To relax you into the weekend here's a quick tour of the foot-of-page-33 headlines of the week, courtesy of Tucker's news quiz, "Final Exam". I did battle with Pete Hegseth - and, well, it could have gone better... Click below to watch - or, if it doesn't display properly (as apparently it doesn't in some browsers), you can watch it in full here:
You can watch the full show with Tucker here - and don't miss Pete's new documentary over on Fox Nation, which includes an eye-popping interview with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
~If you've been avidly seeking an update to the Mann vs Steyn hockey-stick suit, about to begin its eighth year in the choked septic tank of DC justice, well, we have exciting news: As our more elderly readers may recall, the original judge, Natalia Combs Greene, retired in 2013. It seems the second judge on the case, Frederick Weisberg, has also retired. So we now have a third judge, one Jennifer M Anderson. Unless Madam Justice Andserson is twelve years old, the chances of her seeing this thing through to a final verdict are zero. Truly, the District of Columbia is where justice goes to die - or at least retire to a Mann vs Steyn jurists' condo complex in Florida.
I was on the telly with Eric and Lara Trump yesterday morning and renewed my suggestion that the President should make me Attorney-General with a mandate for top-to-toe judicial reform. The alternative is for the rest of the Common Law world to expel America as a grotesque perversion of judicial norms.
~I've said for years that yesterday's amusing jokes are tomorrow's left-wing orthodoxy. Those of us who play it for laughs have gotten used to the left playing it for real. So just last month, during our tour of Pennsylvania and New York, Dennis Miller was getting big yuks with a line about how at Christmas he and his family like to bake gingerbread transgenders. It was a mere six weeks ago, but already the joke has turned real:
The Co-op has launched a gender neutral gingerbread person in order to be "inclusive" and has asked the public to choose a "fitting" name.
Shoppers have been encouraged to sign up to the supermarket's website and send name suggestions which would suit a gender-neutral biscuit.
If "gender-neutral biscuit" is a bit of a mouthful (and not in a good way), Laura Rosen Cohen proposes "transginger" - which is certainly pithier than my own suggestion: "biscuit with knockers that could stop a train and hung like a horse".
[UPDATE: I should have remembered to plug this - the last word on the subject.]
~In a similar vein, the news that Mick Jagger had to delay the start of the Rolling Stones' latest tour to have a transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedure (don't worry, a transcatheter is not a gender-neutral catheter) reminded me of this ancient column from my Telegraph days (about a fortnight before 9/11, in fact) - after reports that a furious Sir Mick had accidentally given an interview to a publication called Saga, unaware that it was a magazine for British seniors:
'This is your 10.30 appointment,' explained the butler. 'The interviewer.'
'Oh, yeah, right,' said Mick. 'ou're the bloke from Seventeen magazine?'
I tried to correct him. 'Er, Seventy magazine.'
'Yeah, Seventeen magazine. Great. Just right for my image, with the birds an' all.'
'No, it's Seventy magazine,' I shouted. 'The magazine for people who were already middle-aged in the Seventies.' But he'd fallen over his bathchair, and was having difficulty getting up.
'What you want to talk about then?' he said, struggling to his feet. '"I Can't Get No Satisfaction"?'
'It's a common problem at your age,' I said sympathetically. 'Have you tried Cialis?'
Etc.
~Also this weekend I joined my old pal Tyrus from the Greg Gutfeld extravaganza on his new show with Britt McHenry. Animals were the subject of interest. If you're a Fox Nation subscriber, you can watch it here. And, if you're not a Fox Nation subscriber, well, at least subscribing to this digital streaming service, unlike a certain other we could mention (Blaze TV), isn't just throwing money at Cary Katz so he can keep suing me. Go, Fox!
~If you're one of that brave band that enjoys me in high definition, I'll be back tomorrow for Mark Steyn Club members with a brand new Sunday Poem - because, as I always says, video poetry is where the big bucks are. Steyn's Sunday Poem is made possible through the support of The Mark Steyn Club, now approaching its second birthday. For more information on the club, see here.
Just a month ago we officially announced the Second Annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise, following last year's successful maiden voyage. Cabins are going spectacularly fast - and we're very nearly sold out. If your preferred accommodations are showing up online as unavailable, do call or email Cindy, our excellent cruise manager, and she might be able to pull a few strings: If you're dialing from beyond North America, it's +1 (770) 952-1959; if you're calling from Canada or the US, it's 1-800-707-1634. Or you can email your query here.
