Don't Be an Idiot: Vote!

I hear all too often voters talk about being disenchanted: "Why should I vote? I don't like either of the candidates?" "It doesn't matter who you vote for. They are all crooks and will all lie to you in the end." These viewpoints really scare me.

We live in a democracy. That means we elect the government. The government works for us. Yes, there is corruption, but it's so much better than it used to be (just think Boss Tweed). You know why it's better? Because people don't stand for it. Citizens get up and vote. They express their opinion, debate conflicting ideas, and support the candidate who most closely represents their viewpoint.

You have other more pressing issues? That's fine. If everyone were significantly involved in politics, it might get a little crazy. But take a few moments to look over the candidates' platforms and voting records, then take a little time out of your day on November 4th and vote. Seriously, it comes around once a year. You find plenty of time to play video games, right?

If you don't vote, you officially lose the right to bitch about anything the government does. You also lose the right to be patriotic, glad, or proud of anything related to the nation. You're supporting the corruption of our government. You're handing the government over to corporate lobbyists and evil men (think Dick Cheney). You are a part of the problem you claim to hate so much.

Get out and vote!

Sorry This is a Boring Post

Eric and I recently had a conversation about how a candidate's personal life morals and ethics reflect their ability and skill at governing. I happen to believe that a person's morals are consistent throughout all of their dealings; a person who is immoral in one aspect of life has the capability to be just that immoral in all aspects.

John McCain had an affair while still married to his wife. He has admitted this as his greatest moral failure. I believe that moral failure is still a part of his DNA, and he is still capable of that failure. What could happen if he were president and were faced with a moral dilemma. Would he do the hard but right thing or the convenient but immoral thing? Just look at his life.

McCain is not the only person who has had an affair. No one is perfect. And having a divorce doesn't make one an immoral person. But it does say something about the man.

McCain's Health Insurance Scam

So McCain wants to give individuals a $2500 credit and families a $5000 credit to buy their own health insurance. I once had to buy my own health insurance at a cost of $450/month. That works out to $5400/year. The difference works out to $241.67/month. I paid $70/month for a single plan at my last job (for a single participant).

So McCain essentially wants to increase health insurance rates on unmarried people by $170/month. Now that's leadership.

McCain's New Plan: Problems Again

So John McCain announced a new plan at the debate to buy individual mortgages from troubled homeowners and renegotiate those adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) into fixed-rate mortgages. He claims this is different from the existing government bailout plan because it goes directly to the homeowner and makes their life easier.

That's all well and good, but if he wants to buy Joe Sixpack's ARM, he has to find out who owns it. The whole point of this mortgage crisis is that the banks no longer own the mortgages; they package up thousands of them and sell shares in the package. That's where you get the mortgage-backed securities. I bet my mortgage (30-year fixed) is in part of a security, but it would be in one of the good ones (full of fixed-rate mortgages owned by people with high credit). The bad ones are backed by ARMs owned by people with bad credit and too low an income to pay the mortgage.

So if McCain wants to fix these bad mortgages, he has to first buy them. To buy them, he has to buy the bad-mortgage backed securities. So McCain's new plan is basically the exact same thing Congress has already voted on, with the added idea that the government would renegotiate the mortgages once it bought them. That added idea is a good one, I'll give him that. But if this is his attempt to make it a race, then hello President Obama.

This Drives Me Nuts

It kinda bugs me when I see campaign contributions from company employees lined up next to candidate's names. Just because Smallpants McFry (Joe Sixpack's neighbor) happens to work at Goldman Sachs doesn't mean he represents big Wall Street. And just because a candidate accepts the money doesn't mean he is going to represent the views of the voter's company. Sure there can be a correlation, but it's not proof.

Wait Wait What? Nullable Types in C# 2.0?

So I just learned that C# 2.0 has nullable types. You can do this:

int? i = null;

And it works fine. I know the idea is that you can represent a non-answer or unknown entity this way, especially when dealing with databases and DBNull. Still, it seems like a bad idea in a lot of ways. I've spoken out against nulls before when dealing with booleans. But what about integers?

I don't like it. I'm all about conceptual integrity; one thing is one thing. So what is an integer? A whole number. Is null a whole number? No it's not.

So what's the flipside? Sometimes nulls exist. You're going to do a left-join one day, and then your integer column "reset_count" is going to be null. Now you have to code to use the "hasValue" boolean attached to the nullable int (you get "hasValue" for free with every nullable-type declaration). Every time you want to use that value, you have to add code:

if (i.hasValue)

If you have to add that code, then you really have to refactor your code. Whatever you're representing should be able to handle this one-to-zero-or-more relationship without special code. Maybe use a collection and "foreach" through it. Maybe you do something cool that I've never heard of. But if you have to code for nulls, please seriously consider refactoring.

Appendix: I can think of one condition where you might need to add your own "valueSpecified" boolean: classes that represent XSDs with optional attributes. I don't have to like it though.