Aug
4
2026

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

[3.5 stars] [IMDB Link]

">[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

Pun Son and I actually went to BarnZ's movie theater in Barrington to see this a few months back. Alas, I fell asleep at some critical point, and I didn't feel right about reporting it at the time. But it showed up free-to-me on Netflix, and I got an early start (after watching a new Futurama episode on Hulu), and …

Well, I'm not sure I stayed awake for the whole thing this time either, but what I saw was good.

As the movie opens, young Spike has been abducted by the "Jimmies", a deranged group of youngsters that see their task in the zombified world of the future as torturing and killing the innocent. Why? I think the movie blames an overdose of Teletubbies-watching at an impressionable age. Spike manages to survive his initial trial, through sheer, horrible, luck.

Meanwhile Dr. Kerson (from the previous movie) has gone slightly insane in his own way, constructing the "temple" of the title out of salvaged human skeletons. Impressive! But he still has a good heart, and manages to befriend "Samson", an infected, hairy zombie; the Doctor tries to resurrect Samson's human side using anti-psychotic meds. He doesn't say "He's crazy, so this might just work," but he could.

Eventually, the Jimmies and Dr. Kerson meet up, and there is a thrilling climax. And also a setup for the next movie.

What Could Have Been

Clarity of purpose, clear-eyed vision, … alas, it was not to be.

A somewhat longer description from Erick Erickson describing The mess I have returned to.

I left for vacation with the President promising the country peace through J.D. Vance’s plan with Iran. I came home to bombs falling on Iran again and the President telling anyone who will listen that he knew all along the Vance plan was a joke.

Let me deal with Iran first. I continue to support the effort in Iran, even as the President cannot seem to make up his mind how to proceed. There is no clean exit from the Iran problem. The mullahs do not want an off-ramp; they want a bomb. Every plan that treats Tehran as a reasonable negotiating partner ends the same way, with the regime pocketing the concession and enriching the next batch of uranium. The only way out is through. That is not the same thing as American boots on Iranian ground, and anyone who tells you those are the only two options is either lazy or selling something. The way through is full Israeli engagement, backed without apology or hesitation by the United States. Israel knows the target set. Israel has the will. What Israel has needed, and what this President keeps rationing out like a man paying a ransom in installments, is an ally who will not wobble the moment a poll moves.

And now, as if he set out to prove the point, the President says he is going to suspend any further strikes because Iran, he assures us, might want a deal. Might want a deal. We are well past silly here and into foolish. Iran does not want a deal. Iran wants a bomb, and just about everyone who looks at that regime with clear eyes knows it. Everyone, it seems, except the one man whose finger is on all of this. He is beclowning himself. He looks like a coward, and he is managing it at the exact moment our allies grow more and more convinced we have started a war we have no stomach to finish.

Unfortunately, being bad at the job is probably not a valid Article of Impeachment. That's OK, there are already plenty to spare.

Also of note:

  • As Elaine told Frank Constanza: "It means whatever you want it to mean." A couple NR articles (among many) dealing with their contributors' ongoing debate. First up: Dan McLaughlin, who asks, provocatively: What Exactly Is the 'Common Good'?

    One of the problems with the common good as a standard is its vagueness. Does it mean that laws should have a moral basis? If so, that just restates reality: virtually all law is grounded in moral judgments about what is right, wrong, fair, unfair, just, unjust, etc. Does it mean that laws should aim to improve the morals of the people? That’s a very different question, and one that raises serious questions about the limits of the competence of government: government can do a lot to degrade the morals of the governed but has only limited power to improve them. That’s to say nothing of the difficulty of defining what kinds of morality are supported by a sufficient consensus to justify backing them with governmental force.

    I also liked David L. Bahnsen, who provided Five Takeaways About the Common Good. Let's skip down to numbers 4 and 5:

    [Amazon Link]
    (paid link)

    (4) Fusionism was, is, and will be the best framework for reconciling and holding the tension between the moral order we want and need and the liberty and freedom an individual is granted by his or her Creator.

    (5) Those attempting to answer these questions by relying on the wisdom and autonomy of man, or the pagan philosophy of the ancient Greeks, are spitting in the wind. It behooves those of us who believe in a moral order to not only ask the question “By what standard?” but to have an answer. And it behooves those of us who want to fuse that moral order to freedom and economic liberty to root these beliefs in a coherent understanding of the human person. Statist inclinations regarding the marketplace fail because they do not have the right anthropology. Aristotle doesn’t have it either. But there is a way that transcends the wisdom of the world.

    To quote Austin Powers: "Yeah, baby!" As I've previously, and tiresomely, pointed out: I have Stephanie Slade's new book, Fusionism, on order from Amazon, due four weeks from today. And so can you, link at your right.

  • Heard in the WSJ offices: "How can we get Pun Salad to link to Matthew Continetti's column?" "Boss, I have just the headline!" And here it is: Milton Friedman Was Right. (WSJ gifted link)

    Milton Friedman died two decades ago, but it seems like he’s been in the news every day. Inflation, tariffs, rent controls, price controls—the issues that dominated his age have returned in ours. Prominent Democrats and Republicans attack Friedman’s record while proving his case. They’re busy exorcising Friedman’s ghost when they ought to be reviving his spirit.

    Friedman stood 5 feet tall. Yet he looms menacingly in the imagination of anyone who would use government power to plan, control, regulate and redistribute. For example, as a candidate for president in 2020, Joe Biden told Politico, “I think there’s going to be a willingness to fix some of the institutional inequities that have existed for a long time. Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”

    Instead, Mr. Biden ran the show—and delivered the worst inflation in 40 years.

    For what it's worth, here's what I wrote (last item) back in 2006 when he died, reminiscing about my shock at reading his Capitalism and Freedom.

  • Liquidating the Kulaks as a class, step one. J.D. Tuccille notes: Mamdani's tax database doxed wealthy New Yorkers.

    Making an enemies list is creepy. Publishing the names of people you dislike to fuel political supporters' prejudices is even creepier and potentially dangerous. That's what New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration has done with the introduction of a property tax surcharge on relatively high-value second homes linked to a searchable online database of those who could be affected. The socialist mayor's defenders point out that tax and property information is a matter of public record in New York, but the packaged publication of surcharge targets and Mamdani's history of calling out opponents by name suggests something nastier is going on.

    It sounds like it could be a premise for a crime novel: high-end burglars use the Mamdani list to target wealthy victims' second homes. "There's a good chance they won't be there, and we know they're rich, so…" But then it goes horribly wrong…

  • "It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham." Allysia Finley takes on Socialist Chic and the ‘Medicare for All’ Sham. (WSJ gifted link)

    Consider Abdul El-Sayed, the left-wing front-runner in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary this Tuesday. Mr. El-Sayed has surged to the lead against Rep. Haley Stevens by presenting himself as a man of the people. He has called for free child care, “Medicare for all” and an 8% wealth tax on billionaires.

    “I don’t think that our system should be in the business of creating billionaires,” he said during a March debate. “I think our system should be in the business of empowering everyday folks to be able to live a life with access to the basic dignities that they need and deserve, good housing, good healthcare, affordable food.”

    Nobody can disagree with the latter goals. But Mr. El-Sayed’s prescriptions to achieve them would expand government control of healthcare and the private economy and exacerbate the socioeconomic inequalities he inveighs against.

    I wish the DSA types would just be more straightforward about saying: "I want government to have a lot more money and power over peoples' lives."

    (This item's headline is from a very old Woody Allen movie.)