Funny enough, when you think in terms of who has their ‘finger on the button’, most people would probably want an Atheist in that position. The religious fella thinks God will support his righteous decision and that we’ll all end up in Heaven anyway (or Hell, depending on their specific belief system), whereas the Atheist, believing that this life is essentially all there is, would think very carefully before cremating 6 billion people. Of course, you wouldn’t want an Agnostic such as myself with his finger on the button – the world would be blowing to hell and we’d still be debating what exactly was going to happen after we pushed it!

In the end, I do understand why both of them participated. John McCain is trying to prove to those conservative Christians that he’s more Jesus-y than they think, and Obama’s still trying to convince the southern states that he’s not a Muslim.

On the other end of the spectrum, a lot of young couples will buy a trailer/mobile/modular home because they can’t yet afford the investment in a house. My sister and brother-in-law live in a very nice mobile home, mostly due to the fact that my niece was something of an accident (a wonderful, incredibly smart and funny accident) and the additional cost prohibited purchase of an actual house. Not that a lot of poor don’t live in trailers, clearly that makes financial sense, but they aren’t the sole occupants.

The small town I live in at the moment started off primarily with trailers, then slowly built around that area and is now dominated by houses/apartments/condos (in fact, they aren’t even zoning property for trailers/mobiles any longer). I will admit that most of the drug-related crime in town now takes place in that area, but for a long time that wasn’t the case as the occupants were more diverse than they are now. Of course, the property is so expensive now that people with moderate income haven’t much choice but to live in a trailer.

On the political front, even more absurd than the incredible flubs John McCain tends to make is the fact that both candidates sat down with Rick ‘Megachurch’ Warren Saturday night to discuss religion – that whole seperation of church and state thing apparently being lost on everyone. What on earth is this to do with BEING PRESIDENT??!

I was surprised to see a few trailer parks on the outskirts of Portland, its hardly the warmest/sunniest place during the winter months. That said, there is one outside Edinburgh so perhaps they are just less visible here.