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David's Books closes (Ann Arbor Observer)

'Take Back Our Streets' march planned for this week in downtown Ann Arbor
Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Glazier Way residents in Ann Arbor upset over VA shuttle buses going through neighborhood (annarbor.com/)
TFB. If that's the only thing you have to complain about then life's pretty good.

 Kalamazoo river oil spill one-year anniversary is today (Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive)
Slide show of the clean up process. I hope the oil pipeline company is paying for all this. And through the nose too.


Ex-Rep. Mark Schauer (MI-7) says he won't run again in 2012 (Detroit News)

"...[In] an email sent Wednesday to supporters, the 49-year-old former state lawmaker said he was enjoying spending more time with his family and helping oversee an initiative for the joint labor-environmentalist group the BlueGreen Alliance. He also cited the new Republican-backed congressional redistricting map, which moved his hometown of Battle Creek from his former district."

Translation: I have a nice cushy job here in D.C., and the district has been gerrymandered and I don't think I can win now. 

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42 Mich. oil spill workers arrested over immigration concerns - Detroit Free Press
And freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer is making an issue of this too. We have plenty of people who'd do that work right here already. While I doubt that Schauer's complaints will have much of impact before the election I have to wonder if he'd be bitching about it this loud were it not an election year? Somehow I doubt it. Schauer and the rest of the Dems usually see illegals as "undocumented Democrats" who need government help rather than Michigan job stealers. Except in election years of course.

Sign of the times...

"Tea Party" political group gains line on Michigan's 2010 ballot - Detroit News

Persons unknown put together the time, money and effort to put the "Michigan Tea Party" on the ballot for 2010. Local tea partiers say they have no idea who these people are. Some have speculated that wealthy Democratic Party sympathizers put up the money, reputedly around $100,000, to obtain the 59,400 signatures required and pay for the legal work that the Michigan Board of Canvassers requires of independent groups seeking ballot access. The Democratic Party denies all this of course.

But as the old saying goes: Who benefits? Anybody pulling the Michigan Tea Party lever this fall would probably otherwise vote Republican and so every vote the MTP gets will be one less for the GOP. In a close race (like say Michigan's 7th congressional district) those "lost" GOP votes might be enough to give freshman U.S. Representative Mark Schauer another term. "Who benefits" indeed?