Happiest states (7 blue, 3 red)

New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average.

The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it’s easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

On average, well-being was highest in the Mountain states and West Coast states, followed by the Eastern Seaboard and then the Midwest and Southern states.

Here are the top 10 states and their average well-being scores (out of a possible 100 points):
– Utah: 69.2
– Hawaii: 68.2
– Wyoming: 68
– Colorado: 67.3
– Minnesota: 67.3
– Maryland: 67.1
– Washington: 67.1
– Massachusetts: 67
– California: 67
– Arizona: 66.8

Governing Magazine just named Gov. O’Malley the governor of the year.

Redskins fans abandoning the team. For many of you not familiar with this region and the Skins, this is unprecedented.

There are other signs that as some Washingtonians stand by their floundering team, which is 2-4 in regular-season play, others are standing a little farther downwind. Nielsen ratings show that the average TV viewership of game broadcasts for the first six weeks of this season has dropped by about 120,000 households from the same period last year.

And the national market for burgundy and gold jerseys, banners and hats has plummeted, down 47 percent in the past month compared with the same period last year, according to sales data.

“This is something new,” said Matt Powell, chief retail analyst for SportsOne Source, an industry research firm. At least as judged by the merchandise sales index, he said, “nationally, the fan base is clearly abandoning this team.”

Through the last decade plus of the suck, the ownership of the Redskins could rely on the most dedicated fanbase around. I’ve seen it myself when I lived out west and regularly dragged myself out of bed at 8:30 on a SUNDAY so I could get to Joxer Daly’s sports bar with the other Redskins fans for a 10:00pst kickoff. But the ineptitude has pushed us to the breaking point this season, and the gravy train may be coming to an end.

Personally, I’m pretty fed up with them, and won’t be attending any games in person. But I still watch and live and die with them on the field. I’d just like something decent to cheer for for a change.

The First Reader stopped by the cafeteria at Viers Mill School, where Mr. Obama admitted to having read Harry Potter books (with his daughter, Malia), but not the Goosebumps series of children’s horror books that are apparently a favorite of many of the kids at the school.

President Obama visits a Washington-area school.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Viers Mill schoolchildren squealed when the president called on them.

The school receives federal poverty aid and has closed the achievement gap between minority children and other students, administration officials said.

Despite a decrease in home values in Maryland in 2008, the state remains the richest state in the nation, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday.

The state’s median household income for 2008 was $70,545, an increase of about $1,500 from the state’s median income in 2007 and slightly higher than New Jersey’s figure ($70,378). Maryland also had the highest median household income in 2007 and has been among the national leaders for much of the decade, with Howard, Calvert and Montgomery counties all regularly ranking among the top 10 wealthiest counties in the nation.

Maryland is one of 22 states that saw its home value decrease in 2008 amid last year’s economic downturn and housing collapse. Median home value in Maryland decreased from $347,000 in 2007 to $341,200 in 2008, and the national homeownership rate fell to 66.6 percent last year, the lowest mark in six years.

A Maryland lawmaker has apologized for using a police boat and helicopter to create a diversion so he could surprise his girlfriend with a marriage proposal.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld told reporters Tuesday that Delegate Jon Cardin also offered to pay expenses from the incident.

The department is investigating. Officials don’t know yet how much Cardin’s proposal cost the department.

Cardin said the meetings have changed lawmakers, but probably not in the way most of those who shouted the loudest would like.

‘I’m more resolved than ever,’ Cardin, 65, said Thursday after his whirlwind week. ‘I love debating. I’m sorry more of that couldn’t happen this week because of so much of the shouting, but I personally believe the American people still want us to deal with tough problems. We’re not all going to agree, that’s obvious, but we’re at the point we need a specific bill.’

If Cardin’s experience resembles that of other lawmakers, many might return from the August recess with a sharper focus on and a greater personal stake in the issue after intense confrontations with voters close to home.

And yet the teabaggers were loud at Sen. Ben Cardin’s recent town hall meeting. Look, its one thing for these people to gather organically in places like Alabama and the like. But Maryland? Puh-lease.

Maryland is the nation’s third-bluest state, behind Massachusetts and Hawaii, according to the survey, which tracks how residents identify their own political leanings.

By Gallup’s analysis, 58 percent of Marylanders identify themselves as Democrats or leaning Democratic; 31 percent are Republican or leaning Republican.

Lets get those numbers up to 60, Maryland. Slackers.

Even funnier is the way this map shows you where the population centers in Maryland are. The redder, the less inhabited. I live in Montgomery County, the second bluest county.

Move It Van Lines Of Silver Spring Maryland tried to charge us $200 over their original quote, and refused to admit error when we complained about this ridiculous charge.

Move It Van Lines Of Silver Spring Maryland lost our business, and you shouldn’t do business with a company like this who doesn’t tell the truth.

On Neal Cavuto’s show today he had this man, Robert Broadus on as a guest. The setup for Broadus’ appearance was healthcare, specifically a question he had asked in a recent meeting with Sen. Ben Cardin.

“I decided not to get the health insurance. That’s working out for me because I’m able to save that extra money and give it to my family members and use it on myself. Senator Cardin, I want to know are you going to tell me an individual…that I have to buy health care or else you’re going to fine me $2,500 every year I don’t get it? Our founding fathers assured us we have a Bill of Rights and I want to see you uphold that,” Broadus said in an increasingly emotional voice and to scattered applause.

Cardin responded by asking Broadus what would happen if he became sick, broke a bone, had a car accident and ended up in an emergency room.

“You don’t pay. You are part of the population that shifts its costs over to a person who does pay, and they’re paying for you,” Cardin said.

Now, Sen. Cardin easily answered this idiot question, but the thing is when Cavuto brough him on he neglected to mention that Robert Broadus is a former Republican candidate for congress in Maryland’s 4th district (where I live) – Fox News identified him just as a taxpayer (as did WUSA-9). Broadus didn’t just lose the election, but came in third in the GOP primary (the eventual winner got crushed by Donna Edwards in November).

This loon has gone on to be a Tea Party enthusiast, and is now “running” as some sort of Ron Paul libertarian type. In other words, a Class A nimrod. On his endorsement page, he touts a quote from Joe Banister, a former IRS agent turned tax evader whose license as a CPA was revoked.

This is the kind of person Fox and Neal Cavuto brings on to represent “the regular citizen” in opposition to health care reform. A conservative fringer, serial candidate nutjob with some wacky views about the government and its place in our society.

Robert Broadus (and Fox News) is what is wrong with America.

>> Accuracy in Journalism

Yay, Politico named you to a perfectly arbitrary list! Look, I don’t have any serious problems with Rep. Edwards and she has so far demonstrated the kind of values I want to see in my Rep. that we weren’t seeing in Al Wynn. But trumpeting insidery lists from Politico is the path to faildom. Politico, in the larger sense of people in congress working for us, does not matter one bit. In fact, its an impediment to getting things done in congress thanks to the noise it shoots out.

Members of congress shouldn’t be trumpeting it when Politico lauds them. In fact, the less Politico is involved in congress, the better for democracy.

Metro is such a basic part of our lives here that you don’t really ever think about it, its always there. In fact, the system was opened here about 2 years before I was born. The last thing you could imagine is that somebody could ever die on it. I feel so badly for the families of the victims.

With a planned showing of a controversial pornographic movie on the University of Maryland campus just hours away, the state legislator who is trying to halt the event turned his attention to the university’s capital budget, threatening an attempt to cut those funds in Annapolis.

State Sen. Andrew Harris (R-Baltimore County), who last week tried to block the university’s $424 million share of state operating funds over plans to screen the film at the theater in the student union, announced his new approach today. The state operating budget is now in conference committee and cannot be amended when it emerges, but debate on the capital budget could begin as early as tonight.

Of course Andrew Harris is a Republican. And of course Andrew Harris has his priorities out of whack.

The movie in question is “Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge”, which I would figure has a plot that’s impossible to follow unless you see Pirates I.

A church based in Topeka, Kansas is scheduled to demonstrate next month outside Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda because the school, which opened in 1962, is named for a man who may have been homosexual.

Westboro Baptist Church has been drawing national attention for staging anti-homosexuality demonstrations at military funerals, on the theory that fallen troops are God’s punishment for a country tolerant of homosexuals.

Though I gotta say, if they’re devoting time and resources to protesting Walt Whitman they must have an insane amount of time on their hands. Leaves of grass, indeed.

Struggling newspapers should be allowed to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations, Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., proposed Tuesday.

Cardin introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible.

Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates.

“We are losing our newspaper industry,” said Cardin. “The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.”

The newspaper is dying. It is dying due to its failure to innovate. It is also dying due to its inability to put the interests of its readers above its advertisers, not realizing that a milquetoast paper afraid to upset the apple cart will turn people off and lead to lowered ad revenues.

Senator, these papers don’t need any additional help from the government. If they choose to go private and become foundations they may do so, but they do not need a single hand from the government to do so. They are not special. They don’t rise to the level of the sort of industry – like finance or automotive – that at least has a semi-coherent argument as to why it needs special legislation.

Senator Cardin, you’re a good guy, but this is a misguided waste of time.