduates voted to move Minnesota to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. Evidently, the fact that the technology doesn't exist to achieve this with our current standards of living didn't make much of an impression on them.

At least they didn't pass another stadium bill.