In case you missed it, here's the last seven days as seen by Mark:
~He started the week with a musical footnote to our Marlon Brando movie night, "Luck Be A Lady". That very day another Hollywood star, the long-lived Mickey Rooney, took his leave.
~On Monday Mark was north of the border for a tumultuous election day in Quebec. He swung by the Sun News TV studios for some live election-night pontificating, and joined John Oakley on the radio on the morning after.
~On Tuesday Steyn was interviewed by Janet Albrechtsen in Australia's national newspaper on the battle to restore freedom of speech. It's not going as well as it might Down Under, something Mark intends to reverse on his tour of Oz later this year. In other free-speech news, he endeavored to explain to the US Bureau of Land Management that "the First Amendment is not an area".
~On Wednesday Brandeis University announced that it was withdrawing its award of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Mark addressed the contemptible cowardice of the American academy in "Degrees of Separation" (our most-read column of the week), and also on the radio with Jamie Weinstein and Michael Graham.
~On Thursday Mark considered the sad fate of British telly celebrity Peaches Geldof, and the strange twists of a family tree from its roots on the Canadian prairie a century ago.
~On Friday Mark returned to a recurring theme in these pages - the decadent excess of the sultanesque presidency - following the revelation that it cost US taxpayers eight million bucks to send Michelle, Sasha and Malia to Dublin for three days.
~On the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial-of-the-century front, it was a mixed week. On Monday climate hysteric Michael E Mann spent the day getting hysterical about being called "hysterical". On Friday the judge at the DC Superior Court stayed all discovery. Notwithstanding, we're moving ahead with preparation for trial and a forensic investigation of Dr Mann's "hockey stick". If you haven't yet picked up some of our soon-to-be-collectors'-item Steyn vs the Stick merchandise, do swing by the Steyn store and check it out.
~Mark's weekend column pondered the national disgrace of Fort Hood, and his Saturday movie date was a tenth-anniversary Kill Bill double-bill.
A new week at SteynOnline begins tonight with our Song of the Week.