The Lightning Round -- I Agree With Rush Limbaugh, Sports Oddities, and More

So a few random things today.

** I actually agree with Rush Limbaugh ** Now there's something you wouldn't ordinarily expect me to say. But reading TVNewser this morning, they wrote that on Morning Joe, radio talk show host (or, as Keith Olbermann likes to say, comedian) Rush Limbaugh was fawning over the great Erin Burnett of CNBC. And sure enough, when I watched some of the show when I got back from class, Rush was extolling the virtues of the CNBC anchor (I've embedded the video below). As faithful readers of Quo Vadimus know, I have written (dating back to April) time and time again about Burnett's rise to stardom and how impressed I am with her work on both CNBC and Morning Joe. Nice to see that highly talented CNBC anchors can bring the right and left together.

** Feeling Lucky? ** ESPN.com had a really interesting story today. According to a newly released study, 1 in 5 people have tried using something lucky to help their favorite sports franchise. And as someone who still carries around a half dollar with him that I found after the Detroit Pistons lost Game Five, at home, in triple overtime, in the Western Conference Finals to New Jersey and then carried it with him throughout the Pistons next two victories and on through the NBA Finals, I guess I would be in that 20%.

The survey showed no real difference by gender, race or education in whether people try finding a way to help their team win. But those who do tend to be younger and make more money than those willing to risk letting the athletes determine a game's outcome. They also are more likely to be single.

I now wonder if my sports superstition is why I'm single.

** New Blog Plug ** My good buddy and fellow law student Kurt, author of the Clever WoT blog which is home to the Law Student Blogger Directory recently launched a new project, a blog, which is the the official online companion to the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review. For all the latest analysis of the intersection between technology and the law, the MTTLR Blog is the place to go.

Fun at the University of Michigan Student Funded Fellowship Auction

Tonight was a fun night. Always one of the best events of the year at the University of Michigan Law School, tonight's Student Funded Fellowship Auction was a great time. For those outside of the law school, each year SFF puts on both a live and silent auction to raise money for fellowships given to students who take non-profit jobs during the summer. Since these non-profit organizations don't have the funds to pay their summer interns and law clerks, the auction is a great opportunity for students working at big law firms (making much more than no salary) to give back to their fellow students.

Aside from the breadth of silent auction items (ranging from sporting event and theater tickets to dinners to haircuts to autographed books, including a personalized autographed copy of Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope, which at $180, was a bit higher than I was willing to pay for it, but was still a great deal) the real fun comes in the live auction. 30 items, 5 professors acting as auctioneers, and lots of peer pressure to increase one's bid. The professors are great and are really good at encouraging people to keep bidding, and with live auction items like skydiving with a professor, Whirlyball against a team of professors, and tours of the Googleplex or NBC studios in New York or the CSI New York set in Los Angeles, it was easy to get up for the bidding.

Four friends and I even got in on the action, outbidding other students and winning (for $900) the right to challenge the Dean of the Law School and our Criminal Procedure professor in a game of poker. It was fun to get involved in the bidding (it's easy to get caught up in a live auction) and the game should be a great time. I had the winning bid on a silent auction item too, taking home gift certificates to both the local driving range and Buffalo Wild Wings. I almost also won a Detroit Lions autographed football, but not knowing who the ball was autographed by, and already having one autographed Dre Bly photo which became worthless this week (which, I guess assumes it was worth something to begin with) so I decided to pass.

All in all a great night, fun, and now I've got poker, golf, and chicken tenders to look forward to. And by my count, the live auction itself raised almost $25,000 for SFF with thousands more raised during the silent auction, so everyone has good reason to feel good about themselves after this night.