by Michelle Minton

If you thought leaving a spouse was tough, just be thankful that you’re not a brewery in need of a divorce from your dead-beat distributor. A recently released video from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy explains how the mandatory three-tier system for alcohol distribution has resulted in an acrimonious relationship between brewers and wholesalers and the deleterious effects it has had on the state’s market.

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This is an excerpt from the website OpenMarket.org, a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. For the full article, please click here.

There is an ongoing debate regarding the preferred sources of fuel needed to meet America’s future electricity needs. The United States has been dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of coal” due to its extensive coal reserves, and approximately 60 percent of the electricity generated in Michigan comes from coal-fired power plants. Coal has increasingly come under attack from environmental groups, however, because they believe emissions from coal-fired power plants contribute to global warming. If less coal is used in the future to provide electricity, that energy must be replaced in order to provide reliable sources of electricity necessary to power America’s economy.

This is an excerpt. To read the rest of the article, please check out MichiganScience.

Stephanie Jasky said she was shocked when she read about one of her third-grade son’s reading assignments at Wass Elementary School in the Troy School District.

It was a pair of General Motors fliers on the Chevy Volt that made statements such as “Volt can be your only car,” “awesome driving experience" and “order your Volt.” One of the fliers contained “5 Minute Talking Points” that included “Marketing Demographics” as “highly educated, tech savvy, predominately male.”

Jasky said her son told her that a teacher instructed students what to highlight on the fliers on June 3. Then the students went outside and watched a teacher drive the Volt.

“I’m angry,” said Jasky, who didn’t support the bailout of General Motors. “General Motors is Government Motors. It looks like they suddenly have a captive audience in our schools. Why else would you hand out pamphlets that say, ‘five-minute talking points’ with ‘positioning statements.’”

Troy Public Schools Spokeswoman Kerry Birmingham confirmed the Volt fact sheet was used as a non-fiction reading assignment for the third-grade class. Birmingham said non-fiction types of reading material are found on the third grade standardized tests. Birmingham also said the district introduces more non-fiction reading assignments in the third grade.

She said the Volt was part of a six-week program called “A World in Motion” that focused on careers and real world applications.

A volunteer parent who is a General Motors engineer brought a Volt to school, but it wasn’t intended as a promotional opportunity, Birmingham said. And other engineers from other car companies were involved in the program.

“Never once did I see anything that said, ‘Buy Chevy Volt,’“ Birmingham said. “This was just a way for a classroom lesson to come to life.”

Jasky is the founder of the non-profit organization Fedupusa.org. Its stated purpose is that it “brings the truth” regarding the global financial crisis.