In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
American has long had an interest in Latin America, especially Central America, from the days when the Dole Fruit Company ran America’s foreign policy and military to the modern day. Let us look back thirty years ago when radical prescriptions were discussed with William F. Buckley, Jr. and Manuel F. Ayau.
Until next Friday.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Schools love parents just as long as you’re the type of parent they love.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Sometimes, state supreme courts rule against parents and for the government.
“A policy that allows school staff to keep a child’s transgender status a secret does not violate a parent’s fundamental rights under the New Hampshire constitution, the state’s Supreme Court has held.
“The policy was challenged by a New Hampshire mother who sued the Manchester school district after finding out from a teacher that her minor child (identified as M.C.) had asked school staff and students to be called by a name typically associated with the opposite sex.”
“…
“And while the school justifies its policy based on principles of ‘safety’ and ‘inclusion,’ such secret social transitioning—starting with using their preferred names and pronouns—puts the child on the path to permanent, life-altering medical transitioning. All without the parents’ knowledge, much less consent.
“The court zoomed past these thorny issues to conclude there’s no ‘constitutional dimension’ to any interference with parental rights resulting from the school’s non-disclosure policy, compared to those implicated by parental custody and termination cases. And it read the lower court’s order to find—without any explanation as to how—that the policy survives both the facial and ‘as applied’ constitutional challenges under the more lenient rational basis review.”
News of the Week for February 7th, 2026
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
The relationship between a sitting President and the press can be both mutuall beneficial and mutuially destructive, depending on the specific dynamics. As it is in the 21st Century, it was just as much in the 20th Century when William F. Buckley, Jr. discusses with former U.S. Sen. Pierre Salinger the question of the President and the Press.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: March AND Die!
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Victoria, Australia, is generally known to be Left-of-Center in Australian politics; it is also embracing making it that much more easy for doctors to kill their patients.
“When assisted suicide is first proposed for legalization, we are assured by death activists that strict guidelines will protect against abuse. But they don’t mean it. Once the laws pass, the supposed protections — which are always flaccid to begin with — are soon redefined by activists and the media as ‘barriers,’ et voila, the laws are soon loosened. It’s all a con, but people seem to fall for it every time.
“This pattern can be seen vividly playing out in Victoria, Australia. The state was the first in that country to legalize assisted suicide, and now the government is making more people eligible for legally hastened death. From the premier’s announcement:
“‘The new legislation will remove unnecessary barriers to accessing VAD, improve clarity for practitioners, strengthen safety measures and make the system fairer and more compassionate.’
“See what I mean? ‘Strengthen safety,’ (!!!) and ‘fairer and more compassionate,’ really just means more people can become dead much sooner.”
Soon, in the U.K., your bartender at the local pub will be required to report on your doubleplusungood utterances to the police if they hear you, the customer, say “Conversations, Remarks, Comments or Jokes that an employee may find offensive”.
🚨UK GOVERNMENT TO MAKE BANTER ILLEGAL
Bars and Pub staff will be expected to report people to the Police if they overhear
"Conversations, Remarks, Comments or Jokes that an employee may find offensive"
Lord Young explains this insanity in the clip below 👇 pic.twitter.com/SKhBdCtLSV
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) January 24, 2026
News of the Week for January 25th, 2026
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
With modern voters increasingly eschewing both major political parties and becoming independents, let us look back forty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr., Michael E Kinsley, and Charles Peters asked what’s wrong with the political parties.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Bears, Bees, and Bureaucrats, oh my!
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Somehow wildlife has a right to make you socialist!
“‘Just preservation’ stands out as the framework most aligned with the egalitarian worldview cultivated by left politics. This model emphasizes respect and dignity for other species and attention to the interrelationships between them, rather than the modes through which humans might profit from them. Just preservation advocates for ethical impartiality between species, such that we do not treat species on the basis of any positive preference or negative prejudice. It proposes a multispecies society with equitable distribution of resources and an acknowledgement of responsibilities to other species, as well as explicit consideration for the future of all species.
“…
“The principles of just preservation are compatible with socialist thought, and have been strengthened by scientific investigation, moral and philosophical inquiry, and a rational analysis of the failures of traditional conservation. In practice, just preservation would involve explicitly weighing the interests of current human, future human, and non-anthropocentric interests against one another when considering how to “use” nature. People representing these interests would make their case in front of a public trustee (plausibly a reformed version of our currently existing, hunter-dominated state wildlife and natural resource committees), and the trustee would make allocations based upon those resources.”
They just want humans to have less rights than some wild critter or plant.
“This is the thing with advocates of nature rights, animal rights, wild animal rights, plant rights, etc. They expect humans to be radically self-sacrificing in the name of the putative ‘rights’ of nonhumans, and even of geological features, while animals and the rest of nature have no reciprocal responsibilities — because that is beyond their ken! In other words, the everything-has-rights radicals admit the truth of human exceptionalism while denying that it exists.”
News of the Week for January 25th, 2026
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