I get really sick of the over-educated thinking that anyone who believes in anything that requires faith vs. empirical evidence to prove is deemed to be an idiot right out-of-hand. I have an above average IQ and I am Christian. It is possible. It makes faith more challenging, yes, but not impossible. You’re right, it’s tough to be Catholic, too. Luckily we’re plentiful in this neck of the woods – next to Hindu and Muslim. Heck, I think there may be fewer Baptists in my area than Catholics. Probably not, but it seems like it. However, you want an example of someone that is just begging to have their kids ostracized and belittled by the elitist left? My neighbors are Messianic Jews…they are practicing Jews AND evangelical Christian – down to banning their kids from Harry Potter, Halloween and the Wizard of Oz. It is very oxymoronical (I think I made that up) to me. I admire that they believe so fervently, but wow. I’m not real jazzed about Palin’s bordering-on -evangelical/fundamentalist faith, but at least her belief seems real, vs. the seemingly for-show beliefs of Obama.

As for the state of our union, since my sister is a major real estate producer, I get some first-hand stories of the mortgage industry. She tries very hard to remain ethical in all of her business dealings, but with the way things have been for the last few years, she has run head-on into the reasons that Fannie and Freddie are in trouble. There are just too many brokers out there willing to make a quick buck off of ignorant buyers knowing full well they are going to default on their loans. Often the buyers don’t know they can’t really afford what they’ve bought. Or the brokers are perfectly willing to get a property appraised WAY above the value and share in the extra cash with their fraudulent buyers with said buyers fully intending to default on the loan. I know for a fact that it has happened on a regular basis and thus the current financial climate doesn’t surprise me at all. I could name names. Even people that advertise in my church bulletin… Sigh.

Furthermore, my “previous life” was in the brokerage industry. My days were all about Operations and Compliance and keeping our Reps from getting us all sent to jail. It was an uphill battle all the way. In my earliest brokerage job I worked for Shearson Lehman (American Express/Hutton/Brothers) years ago and rode the elevator with the Lehman Brothers brokers- they were the slimiest, sleaziest guys in the business – Gordon Gekkos every one of ‘em down to the slicked back hair and $100 socks. I was often the first person that abused Lehman clients (yes, ABUSED) and cold-call “victims” would get to that actually gave a damn. I was probably call number 10 that these folks made because they’d gone through everyone at Lehman and ended up at the Shearson Corporate Divisional office to get ANYONE to help them. That was usually me. There wasn’t anything too vile that a broker wouldn’t say to someone that dared to tell them “no”. To say that Lehman failed surprised me would be laughable. I expected them to be history years ago.

Now, sadly, we are about to become a socialist state and none of us will have any money. Yay. Sure, the homeless guy under the overpass will have free healthcare, but my family will be in the refrigerator box next door. Huzzah. I know that Obama is going to win because I’ve seen the scary folks he’s got out “rockin’ the vote”. The voter registration tables all have the lowest common denominator staffing them. There will be folks voting Dem that haven’t voted in their lives. These “staffers” never approach anyone that looks like they might possibly be a Republican. Ever.
Yeah, they choose who to approach in a typically reverse racist manner. I have purposely walked by registration tables looking interested and no one ever says a word to me. They don’t have any interest in registering Republicans. They can say that they are hoping to “practice democracy”, but only for the Democrats. I’ve read on other blogs that others have had the same experience.

Add to all of this the stuff that is sliding by in the primetime 7:00 p.m. CST television time slot so that we can’t even watch network t.v. with out kids anymore. We’re pretty permissive as far as language and other stuff goes, but the content of the language…double entendre regarding blow jobs, blatantly talking about pubic hair styles, simulating orgasm. Our kids are ten – they know more than they need to already (they shock me daily), must their humor all be sex-centric?  How am I going to get them all to “keep it in their pants” as they proceed into the teen years when sex is being force fed to them everywhere? I hold little hope for the next decade and wonder if the movie “Idiocracy” isn’t really so ridiculous. I see the signs everywhere.
/rant