Harper Kingsley blog

September 14, 2016 0 comments

Zika virus still not being handled #pandemic-in-progress

I love how much the Senate cares about North America and the human race:

It gives me all kinds of warm and fuzzies to think that members of our esteemed Senate would add unacceptable clauses to bills we desperately need passed IMMEDIATELY. And then would be too proud to back down and be REASONABLE.

This is a fucking zombie apocalypse/Black Death/End of the World scenario in the making.

Think about it: mosquitoes live EVERYWHERE. They breed with each other. They hide in our imported fruits and vegetables.

And they can infect people with all kinds of freaky shit. Things like Zika and even worse.

So look, Senate/Congress/Corporations/Committees/Illuminati/Illuminutty/Masters of Hip-Hop: Present the bill as it’s supposed to be, with no secret riders or underhanded tactics.

We need to get a handle on this Zika situation stat, and we need to consider what’s supposed to be done with the mosquito situation. Which means we need to get the framework in place and the funding to the scientists and labs.

And when the time comes where we need the research they have gathered to find the Cure!HailMary, there will be records and equipment already in place. (Just play Plague Inc. You’ll totally appreciate the idea of starting your medical research early if you want to stop a pandemic.)

There needs to be a continent-spanning consensus on what methods are safe to use to handle mosquitoes as well.

Otherwise people handle things themselves and mistakes get made:

And our already at-risk bee population faces needless danger due to bad decisions.

Zika is a serious health emergency, and people need to start looking at it that way. Not just because of people dying or fetuses being damaged, but because of what it shows about our ability to head-off a major pandemic.

Policy needs to be in place, and our officials need to start doing the jobs they’re being overpaid for.

September 9, 2016 0 comments

Prisoners on Strike: Stop Modern Day Slavery!

I read this article =>http://qz.com/777415/an-unprecedented-prison-strike-hopes-to-change-the-fate-of-the-900000-americans-trapped-in-an-exploitative-labor-system<= “US Prisoners are going on strike to protest a massive forced labor system”, and while the title could use a little work, I felt it needed to be shared.

I wouldn’t complain about the idea of prisoners giving something back, if I was sure that they were in prison for the crimes they committed or that they were serving fair sentences.

But with the recent upheavals in the prison system and the decades of corrupt officials taking advantage of those too poor to put up a decent legal defense, I’m not as skeptical about prisoners being kept as slaves as I might have been a few years ago. You know, back when I was young and naive and wanted to believe that human decency might actually be a real thing.

For years I’ve been of the belief that politicians were purposely writing laws to ensure the less-advantaged were branded as criminals as an easy means of subjugating citizens’ rights. You know, “You have a prison record, so now you can’t vote me out of office as I rape your community and lock your children up alongside you.”

But keeping prisoners behind bars as a means of cheap labor toiling for soulless corporations that line officials’ pockets? Yeah. I can see it.

Violent offenders need to be kept behind bars, especially those for which counseling and one-on-one therapies and medication do not work to curb their darker impulses. No one wants a child murdering rapist on the loose, and most people wouldn’t welcome a child murdering rapist to sit at their table and share a meal. That’s a common sense safety concern.

But if someone was arrested with an ounce of weed that they bought for personal use or to sell to support their poor family, does it really make sense to lock them in prison where it costs the community money to house them? Or would counseling and community service give more back? At the very least, their family doesn’t lose a valuable resource and their children aren’t left wondering why Mommy or Daddy went away.

Yet if the community is paying money to house “criminals”, and the prison is selling their labor for a profit… isn’t that just slavery with extra steps?

Because it’s easy to bitch about the forced labor camps of North Korea and China and all those OTHER not-as-good-as-our countries, but it might be worth it to give our own labor camps another look. Especially when it’s so easy for someone to have their rights taken away and no one is giving the paperwork a second glance.

Slavery is wrong.

Slavery is evil.

Slavery needs to be abolished.

And if that means paying someone more than $0.14 – 0.20 an hour and ensuring that they’re treated like human beings and not animals… That’s something we all need to be concerned about.

Because to happily buy food or wear clothes that proudly bear a “Made in the USA” tag, I need to know that I’m not profiting off the misery of other people. And to say that prisoners don’t deserve rights, that their sometimes minor or stupid crimes means that they deserve to be treated as less than human, that’s wrong.

It’s disgusting that companies are profiting off the misery of human beings. And whether the sweatshops or the fields are located in other countries or our own, it doesn’t matter.

Slavery is wrong.

September 4, 2016

I

I can feel that need growing in me again. That climbing, culminating need for change.

Usually I lop off 12-14 inches of hair and pretend that it’s enough. That I’m not practically crawling out of my skin.

I bought a new backpack. It’s coming on Tuesday.

I’m tempted to throw some clothes in the bag and go. To just start walking and see where the world takes me.

It’s not like anyone needs me.

And maybe it’s what I need. To live my life for once and actually experience something real instead of always doing what I’m told.

I’ve been taking care of other people’s kids since I was 15 years old.

I’ve never done anything that I wanted to do. Always just what was needed for someone else’s happiness.

Sometimes I think I’m dying. Folding sheets of paper with the edges torn away a bit at a time, creasing and crumbling with age.

I wonder if they will miss me when I’m gone. Or if they’ll cry for not receiving the dinners I make them.

September 4, 2016 0 comments

Thank you for another crappy update @Microsoft #knthx

Last night, I was trying to go to bed and clicked for my computer to shut down. Instead, it popped up saying there were updates ready to be installed. Being me, I said okay to the updates, figuring it was going to take a few minutes and I could crawl into the warm comfort of my bed.

TWO HOURS LATER I was finally able to find my bed and I was glad.

Only this morning, when I turned on my computer, there was something new on the Lock Screen. A little pink circle with “Tap the circle and say ‘Microsoft stock quotes'” or something like that.

Turns out, the newest update has added Cortana to my lock screen. Which enables anyone with my computer to tap the circle and access things from the Internet, call up my calendar, and VIEW ALL MY PICTURES.

So yeah, go into Cortana and shut off some or even all of the privacy-killing settings if you have any plans to use your laptop/computer/device outside of your home.

Otherwise anyone can access your stuff, and they won’t even need to steal your passwords to do it.

Oh, and did you know that Cortana keeps a record of your browsing history? That it keeps a stealth copy of your stuff for ease of access? I shut that down too.

* * *

Seriously, what’s the deal with everyday programs beginning to act like freemium apps? If I wanted assholes to have access to all my stuff, I’d post everything on the Internet.

So Microsoft, if you’re out there, if you’re listening, please, please, PLEASE stop trying to invade my privacy in the most underhanded ways possible. If you’re going to be evil, just be evil. Stop trying to make it my fault that you’re stealing my stuff.

It’s getting to the point that I’m considering jumping operating systems. The only thing stopping me is that I want my programs to work on my laptop and I’m lazy. But if things continue on as they are…

I’ll have to break up with you Microsoft. Not because I really want to. But because you’re abusing the fuck out of my trust.