Just added this example of racism, brought to my attention via the tip line at Now Racist in the U.S.

‘Master’ and ‘slave’ computer labels unacceptable, officials say

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms “master” and “slave” on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

See the whole list here.

I expected to be one of the first people in the CPAC Blogger’s Lounge this morning, and I was. What I wasn’t expecting was for John Brodigan to beat me into the lounge, especially considering the state he was in when I left him last night:

Some fresh fruit…

A nice apple thing…

And most importantly, plenty of coffee…

The room is starting to fill up and the conference is underway. Should be a good next few days.

Thanks again to all those who made this possible with their generous donations.

I spent quite a bit of this evening getting packed and ready to go to CPAC tomorrow. I have a bag of audio and video equipment, a suitcase of Wal-Mart’s finest clothes and a near empty backpack for CPAC loot.

I should arrive in DC a little before 1000 tomorrow. Then, I’ll meet up with my brother, as usual, and take the town by storm.

I don’t mean that literally. We’ll most likely talk and stuff.

I have seen the graphics like this one:

I don’t think America is headed for a “1984″-esque society.

I think it’s more like this:

Why?

Spend four minutes watching this and tell me I’m wrong:

Name the countries that border America: “Um, Canada. No, that’s a state. Nevermind.”

Dear God…

The top donation was $100 from a reader via PayPal. Very generous and very much appreciated.

Overall, you donated $191 (after PayPal fees) via the donation button and I had three people give me a total of $73 in person.

Your willingness to support what I do here by giving me your hard earned property is humbling. Thank you all so much for helping me accomplish my goals.

God bless you. I’ll do my best at CPAC to give you your money’s worth.

The New York Times (yes, that one) has an article about an ice cream parlor in San Francisco that almost wasn’t. The journey from idea to reality was one filled with red tape and over $30,000 in fees.

But small business is a priority in San Francisco:

The Ice Cream Bar opened Jan. 21 in the Cole Valley neighborhood — an homage to the classic parlors of the 1930s, complete with vintage soda fountain and lunch counter seating. It has become an immediate sensation, packed with both families and the foodie crowd, savoring upscale house-made ice creams and exotic sodas (flavorings include pink peppercorn and tobacco). The shop also employs 14 full- and part-time workers.

But getting it opened wasn’t easy.

“Many times it almost didn’t happen,” said Juliet Pries, the owner, with a cheerful laugh.

Ms. Pries said it took two years to open the restaurant, due largely to the city’s morass of permits, procedures and approvals required to start a small business. While waiting for permission to operate, she still had to pay rent and other costs, going deeper into debt each passing month without knowing for sure if she would ever be allowed to open.

“It’s just a huge risk,” she said, noting that the financing came from family and friends, not a bank. “At several points you wonder if you should just walk away and take the loss.”

Ms. Pries said she had to endure months of runaround and pay a lawyer to determine whether her location (a former grocery, vacant for years) was eligible to become a restaurant. There were permit fees of $20,000; a demand that she create a detailed map of all existing area businesses (the city didn’t have one); and an $11,000 charge just to turn on the water.

And this is for a small business. Imagine if she wanted to open a factory or something bigger.

No wonder businesses are fleeing California.

Boingboing has a video to go along with the above story:

I’m sure at some point there was a government employee who thought that every hoop the small business owner jumps through was a necessary evil for protecting the people who are two stupid to take care of themselves.

I have lamented here on the site that someone should start a list of all the things that are now considered racist so someone can avoid unwittingly saying or doing something that would land them in hot water.

Well, no one did.

So I took it upon myself. Presenting, Now Racist in the U.S.

It’s a work in progress. I’ve added as many instances as I could find in my Google Reader, but many of the links have come from friends I shared the site with while I was building it.

The allegations of racism are going to be popping up faster than one blogger, as awesome as I am, can keep up with. Therefore, I’m relying on my readers to A) spread the word about the list and B) send me tips on new racist code words or dog whistles.

As I get them, they will be added and I plan on updating you when I update the list.

Please read it and share it. There are tools on the site to put it on your Facebook or to tweet it out on Twitter.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with the site, and to Andrew for being a technical whiz.

I don’t go the library often.  My children, however, since they are homeschooled, practically live there.  My wife takes them all in, they split up, each going to their respective age range of books with my wife going with the youngest.

In the center of our library is a bank of computers.  Patrons are allowed to come in and use them as needed.  If I remember correctly, the library restricts what you can look at, which is good.  After all, it’s a library.

It’s not like that in Seattle.  There, any pervert who wants to watch hard core porn in the company of strangers and children can sit down, and turn on:

Despite repeated complaints from female patrons about men watching porn in full view of their children, the library has held fast to its policy of unfettered online access for grown-ups.

The reason: It’s not in the business of censorship.

The latest dust-up comes after a mother with her two kids saw a man watching “hard-core porn” at the Lake City library and complained. When the librarian refused to ask the man move to a less visible screen, Julie Howe wrote the library, the media and lawyers and got on KUOW.

“It was very shocking,” said Howe, whose 10-year-old girl had seen the man’s screen and cried that night. But, she acknowledged, “it’s not an easy one to solve.”

Other libraries also allow porn

The library’s position was mirrored elsewhere. The King County Library System has a similar policy, of filtering kids’ access on computers, while allowing adults to roam freely. The American Library Association endorses the same stance.

“Sometimes, in a library, you’re going to see information that’s going to make you uncomfortable,” Barbara Jones, director of the association’s intellectual freedom office, said on KUOW Wednesday.

So, how to fix this?  You’re at the library and walk past the computers.  You find someone sitting there watching some hard core porn, completely disregarding the fact children are in the area.  Since Barbara Jones and the rest of the cast from Brave New World has decided this is acceptable, what do you do?

Easy.

Start taking their picture with your phone.  They are in a public place.  It’s legal.

Introduce yourself and tell them you are putting together a bulletin board of probable perverts who frequent the library and need a head shot for it.  It’s for parents to be able to keep their children away from probably child molesters.  Since you are clearly a sexual deviant, what with your desire to watch porn with all these children around, you fit the profile.

Turn and smile please.

Or better yet, turn your phone’s video camera and start asking them questions.  Tell them you write for a website that focuses on sexual predators in the local area and want to do an article on them.  What’s your name?  Where do you live?  Where do you work? How long have you wanted to watch porn with children?

Or introduce yourself as a producer for the local news who is working on a story about the library’s policy on Internet porn.  Say you’d like to interview them on why they feel it’s right to expose children to pornography.

Make them feel as personally threatened as the parents who just want to get a copy of Super Fudge with their daughter.  I’m guessing if they thought they would be publicly painted as a sex offender, they’d stop coming to the public library.

As far as I know, those are all legal.  It’s a public place.  You can take their picture.  You can video tape them.  You could even actually start a website that does the things you claim you were going to do and share it with the local news, with permission to broadcast all your content.

But you cannot tolerate this.  I won’t.  Luckily, I live in a pretty conservative world and this isn’t a problem…yet.

Hat Tip:  Gateway Pundit

СВЕТИ ГЕОРГИ

“You having trouble?”

Well, yeah. Getting to CPAC isn’t cheap. The travel costs and lodging range from $600-$800 for me, so yeah. I need some help.

That’s when he handed me $50. A reader and a driver donated 25 times more than I was asking.

That brings to over $150 raised, but it’s far short of what you donated in years past.

One cup of McDonald’s coffee is all I ask for you to give. $1.

Please donate: