First UM night game ever @ Michigan stadium goes about as expected

According to the Detroit News today 20 people were ejected and 14 arrests were made for fighting, MIPs, disorderly conduct and such. That's a pretty typical night for a football Saturday in Ann Arbor. Only this time it around it was all inside the Big House and not on the streets or in the bars over in town and so the UM cops had to do most of the order keeping work. But minor as these distractions proved to be I don't know if the AD's office would want to schedule Ohio State or MSU for night games. That could go bad real fast. Nice pic of the cops breaking up a fight with pepper spray too.

City of Ann Arbor and UM reach deal on football Saturdays traffic issues

UM is gonna pay more to the city of Ann Arbor to ameliorate traffic issues on football Saturdays says the Ann Arbor Chronicle. And in all likelihood UM is gonna demand and get more influence from their "partners" at city hall in the bargain. That's the way things typically go in the real world of politics, money and power, no? I wonder how long it'll be before the Regents decide that the next big project or facility ought to be out in Pittsfield or Ann Arbor Township?

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The cop, the beggar, the firemen, and the vet all meet on the side of the road in Detroit (Neal Rubin, Det News)

"The officer's name is on the citation. His initials are P.J. and his badge number is in the low 800s, and the department can find him if it cares to. The Office of Public Information didn't return a call, but what could a spokesman say? It's OK to shout amplified profanities at a harmless, armless citizen in a public place?"

Ex-Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez ripped to shreds by NYC sports writer (Phil Mushnick, NY Post)
"Big-time coaches who fall, regardless of why, are 'taken care of' by TV. They're hired as analysts, hired for their 'expertise,' though their expertise on exactly what it takes to succeed is left unspoken."

Detroit Neighborhood: U.S. Rep. John Conyers' home is an eyesore (Charlie LeDuff, WJBK-TV) video
Conyers has lived in D.C. since 1967. This dump is just a pro forma thing. Just sayin'.

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Better to live in Michigan if you win the lotto and never divorce scuzzball hubby - Det Free Press (Neal Ruben)
That way "his share" of your $180 million Lotto winnings comes to less than a buck. Heh.

Tate Forcier tweets that he's out of Michigan football - Michigan Daily
He said that about three weeks ago too, but whatever. Now it's finally final.

"Mrs. Mao Zedong" Jiang Qing

A picture gallery of some the world's more notorious dictator's wives - Daily Beast
Many of them are/were more vicious than their husband's were. A few ended up badly. Alas, most of them make out just fine when hubby gets deposed.

Living "off the grid" in suburbia - LewRockwell.com (Bill Rounds)
Interesting. That's what I'm trying to do. Unfortunately the D.I.Y. geek factor for all this is very high. And it doesn't leave you much time to "earn a living" (i.e., earning cash money for things like taxes, insurances, & etc. that can't be paid for any other way). But not to nit pick here. I really appreciate LRC for putting Rounds' series on his site.

DuckDuckGo: A search alternative to Google who's privacy policy is "we don't track you". - Wired.com/
"At issue is Google’s habit of sending along a searcher’s query to the site they are visiting, according to DuckDuckGo’s founder and sole employee Gabriel Weinberg. So if you search on “athlete’s foot” on Google, then click on a link, that site gets told that you searched on “athlete’s foot.” That’s something that not many people know, Weinberg says, and something his search engine doesn’t do.
Moreover, third-party ad tracking networks can also grab that info and add it to the store of information the companies store on users, Weinberg adds. It’s not clear if any ad tracking networks actually do grab this information, since those companies are notoriously unforthcoming about what data they collect."

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Your tax dollars at work: "A Jackson Community College (Jackson, MI) student who failed more than 20 classes in the mid-1990s is receiving a federal Pell Grant after all."  MLive (Jackson)

Did anyone even notice he was gone?: Detroit city councilman back after five month "leave of absence" Det Free Press

Counter-culture history: How a volatile junkie named Cheetah Chrome survived Cleveland's notorious punk scene back in the day - Detroit Metro Times

LSU's Les Miles not gonna coach Michigan football either - Michigan Daily
After Jim Harbaugh declined the position first. All this kind of reminds me of the search for Lloyd Carr's replacement after he quit in '07. And we all know how well that turned out.

Post-Affluence Anarchy: A Dialogue (Murray Bookchin and Jeremy Brecher) -The Anarchist Library
"By the end of the 1960s, the discontent remained, but much of the opportunity for experimentation had vanished. Students began to knuckle down for grades and eschewed political activity that might get them thrown out of school; dropouts, no longer able to live off the scraps of a booming economy, were forced to look for work and face the problems of any other workers. The romantic exuberance and sense of possibility that marked the 1960s became a matter of history."

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Cover art from The New Republic

 The "Michigan Man" curse  - The Michigan Daily (Michael Bertenthal)
"Coaches are traditionally supposed to emblazon the University. Despite our sky boxes and future night games, Ann Arbor may still be a place where these values matter. Attention to corporate social responsibility, therefore, can be checked and affected by the consumer — in this case the ardent fans — as well as less conspicuous financial boosters."

Why privacy always loses - New Republic (Jeffrey Rosen)

D.C.‘s Highest Court Allows Second Amendment Challenges to Long-Ago Convictions for Violating D.C. Handgun Ban - (Volokh Conspiracy) Eugene Volokh

Detroit mayor fires top two commanders of fire department - Detroit News
Good for him. He's already fired two police chiefs. Heh. 

Heartland rising - NewGeography.com
Observation: The incoming Republican majority in the HoR means more of the congress' leadership posts will be held by members from the industrial midwest  rather than big city machines, coastal elites and  racial and ethnic minorities. I doubt if it'll matter that much though. But it might.

White exodus from the Democratic Party continues - National Journal

Detroit Lives! - MLive
Johnny Knoxville of MTV and Jackass fame tours the D for positive news. And finds lots.

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University of Michigan fires football coach Rich Rodriguez - Ann Arbor.com/
'Detroit 1-8-7' ratings drop again - Detroit News
Anyone from Detroit who watched this show would never recognize the city they portray as Detroit. I didn't.
Nature Conservancy and Notre Dame "...scientists repeatedly found evidence that bighead and silver carp were past the barriers at Lockport, Ill., and were very near Lake Michigan, if not already in it." 
- Det Free Press
Detroit images from Detroit Metro Times on Flickr - Good stuff.
A vaccine against the effects of cocaine?  - io9
That's what is claimed anyhow.
Ex-Clintonista lobbyist Lanny Davis is an amoral, greedy scumbag - The Nation (Bob Scheer)
It ain't just the Reps who are arrogant, crooked weasels.