Today is the official launch of Shakedown

Today is the official launch of Shakedown, my new book about Canada's corrupt and abusive "human rights" commissions.

I'll be starting the day off on CTV's national morning show, Canada AM -- tune in if you can. I'm on at about 7:45 a.m.

Then it's a series of radio interviews, including U of T's student station CIUT (9:10 a.m. ET), Andrew Krystal's Atlantic-Canada wide show on Rogers Radio (11 a.m. AT), Tommy Schnurmacher's show in Montreal (10:30 a.m. ET) BNN's Squeeze Play (5:40 ET) and a three-minute monologue on CBC TV's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.

I've got some other interviews, too, including with Craig Rintoul of bookbits.ca.

Tuesday brings more interviews, and I'll tell you about them tonight.

The book received two more positive reviews over the weekend. Here's Kathy Shaidle's review in Pajamas Media. And here's Wendy Sullivan's review at Girl on the Right.

I'll likely be away from my laptop for most of the day, but I'll try to send a few updates on Twitter and Facebook.

The book has been bouncing around Amazon.ca's best-seller list in the past week or so, going as high as number three. As I write this very early Monday morning, it's at number 13 overall, and the number 2 "new release". Now that the book tour is starting, I hope the book will do even better -- not just because I want to succeed as an author, but because I want as many "severely normal" people as possible to hear the shocking truth about these commissions and what they're getting away with.

That's what I'm hoping this book will do: bring the story out of the blogosphere and into the living rooms of thousands of Canadians who still aren't aware of the risk these HRCs pose to our liberty.

For those who have been following my blog closely, I'm pleased to report that several people who have read the book have told me that they were pleasantly surprised with how much new material there was that hadn't been on my blog. I'm glad to hear it; obviously the main story of the cartoon complaint against me must be retold in the book; but I included many case studies and other issues that I have not treated on my blog.

I hope you'll get a copy. You can buy it pretty much anywhere -- the bookstore in the Calgary airport was unpacking their eight copies when I asked them about it last night. And, of course, you can buy it online at Amazon and Chapters, and from Mark Steyn, who wrote the book's great introduction.

Over the next few weeks, I'll also be in Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton, London (Ontario), Victoria, Winnipeg and New York City -- details to come on each of these. There are a couple of other invitations in the works, including a possible U.K. visit, and I'll let you know about them as they firm up.

Thanks for your support -- not just for the book, but over the past year, and even since 2006 when the Western Standard magazine and I were first charged with "discrimination" for publishing the Danish cartoons as a news item. (Can you believe it? Being charged with an offence for publishing the news?) I had no idea what would come from the ordeal I was subjected to; and though there were some stressful times, the moral and financial support of my readers balanced that out and kept me whole. Your support took care of the tough parts, so I could focus on the fun part -- the fight!

To stand here in 2009, with a book published by a mainstream Canadian publisher, and a healthy national debate on freedom of speech alive both in the court of public opinion and in several Canadian legislatures, makes everything more than worthwhile.

Thanks to my family and friends for putting up with my mild obsession, and thanks to my readers and legal defence fund donors for standing by me.

Let's keep at it until the job's done.