Maybe I'm missing something but the effects of incumbency would scale linearly with the popular vote, meaning it can't account for the wasted votes by the Democrats in 2012. The reason for the difference in popular vote and seats won can then only lie in the makeup of the districts, and the Republicans were able to improve that by 7 seats since 2010. That seems significant, since the article agrees that Republicans already had an advantage before 2012. Now, I'm not claiming that all the gerrymandering is intentional electioneering by the Republicans, and I'm sure that most of it is just due to the natural congregation of Democrats in cities. But I don't see incumbency as a valid mechanism for this discrepancy.
I thought the real issue with the merger was the loss of competition in the mobile market, going from 4 major players to only 3 (and only one on a GSM network), rather than the consolidation of the wireless spectrum. Sure, it sucks that now AT&T has to give spectrum to T-Mobile, but I suppose that was just part of the risk of going for the merger. They shouldn't blame the FCC for this.
The Bionic is a fine phone, and probably the best choice on Verizon right now. October will see some phones eclipse it - the HTC Vigor looks to have an HD screen (probably NOT pentile), and the Galaxy (Nexus) Prime is also on the horizon, and neither will be as locked down as the Bionic. I think would be worth waiting if I was in no hurry to upgrade.
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Maybe I'm missing something but the effects of incumbency would scale linearly with the popular vote, meaning it can't account for the wasted votes by the Democrats in 2012. The reason for the difference in popular vote and seats won can then only lie in the makeup of the districts, and the Republicans were able to improve that by 7 seats since 2010. That seems significant, since the article agrees that Republicans already had an advantage before 2012. Now, I'm not claiming that all the gerrymandering is intentional electioneering by the Republicans, and I'm sure that most of it is just due to the natural congregation of Democrats in cities. But I don't see incumbency as a valid mechanism for this discrepancy.
well, Verizon charges, what, $200 per month for 300 Mb/s FiOS? I'd say what Google's offering is a pretty good deal.
yay....one more way for them to track me **puts on tinfoil hat**
I thought the real issue with the merger was the loss of competition in the mobile market, going from 4 major players to only 3 (and only one on a GSM network), rather than the consolidation of the wireless spectrum. Sure, it sucks that now AT&T has to give spectrum to T-Mobile, but I suppose that was just part of the risk of going for the merger. They shouldn't blame the FCC for this.
The Bionic is a fine phone, and probably the best choice on Verizon right now. October will see some phones eclipse it - the HTC Vigor looks to have an HD screen (probably NOT pentile), and the Galaxy (Nexus) Prime is also on the horizon, and neither will be as locked down as the Bionic. I think would be worth waiting if I was in no hurry to upgrade.