Michigan ranked fourth for the number of new clean energy jobs announced during the second quarter, according to Environmental Entrepreneurs, a business group that promotes environmental policy.

Michigan had nine announced projects during the quarter totaling an anticipated 1,319 jobs, trailing only California, New York and Florida for total number of anticipated new clean energy jobs.

“Michigan is becoming an electric vehicles hub, with companies like GE, A123 Systems, and others bringing battery and other electric vehicle component manufacturing to the state,” the report read.

The report covers only job announcements and not actual job creation figures.      The Detroit News

The Elk Rapids Women will meet on Sept 6 at 6 p.m. at the Pavilion at the Elk Rapids Harbor Pavilion.  An informative presentation on a new program, “Progress Village” by Patty Hannel, Kathie Muldanado, Ranae McCauley and Jan Warren. Dinner is being catered by Kolu for $5/person.

Everyone is welcome to attend this presentation.  RSVP to Tamy at 231-735-6799 or tamliv@live.com by Tuesday, September 4. (Source: press release)

Progress Village is a group of neighbors who want to play an active role in their own community’s response to poverty by helping others understand the reality and challenges of living in the crisis of poverty.

After two summers in Elk Rapids, professional theater company Parallel 45 is extending its reach.

The company, made up of theater professionals from around the country and, this year, the world — most with ties to northern Michigan — will stage two productions in Traverse City beginning this month.

“Our goal is to have a five-show season year-round,” said Executive Director Kit McKay, who started small, with just one show a summer. “We want to take advantage of this sophisticated audience year-round.”

The company will stage “The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan” Aug. 22-25 at InsideOut Gallery in Traverse City’s Warehouse District. The show by Phillip Klapperich is a sort of “Peter Pan” for adults, rated PG-13 for sex, violence and language, McKay said.        Record-Eagle

Today we happened upon an awesome map put together by Renee DiRestaat her No Upside blog. What DiResta did is simple but revealing. In Google she typed in “Why is [fill in the blank state] so…” and let Google’s autocomplete function, which tracks the most common words typed after “so”, do the rest. She mapped the top four auto-completes for each state. Here’s her — amazing — map:      WaPo

Use either link above to check out the other states.