Happy Trafalgar Day to my Commonwealth cousins. It's not as big as it used to be, but it commemorates a decisive battle that determined the 19th century would belong to England not France. It therefore marks the dawn of the two centuries of Anglo-American dominance that, alas, now seems to be sputtering to an ignominious end.
This year Trafalgar Day is also, if you'll forgive an opportunistic appropriation, Day Two of the launch week for my new book, The [Un]documented Mark Steyn. The book's radio debut came yesterday afternoon with Sean Hannity, who wanted to talk more about the politics, and was followed by a two-hour special with Hugh Hewitt, who wanted to talk more about the pop culture and personal stuff. So both were fun rides for entirely different reasons. From the Hannity show:
"The week we're in right now, Sean, ought to be a teaching moment because when people think when you entrust government, it'll be there for you on 9/11, it'll be there for you with Ebola" he stated. And "people think 'well, the CDC, they've got this huge budget, why aren't they there for Ebola?' Well the reason is when you have big government, they regulate a lot of the stuff I talk about in the books, like Kinder Chocolate Eggs."
Steyn argued that this is because "government always goes for the soft target, and the soft target is always you, and never the Tsarnaev brothers at the Boston Marathon, the soft target is always the Kinder Chocolate Eggs, never the Ebola virus."
My morning appearance on Fox & Friends elicited a flurry of follow-up stories:
Mark Steyn: GOP May Win Elections, but Liberals Control US
Indeed.
~If you heard either Hugh's show or Sean's, you'll know that Obama's in the book, and Osama, and Johnny Mercer. But what else? Well, it's an eclectic mix. For a sense of the book's range, I thought I'd pull out a random chunk of the index:
Mortenson, Greg,
Morvai, Krisztina
Moscow
Mosimann, Anton
Mosley, Oswald
Mosquitoes
Mounties
Mount Rushmore
Moussaoui, Zacarias
"Move Over, Darling"
Who are all those folks? Well...
*Greg Mortenson is the author of Three Cups Of Tea, which notwithstanding its risible thesis and widely discredited narrative became the dominant influence on Pentagon thinking in Afghanistan;
*Krisztina Morvai is the neo-nationalist blonde Hungarian hottie and former winner of the Freddie Mercury Prize for AIDS Awareness who in the course of her winning election campaign told Hungarian Jews to "go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tails";
*Moscow is the capital of the once and future Evil Empire;
*Anton Mosimann is the gourmet chef cited in an epidemic of assaults on celebrities in the United Kingdom;
*Sir Oswald Mosley was the leader of the British Union of Fascists, famously parodied by P G Wodehouse in the Bertie and Jeeves novels as Sir Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts;
*Mosquitoes arise in the context of the US military occupation of Cuba;
*Mounties are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police;
*Mount Rushmore is a popular scenic attraction in South Dakota, where the National Parkstapo attempted to prevent tourists from even looking at the mountain during the 2013 government shutdown;
*Zacarias Moussaoui was the so-called "20th hijacker" on 9/11 and a terrorist welfare queen;
*and "Move Over, Darling" was a hit for Doris Day.
All that plus Hillary Rodham Clinton - only in The [Un]documented Mark Steyn.
~This morning I'm back on the promotional trail. I'll be starting the day with Bill Bennett live across America at 7.30am Eastern/4.30am Pacific, followed by Brian Kilmeade, also nationwide. Then it's the first telly stint of the day with Stuart Varney at Fox Business, followed by the Wilkow Majority at Sirius XM, live at 2.30pm Eastern/11.30am Pacific, and The Janet Mefferd Show at 4pm Eastern.
At 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific, I'll be launching The [Un]documented Mark Steyn in Canada with my fellow freespeecher Ezra Levant on the Sun News Network. Then it's back south of the border for Mark Levin at about 8.20pm Eastern, "The Independents" on Fox Business at 9pm Eastern, then Steve Deace on the radio, and Hannity on Fox News.
Phew. Still to come this week: Dennis Miller, Neil Cavuto, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and many more.You can find full details of each day's TV and radio appearances in our "On The Air" box at the top right-hand corner of the page.
~The [Un]documented Mark Steyn is available in hardcover from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million in America, or Indigo-Chapters, Amazon and McNally-Robinson in Canada. It's also available in e-format via Kindle, Kobo, Nook - and, for your iPhone et al, via iBooks. North of the border, we're already in the Politics Top Ten.
Not everyone likes it, of course: Scaramouche tells the sad tale of my one-star Amazon reviewer.
