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0 comments on "MURDERING someone is wrong"

MURDERING someone is wrong. Killing someone accidentally or in the course of saving your life is not.

I was completely boggled the other day when I had to explain to the Kid that the movie “The Call” (Spoilers ahead) is the story of a murder.

In the movie, a serial killer kidnaps teenage girls with blond hair. (There’s a sad backstory that might make you feel bad for him if things weren’t so creepy and weird.) And the main character, Jordan Turner, played by Halle Berry is a 911 operator that messes up and lets a girl be kidnapped and murdered by him.

Anyways, it’s a while later, she’s dealing with PTSD about that poor girl getting murdered. And another girl gets grabbed by him – though they don’t know he’s the same guy yet.

It’s just a teenage girl heading to her car in a parking garage and a guy grabs her and throws her in his trunk. He takes her cellphone, but she has an extra one confiscated from her friend.

So she’s able to call 911. And with the help of Jordan, Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin) makes some truly courageous attempts at saving her life.

But she still ends up strapped to a table.

She still ends up a bit cut up.

She and Jordan both discover the same creepy murder room and bunch of bloody scalped blond hair.

And Jordan arrives just in time to save her. Like, he’s literally cutting into Casey’s face when Jordan bashes him across the back with a nitrous tank.

He’s knocked sprawling, presumably unconscious.

She runs back to untie Casey and they’re about to make a run for it, then he jumps on her back and they beat the crap out of each other.

She knocks him down and she and Casey run again.

He attacks again, and she stabs him. He can’t move.

Jordan begins to dial 911 – and Casey stops her.

Instead of calling the police and having him arrested, they leave him in his hidden hidey-hole to die.

And the screen blanks out.

They never tell the police they found an underground murder room. They leave tons of forensic evidence showing that they were BOTH down there, not just Casey. They leave all those scalpe wigs with their DNA evidence of the dead girls behind.

The end.

That is murder.

When she hit him to save Casey, she could have grabbed the scalpel off the tray and stabbed him. It would have been self-defense.

When he attacked them the second time, she could have killed him then. It would have been self-defense.

But when Jordan and Casey put him back in the hole to die – that was murder.
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Jordan could have smacked him with the tank, then stabbed him in the spine. He would have been alive, paralyzed, and she could have claimed she was trying to kill him in self-defense.

He would have been able to answer questions.

They found his dump site where he threw all those girls’ bodies.

What if it wasn’t his only dump site?

What about all the families and friends wondering where their loved one went?

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I sometimes feel as though our media output has far outpaced our maturity level as a society.

We socially condition people to think that murder is okay.

Then we are upset that people are murdered.

How many movies and television shows have the police breaking all kinds of laws, and not getting in trouble? They’re constantly beating information out of people or killing the bad guys because “a trial would be a waste of time for a scumbag like you”.

WTF?!?

A law enforcement officer is not judge, jury, and executioner.

The limits of their authority are to cuff you and take you to jail.

It’s up to a judge and a jury of your peers to decide your fate. And they should be impartial while doing it.

Giving someone a gun and a badge doesn’t make it okay for them to MURDER people.

And constantly showing in movies and TV that people can MURDER someone just because that person attempted to murder them is horrifying.

If someone tries to murder-death-kill me, I’m going to fight for my life. And if I end up killing them in the process, I can live with that.

But I’m not going to tie them up and torture them.

You only have to watch “I Saw the Devil” once to see all the bad choices he makes in the name of revenge. Because of him, lives are devastated and blood runs in the street.

And then what?

So yeah–

Murder is wrong.

0 comments on "Ereading; Kindles; Amazon"

There’s talk that the purchase of dedicated ereaders is down, and as the owner of several kindles, I can see why. They’re such excellent devices that it’s like they never go bad.

I’ve got a second gen kindle and it’s still my go-to ereader. Why? Well, it’s got side buttons for easy page turns, and it’s incredibly easy to read on. I have no idea what I’m going to do when it eventually breaks down, but I’ll probably lose my mind because it’s still my baby.

I also have a 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD that I received for Christmas 4-5 years ago, and it’s still going strong. I use it to check my email, watch Netflix and Hulu, and read fanfiction at AO3 or FFN. It may be an older model, but it still works great and I love it. It’s probably the best Christmas present that I’ve ever gotten, including the laptop that barely lasted 2 years before becoming so slow it’s now obsolete.

I think the “problem” with Amazon is that their kindles are too good. You don’t really have to worry about them falling apart or giving you the dreaded half-black screen of frozen death (I’m looking at you Sony). And considering the number of times I’ve dropped my little kindle with only a tiny dent as a result, it’s a miracle it’s lasted in my klutzy hands (unlike the poor Ebookwise back in the day, of which I had three, two of them ending with a cracked screen and the last one deciding not to turn on one day. And don’t even get me started on the Jetbook I once had for a week, which someone decided to put under my seat in the car where it got murdered when the seat moved back. $250 dead and gone. My niece is lucky to still be alive).

Also in my family, my brother has a first gen Kindle Fire that’s still alive, the Kid has a Kindle Fire HD, and my dad has a 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX. Every single kindle is in working order and shows no signs of glitching or falling apart.

So what does it all mean? Well, Amazon has made some excellent products in their Kindles. From dedicated ereaders to tablets, they’re affordable and they work and if you buy one you pretty much never have to buy another unless you’re looking to upgrade. Unlike other companies, whose products either quickly become obsolete or turn to garbage in your hands.

Say what you will about the “evils” of Amazon, they actually seem to care about their customers. And I guess I like being cared about, even if it just involves awesome return policies and the ability to get ahold of a customer care representative in the rare times when I need one.

And the nice thing about a kindle as a dedicated ereader — Kindle, Paperwhite, Voyage — is that you can pass it around and feel like you’re on Star Trek. The text is always clear and readable. You can flick from book to book and never lose your place. And once you load a kindle full of reading material, you can shut off the wireless to save battery power and read for weeks at a time.

With the use of Fanfiction Downloader, Calibre, and a USB cable, you can be reading free on your little kindle with no concerns of Apple, Microsoft, or whoever peeking over your shoulder like a nosy goon. And to me, that’s pretty nice.

So I’m a kindle fan. I think you probably should be one too. They’re awesome, affordable, and they last a ridiculously wonderful long time.

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Oh, by the way, with Christmas coming up and my birthday in January… I would like to say that a Kindle Paperwhite or a Kindle Voyage would make a great gift. Just saying.

Oh yeah, and I’ve got a store at Teepublic: LeCheese Haut. So if you buy any shirts from there, they’re supposed to kick some money my way. I handpicked all the designs, though they’re all in the order that they were added and I have no control over rearranging them. Still, there’s some nice stuff —

From Hannibal to Dune to Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to Invader Zim. There’s a little something for everyone.

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Keep in mind —
Patreon: Patreon.com/HarperKingsley
Paypal: Paypal.me/HarperKingsley
FictionPress: FictionPress.com/~harperkingsley

0 comments on "Honesty time; Archer Season 6; Dafuq?"

HONESTY TIME — Okay, I’m going to be completely honest: I have not seen the third season of “Hannibal” yet. It’s on my DVR along with season two, which I did watch and enjoy, but I’m scared to watch season 3.

I’ve heard things. Good things. Bad things. Heartrending things.

I know that it’s supposed to be super beautiful/awesome/eye-opening, and I totally love the show, but I’m pretty squeamish. I want to watch season 3, but I’m scared to watch it because it’s going to be me watching it all by myself, and while I can read all kinds of horribly descriptive things, the sight of blood makes me go “Whoo-ee, that’s me losing my lunch.”

Still. I’mma try to watch season 3 over the next couple days. Pray for me (and Will Graham).

Hopefully I don’t start writing a bunch of Hannigram stories while sobbing into my keyboard. But who knows. I’m pretty weird.

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ARCHER SEASON 6 — Dammit FXXHD, all I wanted was to see season 6. I’ve been waiting a ridiculously long time for you to finally show it, and what happens? Somehow you manage to get all the way to episode 6 before I realized that you’d finally finished the recap of season 5. Seriously, do you gotta be so cruel?

And when I looked up the info, what do I see? You continue season 6 and go straight through to seasons 1 and 2, and likely 3, 4, and 5. I just want to see season 6!

Ugh. It’s going to suck having to wait for you to go through all the earlier seasons again. My life is garbage.

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DAFUQ?: Totally saw this on Cracked. It’s from the “21 Absurd Lies Companies Have Used to Sell Products” article, number 8.

Cracked: Pom advertisement meme

From an explanation in the comment’s section, I guess as long as there’s been no study firmly disproving a claim, under First Amendment laws a company can saw what-the-fuck-ever they want. So you can’t say that your product cures death, but…

“Read ‘Allies & Enemies’ by Harper Kingsley and you just might live a happier and longer life. You might even be one of those people that is more resistant to cancer, colonoscopies, and fecal worms. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. But you might be.”

Wow. *mind blown*

0 comments on "Kindle Fire HD 7 is $119-139 right now"

I bought the Kid a 16GB Kindle Fire HD 7 for $139 (the 8GB is $119). It’s a limited time offer — the Fire was $159 when I added it to my cart two week ago — and with the sudden price drop, I didn’t want to wait.

So the Kid is getting his Christmas present a month early, and he’s super excited. To be honest, I’m getting a little excited myself. It’s great to see him so enthused. (Games he’s dying for: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 [$2.99]; Stupid Zombies 2 [free]; SAS: Zombie Assault 3 [free]; Zombies Ate My Friends [free];

I have to play them all now to check out whether they’re appropriate or not. Ah, the hardship that is my life 😛 )

I plan on using Kindle FreeTime (which comes pre-installed) to force him to do his half hour of daily reading before he can play any of the games of movies.

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About Kindle FreeTime: blog posts of interest —
How to Setup a Kindle Fire for Kids with Kindle FreeTime — http://www.lovemyfire.com/kindle-freetime.html.

How-To Geek: How to Turn Your Kindle Fire Into a Totally Kid-Friendly Tablet — http://www.howtogeek.com/178303/how-to-turn-your-kindle-fire-into-a-totally-kid-friendly-tablet-with-freetime/.

Kindle FreeTime: Parental controls and kid-friendly content — http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2014/0108/Kindle-FreeTime-Parental-controls-and-kid-friendly-content.

Amazon Kindle Freetime review — http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/reviews/amazon-kindle-freetime-review-469809.

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Basically, FreeTime comes with the Kindle and you can add different profiles for multiple kids on a single device. You can decide what your kid is allowed to use and how long they can use it for. (Kindle FreeTime Unlimited is a different thing that you pay for, so don’t be confused.)

The Kid is too old for some of the controls, but at the same time I don’t trust him not to go app crazy and download a bunch of stuff or in-app purchase a bunch of stuff that will appear on my card. He gets a little too into his games, and sometimes he doesn’t think about consequences or much of anything else when he wants to play something. Plus I have a lot of content I don’t want him to have access to, yet he’s too young to have his own Amazon account.

So I’ll be sharing some of my apps, games, and books with him, and I won’t have to worry that he’s spending his college fund on some silly game or other. Very nice deal.