Moral-Flexibility.Net

Another Rick Mercer clip for you, proper training for political candidates.

This is not a formal review, merely my impressions as we have just returned from seeing Resident Evil: Extinction, entry number three in the Resident Evil movie franchise.

My regular readers will already know I enjoyed the first movie, and was disappointed in the second. I may be a little harsh with my reviews of these films so far, but I hold them to a higher standard than your average run of the mill zombie movie, as the budget exists to make a truly worthwhile zombie effort, and while the end result is entertaining it doesn’t really bring anything but “bling” to what amounts to standard zombie movie fare.

Spoilers exist below the cut, so hold off on clicking if you’re waiting to see the movie.

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Marko has an interesting post up, a small sample of which is below;

..Evil is rampant in the world, but it’s not tied to a nationality, religion, skin color, or other factor…and when you propose to fight it by wiping out a group that shares any of those identifiers, you are already well on the path of evil yourself. When you accept that premise, the most important groundwork is already laid–the tilling of your mind–and then putting on the uniform and herding the Others to the gas chamber at gunpoint is a comparatively easy step…

I’m in complete agreement with him, go give the rest a read.

I really have to make some time for the Zombie Squad forums. I miss those guys.

[Hat Tip: Grifter]

Noted in Comments by Dimitri;

Tue Sep 18, 12:26 PM

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a “strange odor,” local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

“Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned,” he said.

[Original Article here.]

Now Caranca, Peru is a long ways away, but isn’t this how the movies always start? A remote incident with strange effects?

Maybe I’ll grab some more ammo while I’m running errands.

I recently received a series of photos by email of a fatal crash between a SmartCar and a truck. The more graphic photos (those showing the victim) I’ve failed to include here, but if you’re curious a google search should find them no problem. I was initially interested because my Father and Step-Mom own a smart car.

Now I’m no Auto-phile, but the small portion of the vehicle remaining intact did not appear to be a SmartCar as I had seen them, the spare tire mounted on the rear of the car seemed out of place. A second look shows the name of the car in the first photo (albeit only partially visible due to the amount of damage) stencilled across the vehicle below the doors. It appears to be, and was verified by a little googling, a Volkswagen Crossfox.

Not that the mistaken identity of the vehicle type makes the photos any less horrific, but this should serve as another example of taking the stuff that arrives in your inbox with a grain of salt before randomly forwarding it.

Tsk tsk.

Piet recently asked which movies you’ve seen over and over again and still sit down to watch when the opportunity arises. I’m still compiling my list, but it made me think that if the question was asked about books, I’d unreservedly answer The Bandy Papers by Donald Jack.

A young medical student named Batholomew Wolfe Bandy receives his commission in the Victorian Light Infantry, and leaves Canada to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force in what was to become known as the First World War. Bandys military career takes him from the trenches to the Royal Flying Corps and onward to a variety of postings that eventually see him imprisoned in post-revolution Russia.

The series presently runs to 9 volumes (I didn’t even know a 9th had been released to be honest), but it’s the first three that I return to again and again.

My bookshelf boasts numerous copies of the series, as I had loaned the first three books out so often I had become accustomed to buying extra copies whenever I ran across them in a used bookstore (I’m pretty sure at one point in Vancouver I had 9 copies of the first book, but it seems I’ve loaned more out than have returned - go figure). In addition to the dog-eared copies I have littering the shelves I have an old hard cover of the first volume of the Bandy Papers which I’ll hang on to for posterity.

Well, no more typing here, I’m going to settle in and read these again.

My Norinco M14 is easily one of my favorite rifles. Purchased before they became readily available up here (from Marstar) I paid $500 for mine in used condition. It came with a cloth sling and a standard “Chu” wood stock which was unfit for firewood. I wasted no time acquiring a USGI stock for it, added a bipod and picked up a B-Square QD scope mount for the rifle (pics here)

(Click for larger image)

The B-Square mount was a problem from day one, even with loctite it would loosen off rendering the scope entirely useless. The B-Square mount was replaced with an ARMS18 mount (although mine is the older version with short segments of rail at the front and back). Money from this point was spent on accurizing the rifle rather than the asthetics (for the most part).

The Norinco trigger group was replaced with a USGI TRW trigger group, the “solid” flash suppressor was replaced with a current manufacture NM SA version (as was the rear sight). The Op Rod was replaced with a Rooster33 NM OpRod, the gas system was shimmed and the OpRod guide was locked down. The stock was repainted OD and the sole remaining area for upgrade remains the optics, which is presently a Tasco variable magnification scope that is not holding up to the beating the rifle is delivering.