Not a Potted Plant

T-Mobile has been getting a fair amount of attention for its decision to terminate smartphone subsidies.

I want to be excited about this. Or, more excited about this than I am. This is, to my mind (as with Yglesias’s) how things should work. And T-Mobile, as a company, has always done business the way that I want cell phone companies to do business. I am not a T-Mobile customer due to their complete lack of coverage in my part of the country. That’s a bit of a cop-out, though. There was a regional carrier that I could have signed with and chose not to. Good people though they were, they couldn’t provide me with the service I wanted.

I am currently under contract with The Dark Side. They were the only ones that could.

Anyhow, T-Mobile is in a similar situation where they are virtuous because they have no claws. It is not likely the other major carriers will follow suit. Further, for it to be really advantageous, we’d need common standards and unlocked phones so that I can take my phone from one company to another. If I were to switch to T-Mobile, I’d need to buy a new phone. So whether we’re buying our own phone or accepting a subsidy, we’re talking about significant barriers to exit.

My sister-in-law recently recruited my help to set her up with a modern smartphone and mobile plan for her relocation to Alaska. Alaska is a peculiar case as far as mobile phones (and many, many other things) go, but it got me looking at the various options out there. For a whole lot of people who aren’t me, the arguments in favor of prepaid plans are becoming stronger and stronger. It may even be something I look at when our contract with The Dark Side expires. The prepaid market works more closely to how I think things should work and are increasingly including things – like unlimited whatever – that keep me deciding between the big boys.

Now, most (all?) of those carriers rely on either AT&T and Verizon’s networks (do any of them use Sprint?). Which makes me wonder about the long-term viability of this, if their leasing out their lines is cannibalizing their own business. I don’t think such leasing is actually required (I remember reading that T-Mobile was approached but declined), so if the downmarket carriers get too competitive, the big two can put a stop to that.

Honestly, though, I’d actually consider it desirable to have two overlapping national networks if we ended up primarily having competition on the storefront level.

I’m sorry Burt, but Go Vikings!

[A] Now that he is done with the annual chore, it’s the perfect time for Santa Claus to consider relocating to Alaska.

[B] It was West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that made me wonder if the tide really has turned against guns. It’s West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that is making me think that maybe it hasn’t.

[C] Though it doesn’t tell us too much about what to do to prevent further incidents, I did appreciate this piece on how we should think about them on a social level.

[D] When I fear overreaction to high-profile incidents like Newtown, it’s not just gun control. I still haven’t gotten over the release of V for Vendetta being pushed off the fifth of November.

[E] Despite the reputation, the Tea Party has arguably done a better job of recruiting minorities than the Republican Party has. For all of the (legitimate!) talk about the Tea Party’s duds, it’s worth remembering that without them, Marco Rubio wouldn’t be a senator.

[F] During the Leaguecast on the GOP, the conversation took a strange turn with some Dubya-love. We’re not the only ones. GWB never got over 50% of any of the minority groups, but his elections and the failures sense demonstrate why it’s important to mitigate the margins.

[G] I’m pleased at the pushback that the New York Journal got on releasing the names and addresses of handgun permit owners.

[H] Theodore Dalrymple pokes holes at the notion that if only there’d been a psychiatrist, Newtown might have been prevented. Those that wish to redirect the conversation away from guns and towards “mental health” – and those that flat-out want this approached as a mental health issue – have an uphill climb on convincing me that there is actually something we can do on this avenue.

[I] There is a resurgence of Japanese Nationalism. Or maybe not. The LDP is back in charge of Japan and China may be okay with that.

[J] In Japan, they have vending machines that keep drinks cold while being shut down for 16 hours at a time. Presently, the overall power savings is about ten percent, but that still seems significant.

[K] Jon V Last writes about fertility decline, over in Japan, here, and elsewhere. Robots may not save us.

[L] This may be wishful thinking on Conn Carroll’s part, but maybe the emerging Democratic coalition is actually simply the Obama coalition.

[M] On the other hand, if the public is shying away from the advancement of traditional values, that does represent a more enduring problem for the GOP.

[N] Cyborgs rise!

[O] Can a community redevelopment agency get $100,000,000 by declaring downtown Memphis a condemnable slum?

[P] British people problems.

[Q] Last week I linked to an article about how awesome Legos are. This week I link to an article about how awesome LEGO is.

[R] Wikipedia doesn’t need our money, so why does it keep asking us for more?

[S] I doubt this is an actual thing, but financial management as a criteria for mating only makes sense to me.

[T] Liberals like shows that mock conservatives. Conservatives like college football.

[U] For Microsoft, the case for firing Steve Ballmer. Included in the article is a link to this piece from 2011, which paints a pretty devastating picture.

[V] Donorschoose, a website dedicated to directing funds on education projects, has hired a data scientist.

[W] The global implications of shale. California’s history with it.

Coin collectors take notice! 31 USC § 5112(k) reads:

The Secretary [of the Treasury] may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

Wonderful! How charming for a coin collector to have a genuine U.S. platinum coin!

Or, Continue Reading →

Sperm donor, or father?

Topekan William Marotta sought only to become a sperm donor — but now the state of Kansas is trying to have him declared a father.

Nearly four years ago, Marotta donated sperm in a plastic cup to a lesbian couple after responding to an ad they had placed on Craigslist.

Marotta and the women, Topekans Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, signed an agreement holding him harmless for support of the child, a daughter Schreiner bore after being artificially inseminated.

But the Kansas Department for Children and Families is now trying to have Marotta declared the 3-year-old girl’s father and forced to pay child support. The case is scheduled for a Jan. 8 hearing in Shawnee County District Court.

Hannah Schroller, the attorney defending Marotta, said the case has intriguing social and reproductive rights implications.

She said Marotta, a mechanic who has taken care of foster children with his wife, Kimberly, answered a Craigslist ad placed by Bauer and Schreiner seeking a sperm donor in March 2009.

The law in the only state in which I am familiar with the law is that it all depends on marital status. A donor who is married to the mother automatically becomes the father, but a donor who is not married to the mother has to adopt the child if he wants any parental rights and the concomitant obligations.

That strikes me as a much better criteria than the one that Kansas is apparently using (though I think all such contracts should be enforceable). Though I do understand the state’s interest here, this sort of thing is toxic to the extent that we want to encourage alternative paths to pregnancy. I’ve commented in the past that one of the main reason I would never become a donor – including an anonymous one with a clinic – is that some judge somewhere will come to the decision that such arrangements are not in the best interest of the child. This isn’t that, but it would still put me ill-at-ease. Continue Reading →

While this Great Case is well out of chronological sequence for my itinerant progress on the project, I’ve volunteered to do this one now to be part of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen’s symposium on Guns in America. You can read about that symposium at its here. I offer you today a case with a level of obscurity that pales in comparison to the impact it has had on the culture and politics of the United States. We will meet some bad men, one good dog, an iconic weapon, a new science, some lawyers and judges, read some familiar language about a law written to respond to an outrage, meet the judges and the criminals and the lawyers who put that law to the test, and travel from Illinois and Michigan to Arkansas and Oklahoma before going to Washington, D.C. and winding up back where we started.

Let’s begin, then, in pre-Depression Chicago.

Continue Reading →

Last year, I was too busy to make predictions. I only made one, and I was right: Mitt Romney was indeed the Republican nominee for President. I never got around to making any others.

This year, I’ll make a few more.

Politics: June will be all about same-sex marriage. I predict the Supreme Court will interpret the Constitution such that states may define marriage as each state wishes but the Federal government must respect each state’s rights, and that states that do not have same-sex marriage will be required to find a cognate for couples holding marriage licenses from other states. Consequently, same-sex couples married in Iowa and moving to Wisconsin will find themselves transmogrified into members of a civil union, and married for purposes of Federal law. This will please no one but be more acceptable to SSM advocates than SSM opponents.

Technology: Microsoft will patch Windows 8 for laptops and desktops to go directly to a more classic interface. Mac users will gloat that the Mountain Lion OS X never needed any such thing but then Apple will release OS XI, code-named Cougar, with Courtney Cox and Christa Miller hired as spokespeople, and it’ll be something of a dud, delivering comeuppance to Mac users at long last.

Entertainment: I predict that 2013 is the year for Half-Life 3, and happy geeky orgasms will break out all over the place should this prediction come true. Further, Valve will option rights to Half-Life: the Movie to a production team that promises to hire Jon Favreau as the movie’s director and cast Jesse Spencer as the crowbar-wielding lead character Dr. Gordon Freeman, and Pete Postlethwaite as G-Man, to massive groans. (No, I don’t have any inside information, I’m just pulling it out of the air and yes, I know Valve has said they wanted to do the movie, if at all, on their own digital studio.)

Science: A rocky planet in the temperature zone of its star such that it can maintain water in its liquid state on its surface will be found within 250 light years of our solar system. A human being will be cloned, but not in the United States.

The Blog: We will get a million hits between today and October 31.

(A) Mark Leibovich learned at least 17 things from reading The Economist’s “The World in 2013” issue. Among them, employers in Japan face fines if employees fatten up. Could Japan’s KFC-Christmas connection be a part of the problem? [NYT] [Yahoo!]

(B) According to Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, expectant mothers are seen as less competent and more irrational by their peers. I’m not sure this applies exclusively to pregnant women. [The Atlantic]

(C) Legos! They’re awesome, expensive, and popular. Here’s why. Honestly, I don’t really care for those product tie-ins. If the mentioned rival sheds that and the costs associated with that, I think we’ll go in that direction. [NPR]

(D) Is correct grammar a form of privilege? Here’s the thing, we can correct grammar overtly and they can take or leave the correction, or we can decline to correct the grammar and know that they will be judged negatively for failing to adhere to standards we’re not overtly enforcing. There’s not a good answer here. [BoingBoing]

(E) A look at Amazon and what makes it so great: Generous shareholders. I love Amazon, but their market position will become worrying at some point. [Slate]

(F) I’m not big on truancy laws. But I am intrigued by the results of paying kids to do school work. So I’m a bit confounded by a principal paying students to show up to school. [NPR]

(G) GoogleMaps is apparently better on the iPhone than it is on Android. The Android version on my phone does everything I want it to. My big complaint is the amount of resources it soaks up. The iPhone one looks prettier, which means it may be worse in that regard. [CNN]

(H) Texas is looking at reforming occupational licensure. Yay! [Empower Texans]

(I) I cringe a big at the top-downedness of stuff like this but I suppose it makes sense as a counterbalance in the ways that zoning so often keeps affordable units at bay. [Washington City Paper]

(J) Solving traffic! Aslso, rewarding good cab drivers with toll road freebies. [The Atlantic] [TheNational]

(K) Why presidents are less effective than prime ministers. I’d kind of thought this was obvious: Presidents control an office or a branch, while Prime Ministers control executive and legislative. Our presidents would be much more effective if their election assured a congressional majority (or coalition to a majority) (assuming no filibuster). [Northwestern]

(L) Really, there’s no good reason for the presidential line of succession to go through the legislative branch at all. [Slate]

(M) We hate each other because the stakes are so small. Of course, we don’t think the stakes are so small because we exaggerate. [Pacific Standard] [Mother Jones]

(N) Technology against technology. How super glasses may fight the deleterious effects of LCD screens. [Forbes]

(O) Relatedly, a Russian phone company is coming to the rescue, with eInk on one side and an LCD on the other. This is the sort of product I might consider buying for my wife down the road. Meanwhile, Brazil is getting an iphone that runs Android. [Mashable] [The Verge]

(P) It may be true that states that spend and tax less also grow more, but there are a lot of confounding factors here. A lot of red states are starting at a lower base point, from which growth is easier. A lot of high-productivity states like Washington and Texas can afford lower taxes in a way that Idaho, for example, can’t. [TaxProf]

(Q) Ravi Shankar was apparently less than comfortable with hippies. [Telegraph]

(R) Dilbert’s Scott Adams buys a car. [Dilbert Blog]

(S) The costs of moving from Wisconsin to Alabama: $676.32. I don’t think we’ll be moving in town for that little. This would be a contributor to the North Dakota Problem. [Billfold]

(T) Our advances in manufacturing may be overrated. [Conversable Economist]

(U) Relevant to me: 13 Things Babies Are Secretly Trying To Tell You. [Buzzfeed]