SHANNON LOVE ON STEVE CHAPMAN AND IRAQ. “Over at Reason, Steve Chapman rather sneeringly suggests that we should have the people of Iraq vote on whether to continue our military presence in their country. I think this is a fantastic idea, because I know exactly how they will vote.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from Dave Price, who looks at some Iraqi polls.

SHUTTLE plumage.

EARMARKS BY STATE: An interactive map from AP.

GREAT BRITAIN’S FREE SPEECH BREAKDOWN.

MORE ON CANADA’S “HUMAN RIGHTS” KANGAROO COURTS:

Section 7 of the B.C. Human Rights Code is not compatible with freedom of speech and expression in Canada, and should be struck down by a court, if not by the tribunal.

Plus this:

“I’m not happy to be here,” said Toronto lawyer Julian Porter, who is representing Maclean’s. “We’re not entitled under the law the way it’s structured to plead truth, fair comment, qualified privilege or intent or standards of journalism.”

Porter said that in the Supreme Court of Canada, truth or fair comment is a defence, but that test doesn’t apply with the human rights tribunal.

Human rights commissions and tribunals were set up decades ago to deal with discrimination over access of services in housing or employment.

At the start, opponents of such tribunals were what criminologist John Miller called “wing nuts, the white supremacists or fundamental Christians.”

No one had much sympathy for them when they complained about the tribunals. Now that Maclean’s is targeted, the debate has flowed into larger, broader issues of constitutional rights of freedom of expression, Miller said.

Stupid wingnuts. Then there are the charges of evidence tampering by investigators.

And a prediction:

Goodness knows what the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will do with their hearing about Maclean’s and Mark Steyn. Probably what they did with their 1997 case against North Vancouver columnist Doug Collins: Release the steam by calling them horrible people but not quite hateful enough to be convicted, then write in some judicial refinement for future use against less well-equipped defendants who have no powerful friends and can’t afford counsel like Julian Porter and Roger McConchie.

Of course, the tribunal may not. They may go for broke, rely on the precedent subversive to free speech that’s been handed down over the years by the Supreme Court of Canada and companion human rights commissions and convict Steyn and Maclean’s of publishing something likely to expose Muslims to hatred and contempt.

But these are not silly people. Anti-free-speech, yes; silly, not at all. They have excellent survival skills, and knowing what a bollocks the week’s proceedings would appear to a reasonable person, and how many reasonable persons know about it, they may well decide not to push their luck.

Their names and pictures should be widely published, along with those of the put-up complainants, as enemies of free speech and — ironically enough — human rights. They’re commissars without, so far, a fully-functioning KGB. But it’s not for lack of trying.

UPDATE: Canadians may be figuring things out.

MORE: “Canada’s shame.” A succinct and accurate summation.

LAWLESSNESS in Philadelphia. Hey, why should government officials follow the law? That might interfere with them doing what they want to do!

TELOMERES, TELOMERASE, and mitochondrial DNA.

I AM CORRECTED by Donald Sensing.

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Possibly cutting diabetes risk.

POWERING THE FUTURE with compressed air?

WELL, GOOD: Small businesses power through tough economy, stats show.

MARY KATHARINE HAM posts her farewell episode of HamNation over at Townhall.

POLITICO: Dems Yank Global Warming Bill. “Apparently three days of debate was enough for what many senators called ‘the most important issue facing the planet.'”

NINA CAMIC OBSERVES D-DAY by blogging from Normandy.

DUDE, WHERE’S MY RECESSION? A followup post on the economy from Fabius Maximus.

YOU CAN SPOT A BUBBLE by irrational exuberance, and pronouncements that the usual rules no longer apply. With that in mind, note this:

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama dropped in on the Chicago 2016 Olympics rally on Friday and declared he is confident that he will be winding up his second term in the White House when Chicago hosts the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Such bravado about his own future is not typical of Obama, even in private.

Then there’s this:

Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. . . .

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

I’m just sayin’.

BRIAN WANG: Seeds of a new manufacturing revolution.

THIS WOULD BE VERY WELCOME IN MY FAMILY: “The misery of millions of hayfever sufferers could soon be eased by a vaccine which experts hope could provide a lifetime’s relief from symptoms after only four injections.”

SUPERIOR DELIVERY OF ANTI-H.I.V. DRUGS, using nanotechnology.

JAMES TARANTO ON “THE JERUSALEM KERFUFFLE.” “Obama has made a lot of pronouncements about the Middle East that strike us as frighteningly naive, from his pledge to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without precondition to his declaration that Hamas and Hezbollah have “legitimate grievances” and his promises to surrender in Iraq. His statements about Jerusalem, however, seem to reflect a welcome sophistication and realism.”

D-DAY REPORTED BY TODAY’S MEDIA: US Army pinned down in bungled assault. Huge civilian casualties. Experts fear grave damage to the environment!

OBAMA denies Michelle video rumors.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg thinks this is a non-denial denial: “The headline of this story is that ‘Obama denies a rumor,’ but he doesn’t really, at least from what I can tell from the reporting.”

RECOMMENDED FATHER’S DAY GIFTS of an industrial and scientific variety. Or you could just get him a Lamborghini Countach.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds promising.

The Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) and some 25 daily papers have teamed up with AP’s Washington bureau for an unusual joint project that investigates congressional earmarks.

The project, set to be unveiled this weekend, includes a four-story package produced by the AP and a congressional earmarks database that will be available to all AP members.

The package, centered on a 2,200-word story, includes content supplied by 25 daily newspapers that have been reporting on the earmarks of their local congressional delegations since April. Earmarks are those federal budget items procured by local representatives specifically for local entities.

Feel free to suggest that your local paper get involved.