And thus does a long and weary battle wind to a close-- and Steve's side won. Way back in January, Uncle Steve made a big deal about Apple having sold a whopping 36,000 iBooks to Maine, whose Governor Angus King had a grand vision of Macifying every single public school seventh- and eighth-grader in the state-- not a bad plan, as far as massively ambitious educational initiatives go. But later that month, it appeared that Steve had done his "In Your Face, Mike Dell" victory dance a little too soon, because King's laptop fund was in danger of being seized by the state legislature and used to subsidize various social services in need of cash during this economic downturn.

Some of the anti-laptop lobbyists got abusive, as they are wont to do-- especially since they'd been fighting this $25 million plan for two years, and really kicked the arguments into high gear in the past couple of months. But that's all behind us now, because according to a Sun Journal article, Governor King just signed the state budget on Monday night-- and despite the best efforts of his opponents, his $25 million for junior high iBooks remains intact. He is described as being "relieved"; we can only imagine that Steve is, too, since Apple's role in "the largest educational technology program in history" is now secure.

"Largest" is probably right, because it's definitely tough to imagine one bigger. Even though the program begins this year by equipping only the seventh-graders, that still means that in just five short months, schools all over Maine will be taking delivery of about nineteen thousand AirPort-equipped iBooks destined for nomadic life in middle-school backpacks. Folks, think about it; that is one serious pile of iBooks. Pull 'em out of their boxes and stack 'em all with an incredibly steady hand, and you've got a pile well over a third of a mile high and weighing about 93,000 pounds-- and the second shipment is due to arrive next year.

We're utterly thrilled that Apple has pulled off such a hefty educational sale, but now that we're officially Old Fogies 'round here at the AtAT studios, part of us can't help but get a little nervous at the thought of 19,000 twelve-year-olds armed with a collective 9.5 terahertz of shiny white processor power at their disposal. Should we duck, or put on helmets or something?