Happiness Index: NJ #30

The Happiest:

1. Nebraska
2. Iowa
3. Kansas
4. Oklahoma
5. Montana


The Most Miserable:


46. Idaho
47. Oregon
48. Arizona
49. California
50. Florida

Mainstreet.com Happiness Index: October 2009

How Happy Is Your State?

The newest installment of the Happiness Index has arrived and residents of the Midwest will be happy to learn that their strangle-hold on the top spots remains intact. There have been some big moves however. Vermont made a big leap, and New Jersey and Lousiana took serious tumbles. There’s also been some movement at the bottom and residents of the Sunshine State may be unhappy to learn that, well, they’re the least happy state in the nation, when it comes to money matters.

Here’s how the index works:

The Happiness Index, which analyzes household income, non-mortgage debt, employment and foreclosures, is a fresh take on the old and tired Misery Index, made popular in the 1970s. The Misery Index takes into account unemployment and inflation rates and seeks to identify the most financially miserable places to live.

...The Heavyweight Corruption Champion of the World! (well, of the U.S.A. at least)

The corrupt should not have their pay and benefits cut off

Oh, really? Is there anything else we can can do to ease the punishment for these poor, poor souls and continue to make corruption a crime worth pursuing?

Poll: Half of residents surveyed say Jersey political corruption has no equal

It is just shocking, shocking, but apparently New Jersey's residents believe the state's politics is so corrupt that at least half of those interviewed for a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll are certain that the Garden State's brand of corruption is greater than other states.

So naturally, New Jersey voters elected a former U.S. Attorney whose best known for indicting and jailing crooked politicians.

Rutgers-Eagleton pollsters interviewed residents October 15-20 and found that Garden Staters may be cynical but they are divided about whether the guilty pols deserve tough penalties. The corrupt should not have their pay and benefits cut off, but officials should step down once they are accused.

Oddly, these poll findings are just a little bit different from one Rutgers-Eagleton did in 2003 with the Star-Ledger where those surveyed about the quality of government thought New Jersey's political ethics were on the decline and only 1 percent thought government quality was excellent.

"What about the children!?" in 3...2...1...

Reclusive bobcat caught on camera in Water Gap park

(George Draney Photography)

He had been stalking the big cat for months and finally had the shot of a lifetime --photo shot, that is.

That's how landscape photographer George Draney explained getting a shot of an elusive wild bobcat in Warren County.

Draney, 60, of Washington in Warren County, said he photographed the bobcat on Oct. 21 in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

"I was doing nature photography and in early spring, I spotted it numerous times,'' Draney recalled. So be began staking out a narrow, scrub-lined path twice a week, for about three or four months. A couple of times the bobcat crept by him but was gone before he could shoot a photo, he said.

The morning he finally got the shot, he was sitting in his car near the path and the bobcat was between 25 and 50 yards away, he said.

"I saw it going up the pathway in a hurry, so I thought to make a noise to make it look my way,'' Draney said. "So I whistle real loud, and it stopped. When I shot, it turned, and I got two more shots.''

The animal was the size of a medium dog and he estimated it weighed about 25 pounds. It appeared healthy, he added.

"It gave me quite a look; it really gave me a stare,'' he said. "It didn't look frightened, but disturbed by my being there.''

The Water Gap and other areas of Kitatinny Ridge are the best habitat areas the state has for bobcats, said Mick Valent, a wildlife biologist for the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, who said there's no reason to doubt Draney's account.

State biologists have found bobcat tracks and scat in the Water Gap area, and have photographed them there with motion-sensitive cameras baited with scent, Valent said. Those and other methods are used to calculate the number of wild bobcats living in the state: at least 90, and most live north of Route 80, Valent
said.

Bobcats are on the state list of endangered animals. They had disappeared
by the early 1970s because of habitat loss, so about 20 were brought from Maine from 1978 to 1982 to repopulate them in New Jeresey.

One sign that the big cats have bounced back are the dozen road kills found in
the past year, including one on Route 46 in Parsippany near the Boonton Reservoir this past spring, Valent said.

Bobcats are so shy that they pose no danger for people, he said. They are very reclusive and have individual territories ranging from one square mile to 25 square miles. They eat mice, chipmunks, squirrels and birds.

"There's no shortage of food for bobcats,'' Valent said, explaining why they are not common. "It's the habitat that's critical. Large forested areas are a core requirement. Small patches of woods are not enough.''

NJ Requires Divine Intervention

Fixing New Jersey's tax burden will take a higher power's help

Republicans and Democrats are spinning their own interpretations of what Tuesday's elections meant on the national level. Let them spin.

The real answer will depend on what the victors will actually be able to do with their victories.

We are especially interested in how our neighbor, New Jersey, makes out.

It is easy to make fun of New Jersey. Many New York comedians do it all the time. But with more than 8.5 million residents, most of the ribbing about the state rolls right off.

But one thing that New Jerseyans haven't ignored is their status as the most highly taxed state in the nation, especially the property tax. And they let Gov. Jon Corzine know they weren't about to put up with it any more. He was soundly defeated him in a three-way race Tuesday.

Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie campaigned on the theme of change, re-enforcing New Jerseyans irritation with their high property taxes, their bloated government and Gov. Corzine's inability to do anything about them.

But Mr. Christie was weak when it came to explaining what he was going to do about the high taxes or how he was going to lower them as he promised. The campaign really was a classic example of seeing which candidate could raise rankles of the most voters.

Republicans everywhere took the Christie victory as a sign that their party is on the way back. Not so fast.

New Jersey is a huge, complicated state, ranging from the tomato farms of Cumberland County to the New York City suburb of Hudson County.

Changing the way it operates -- with its multi-layered governments from boroughs to townships to cities and counties, powerful public employee unions, and the heavy school district tax levies -- will take a miracle -- and then some.

Abandoning the state? Here's your roadmap

Link To Article

"Financial resources are yet another of the critical ingredients that turn policy into results that matter in the lives of a state's population, from environmental protection to education, health and transportation," writes the Pew Center on the States in Grading the States 2008.

"To gauge how well a state is functioning in the Money category, the Government
Performance Project team evaluated the degree to which a state takes a long-term perspective on fiscal matters, the timeliness and transparency of the budget process, the balance between revenues and expenditures, and the effectiveness of a state's contracting, purchasing, financial controls and reporting mechanisms."

Can you guess the states with the best financial performance in the survey? (Hint: Do not guess New Jersey, which received a letter grade of C-minus.) Utah is tops in the nation with an A, followed by Delaware, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington, all with A-minus.

The top states were marked by "transparency in transactions and public access to state fiscal information (which have) become two of the leading indicators of a state that is functioning well in this area. Several promising new practices in real-time tracking of statewide expenditures and budgeting decisions, as well as joint executive and legislative revenue forecasting approaches..."

Oh, well. Perhaps we'll score better for "Infrastructure," how a state maintains,
improves and plans for future physical needs, including roads, bridges and buildings. Nope. Utah is tops again, followed by Florida, Kentucky and Michigan. Us? C-Plus.

Well, we've got to do better in "Information Technology," right? After all, we're wired and oh, so savvy. (Insert sound of buzzer here.) Wrong again! We're a consistent C student -- C-minus in this case.

"Advances in information technology offer the promise of propelling every organization into the future. (The study) examined how well state officials deploy technology and the information it produces to measure the resource effectiveness and results produced by state programs, make budget and other management decisions, and communicate with one another as well as with the public.

"Growing demands for public sector transparency and for public access to services 24/7 are spurring a new level of creativity in meeting citizens' legitimate needs, as well as improving internal business processes."

Michigan, Missouri, Utah, Virginia and Washington all earned As.

The silver lining in the Pew report? If the next governor fails to make headway on these issues and others, at least we'll know where to move.

New Jersey and Global Warming

Bye Bye, Hudson County!

Click on the link below for an interactive map which displays the effects of sea level rise on the NY Metro area.

New Jersey Sea Level Rise Map

In the worst case scenario, the melting of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet, towns as far inland as the Passaic River would be inundated. I guess other smaller business hubs, such as Parsippany, Morristown, and Mount Olive might benefit from businesses relocating further inland.

I'm surprised that we here in New Jersey don't hear more about the potential effects from global sea rise. Considering how close we are to the Atlantic, you'd think that it would be more of an issue. Atlantic City, if it's still around that far in the future, would be devastated.

You're Elected Governor of NJ: What's Your Plan?

Tell us what your plan to remedy New Jersey's many ills would be. Among the issues that need attention:

-Property Taxes
-Environmental Problems
-Traffic
-Crumbling Infrastructure
-Inner City Decay
-Crime
-Whatever else you feel needs to be adddressed