Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - back for another hour of questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet. We start at 3pm North American Eastern - which is 8pm in the British Isles and 9pm in western and central Europe.
Lots going on in the world - much of it performative drivel such as the US Government "shutdown", and much of it no surprise to those who read a certain "niche Canadian"'s "alarmist" bestseller of two decades back. Having just started an audio serialisation of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, I am somewhat gratified to find that every day new readers are belatedly discovering the book. Michael Jolis writes:
Published in the fall of 2006, America Alone is a powerful read nearly two decades later. For a book propositioned on the idea of population trends and birth rates, the realization is how much of what Mark Steyn points out we can see coming true. Granted, it's written with a heavy amount of sarcasm which tends to come across better in the spoken word, but the gold nuggets of wisdom littered throughout America Alone are profound in coming to the realization of the differences between the USA, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and so on. The book might be a tad dense for a high schooler (again, to pick up on the nuance Steyn's sarcasm), but ideology cutting against the everyone-hold-hands, and/or the we're-all-the-same, is worth teaching to young people...
I'm making several people read this.
On a related theme, we are also marking the twentieth anniversary of the Danish Mohammed cartoons - which certainly would not be published today. As Ezra Levant observed at the time, one day those cartoons would be seen as a more consequential event than 9/11. In response to the latter, the west spent twenty years arsing around the Hindu Kush and left no trace. In response to the former; we have spent twenty years remorselessly surrendering core liberties in the heart of the west. And, if you could use a stiff drink, tough: Oktoberfest is postponed in Munich, due to a mysterious explosion.
Happy to take your questions on whatever's on your mind. For the moment you can listen to our show live from almost anywhere you chance to be on this turbulent earth. Starting next week, in compliance with Cruella von der Leyen and the European Commission, Clubland Q&A will be distributed exclusively by fax machine. So install yours today!
Membership of The Mark Steyn Club is required only if you wish to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and especially appreciate those who are having such a grand time around these parts that they've signed up a chum for a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Among the additions to our ranks in recent days are newbies from around the planet - from Hampshire to New Hampshire, Manitoba to Moscow, Godalming to Cranberry Township. If you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter, do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.
But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in. So see you back here at 3pm North American Eastern - which is 8pm in London and Dublin, 9pm in Paris and Berlin, 10pm in Kiev and Jerusalem; half-past-ten in Teheran; midnight-forty-five in Kathmandu; 3am in Singapore and Honkers (sorry about that); 5am in Sydney and Melbourne; 7am in Auckland, and a far more civilised hour for the kippers and kedgeree in His Majesty's Dominions eastward across the Pacific, where you're so far ahead Michael E Mann's probably lost his appeal by now...