Shiny happy people somewhere else

Well, if you're Jonesing for another story about how West Virginia ranks at the bottom of all things good and at the top of all things bad, you can check out this item from the website WalletHub, which ranks states according to their presumed level of happiness.

Yeah, 50 again.

In terms of method, the group evaluated the broad categories of emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community and environment using 28 metrics. Whatever you think, the list of factors considered was pretty thorough, as you can see here.

Interestingly, the state that came out on top was Minnesota. Maybe this is because of the way they pronounce the letter O.

TCB

Random animal picture, this one being of Little Edith Ann at Halloween, yet another reason why dogs hate that holiday.

The lame duck session of Congress that begins today has some serious business to take care of, provided it has the guts and will. Around two million Americans are going to exhaust unemployment benefits in December. In West Virginia, the number is around 11 thousand. The numbers will only get worse in 2011.

This needs to happen, given that there are around five jobless workers for every new job that opens up. And economists are expecting sluggish job growth for the next year or two, maybe longer. Ideally, the extension should last for a year.

Ever since the 1950s, Congress has acted to extend benefits when unemployment was 7.2percent or higher and we're way about that point now.

This extension has to happen in the lame duck session because the new majority in the House is not likely to do it. I'd really like to be wrong about this, but I think it's a good bet that the new majority will be hostile to anything that benefits working people, the unemployed and people in poverty. And for all their talk about fighting deficits, you can bet that they'd like nothing more than to extend Bush era tax cuts for the rich indefinitely.

There is something we can do about this. Tomorrow, Nov. 16 is a national call-in day to Congress to extend unemployment. The WV AFLCIO is urging people to participate in the call-in campaign tomorrow and has provided a toll free number: 1-877-662-2889.

Please take a minute to make the call. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH, here's yours truly on the need for the WV legislature to take some action of its own on unemployment insurance modernization.

CAVING (METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING). The White House, that is. Maybe.

SPEAKING OF METAPHORS, they seem to live in certain regions of the brain.

ANOTHER FIGHT IN THE WORKS is preventing repeal of health care reform.

SOMETHING ELSE TO DENY. Melting glaciers. It might be a bit harder to deny rising sea levels in the future though.

UN-WELL BEING. West Virginia takes the lead again.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Support these troops

Fall view from the ridge.

Yesterday was Veteran's Day. No doubt many speeches were given extolling veterans for their service, which is only right. I wonder though if many of them dealt with problems such as this:

A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001...

The Harvard group analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, which surveyed Americans about their insurance coverage and veteran status, and found that 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured in 2008. Veterans were only classified as uninsured if they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration (VA) hospitals or clinics.

Typically, veterans in this situation, like millions of other Americans, are too poor to buy private insurance and too "rich" to qualify for public programs such as Medicaid. One good thing about proposed health care reform in Congress is a massive expansion of the Medicaid program and subsidies to help people buy insurance, although that would still leave some people out.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Here's more on the scarring effects of the recession on children.

STATE AID. This paper by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calls on Congress to extend fiscal aid to states to avert major cuts in jobs and services.

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE but not so much in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, according to a study that ranks several states using different criteria.

WORLD POVERTY. According to the United Nations, 2.7 billion people around the world survive on less than two dollars a day, while one billion live on less than a dollar a day. Here's more from Democracy Now.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU SAY. Here's a Gazette op-ed about how thuggery is suppressing free speech in coal controversies.

URGENT WOOD-EATING DEEP SEA CRAB UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED