No matter the outcome of overall ratification votes, Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said he believes the UAW already has lost something.

"Even if the contract is approved, it's not going to be a victory for the leadership of the UAW. The vote is in essence a protest against the company and a protest against the union," Chaison said. "A vote against the company for what it offered and against the union for accepting it."

Talk about seeing the glass as half empty.  That seems to be a trend with impartial third party's looking in on Michigan this week, which brings us to the bad news.  A report issued yesterday by the Milken Institute ranked America's top 200 big cities and 179 small cities, looking at things like entrepreneurship, the overall business environment and the cost of doing business.  Guess who brought up the rear.

The Detroit News reports that six of Michigan's small cities fell in the bottom twenty while eight of Michigan's big cities rank in the bottom twenty with our best showing, Ann Arbor at a pathetic 184.  Of course, that's a heck of a lot better than Lansing which ranked dead last.

That's right, Lansing is ranked the WORST city for business in the United States of America.  Congratulations.

Nolan Finley blogs at the News:

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers have adopted tax policy that discourages entrepreneurs from locating here, and will drive up the overall cost of doing business in the state.

Already, many consulting and other service industry firms are saying they will leave the state if the new service tax on selected businesses isn't revoked.

Michigan's fate will only change through sound growth policies. Unfortunately, that's not what Lansing is delivering.

Finley's a consistent critic of the administration (with very good reason) but I think he's being generous here.  Dead last boys and girls.  That's not just not delivering, that's an abject failure.  These are real people's real lives we're talking about.

And while we're on the good news / bad news tip, the Associated Press has an awesome profile piece on the Gary Peters controversy up at Central Michigan University, bad news for Peters and his Democrat supporters in the CMU administration but good news for taxpayers and proponents of common sense everywhere.  Oh, and Dennis Lennox, a conservative blogger who's been after Peters like an attack dog since he decided to take a job "educating" students while running full-time in a primary contest against the extremely popular anti-war Democrat Nancy Skinner some 200 odd miles away.  

Bill Ballenger, who was the Griffin Endowed Chair before Peters, had Lennox in class last school year. He characterizes him as intelligent, polite, well-spoken and a political junkie, but adds: "He has a way of irritating just about everybody -- except me."

The editor of a Lansing political newsletter and a former Republican state lawmaker, Ballenger says there are legitimate questions about whether Peters can continue in the job when the campaign gets into full swing. He also thinks the university could have handled Lennox's tactics better.

"He's got them back on their heels. They don't know how to deal with him," he said.

Which is good news, except that it's resulted in campus wide censorship as CMU becomes the only public university in the state to ban recording devices and to prevent students from recording Gary Peters' lectures.  Not like they were getting their money's worth anyway.

The article is highly recommended.  So is Lennox's blog, the Peters Report.