Today's vocabulary term: free market

free market, n. phr. whatever I don't like

From Jezebel.com:

From the PRI report (which names Microsoft as a major supporter of the increase in the H-1B quota):

So, why does the US need to import labor for this lower-skilled work? Matloff says it has to do with wages and immobility. He argues that since employers sponsor H-1Bs visas, foreigners have a limited ability to negotiate higher salaries or switch jobs. If they do manage to change employers, it means they must restart any green card applications. Matloff says these realities "handcuff" H-1B visa holders to their employers.

Ahh, the grim realities of our beloved free market system!

In other papal news, water is wet.

My liberal friends are shocked by Pope Francis's history of pronouncements on women and gays. What did they expect? What sort of person did they think that the cardinal electors, all appointed by either John Paul II or Benedict XVI, would choose? The fact that anyone expected differently just shows the triumph of hope over experience.

The latest in the war on soda, and why it matters to LGBT people

The latest:

A judge struck down New York’s limits on large sugary drinks on Monday, one day before they were to take effect, in a significant blow to one of the most ambitious and divisive initiatives of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure.

While the opinion relied heavily on administrative law, such laws present the larger issue that they restrict people's right to make choices over their own bodies. One justification for such laws that tends to show up often in the comments sections is the effect of obesity on public health — the same argument that I heard when I was involved in the struggle against sodomy laws.

My latest letter to the editor

... is here, in the Science Times section of The New York Times:

Re “Prison and the Poverty Trap” (Feb. 19): The article shows that the war on drugs has harmed people like Carl Harris on two levels. First, it has distorted incentives and created an underground market that is both more lucrative and more violent than the aboveground economy. Second, the long prison terms associated with the underground market cause a breakdown of families and communities.

If those in power are serious about the poverty trap, they should be serious about not setting it up in the first place.

In the Catholic Church, life imitates The Onion.

From The Onion:

VATICAN CITY—Calling forgiveness "one of the highest virtues taught to us by Jesus," Pope John Paul II issued a papal decree Monday absolving priest-molested children of all sin.

From Cardinal Mahoney's blog:

In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated. In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage--at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us.

Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.

Stuff gay men supposedly like: 21. Poppers

According to articles like this, poppers are some huge gay male sacrament, "one thing we have yet to sell, condemn, or disown in the quest for equality ... the homosexual peyote." Yet strangely enough, I do not know a single gay man of my age or younger who shows the slightest interest in them. Perhaps poppers, like a belief that Social Security will still be there when we need it, are something for previous generations.

Have I mentioned Marco Rubio's water bottle in the last 15 minutes?

In the State of the Union speech, Obama proposed doing more of what we know doesn't work, so how do my liberal friends react? They can't shut up about Marco Rubio's water bottle. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost start to think that they were using a diversionary tactic.