Today, Thursday, I'll be back behind the Golden EIB Microphone on America's Number One radio show. Three hours of substitute-host-level excellence in broadcasting starts at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. If you're in the vicinity of the receiving apparatus, I hope you'll dial us up, either on one of 600 Rush affiliate stations across the US or via iHeartRadio livestream.
Obamacare and Trumptapping are likely to come up, as well as the latest vehicular jihad at the Palace of Westminster that left five dead, including an American tourist. We'll talk about all that and more, and your calls are always welcome.
~When it came to identifying the perpetrator of the London attack, Britain's Channel 4 News got a little too ahead of their skis and took a tumble:
At the beginning of Channel 4's 7 O'clock news bulletin, the broadcaster announced that they had reason to believe Abu Izzadeen, the Islamic hate preacher, was the Westminster terror attacker.
However as the show went on, this 'scoop' began to unravel. You see there was a problem... sources suggested that Izzadeen couldn't have been in Westminster as he is actually in jail.
Indeed he is. Abu Izzadeen rang a bell with me. He's a revert who was born Trevor Brooks, and, shortly after his embrace of Islam, styled himself Omar Brooks. He has a passing mention in my book Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available at the SteynOnline bookstore):
...Omar Brooks, the British Muslim comic whose boffo Islamostand-up routine was reported in The Times of London last year:
'At one point he announces dramatically that the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center "changed many people's lives". After a pause, he brings the house down by adding: "Especially those inside."'
He didn't bring the house down literally. He leaves that to Mohammed Atta.
That essay was one of those that got me in trouble with Canada's "human rights" commissions. The Canadian Islamic Congress' five sock-puppets complained that I'd said that Muslims wanted to drink the blood of non-believers.
Er, no. That wasn't me that was Omar Brooks. Back to Lights Out:
In a debate at Trinity College, Dublin, recently, the aforementioned Omar Brooks said that Muhammad's message to non-believers was: "I come to slaughter all of you." He meant it, but come on, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter.
Warming to his theme, he said, "We are the Muslims. We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere."
But of course it's grossly insensitive to quote prominent Muslims accurately.
I'm glad Omar Brooks/Abu Izzadeen is in gaol. But, even if he weren't, he doesn't seem to me to be the self-detonating type. Leave that to the little guys.
~I'm pretty much living on my cat-album royalties these days, so I had one of those good news/bad news moments a couple of days ago. The good news was that Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats was selling well; the bad news was that it was selling so well it sold out at Amazon. I'm happy to say, if you're champing at the bit, that it's back in stock and available on CD - or, if you're hot for instant gratification, it can be yours in seconds via digital download from Amazon or iTunes. And digital stocks never sell out.
On the other hand, if you're saying "Screw your cat album, Steyn!", I am currently working on a new book about a big-picture civilizational theme, and, aside from Lights Out, I've got quite a few other ones I made earlier (as they say on the cooking shows) that still stand up quite well. If you know a would-be Steyn reader, they might appreciate a SteynOnline gift certificate, starting at $25 and going up from there.
~Oh, and there'll be a new episode of The Mark Steyn Show later today.