CANADA’S KANGAROO-COURT “HUMAN RIGHTS” PROCEEDINGS are getting bad reviews in the Canadian press:

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is murdering its own reputation by putting on trial an offensive article published by Maclean’s magazine two years ago.

Plus this:

Were they not inexorably entwined in the mock trial of Maclean’s magazine and the attempt to limit legal expression of opinion in this country, the four legal amigos seated at the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal’s table of complaints would almost be pitiable. Not pitiful. . . . proof has no relevance at this Tribunal; one may claim anything.

And this:

The writings of Canada’s most talented journalist, Mark Steyn, went on trial in Vancouver on Monday, in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada’s obscene “human rights” commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.

I wrote “obscene” advisedly. A respondent who comes before Canada’s “human rights” tribunals has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and owe their appointments to networking among leftwing activists.

I wrote “show trial” advisedly, for there has been a 100 per cent conviction rate in cases brought to “human rights” tribunals under Section 13.

Funny, but there doesn’t seem to be much connection between “human rights” and, you know, actual human rights.

JIM LINDGREN: “Given that Obama was wrong on the main foreign policy issue of his brief time in the Senate (whether the surge would improve the conditions in Iraq), I keep hoping that his obvious intelligence will lead him to recognize what is going on in Iraq and adjust his policies accordingly.”

ON THE ECONOMY, it’s the crippled vs. the lame. “The two candidates’ problems start with the economy, which members of both parties agreed is the country’s top issue. Neither man got even half the votes of his party’s voters who worried most about the economy. Compounding their problems: McCain conceded months ago that the economy was not his strong point, while Obama has run weakest with Democratic voters who say they’ve been hurt by the troubled economy, a growing group.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: “I went to bed last night thinking there’s no way Barack Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. But I woke up this morning, turned on the TV news to see a rerun of her speech from last night and thought: He must pick her!“

2012 HINDSIGHT and deep strategy?

RON BAILEY ON Energy Wedgists versus Technology Breakthroughists. “The future of the world’s economy and climate may depend on which side wins.” I’m with the breakthroughists.

SOMETIMES less is more.

MORE ON PROSPECTS FOR ANTI-AGING DRUGS:

“The general public has no idea what’s coming,” said David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School professor who has made headlines with research into the health benefits of a substance found in red wine called resveratrol.

Speaking on a panel of aging experts, Sinclair had the boldest predictions. He said scientists can greatly increase longevity and improve health in lab animals like mice, and that drugs to benefit people are on the way.

“It’s not an if, but a when,” said Sinclair, who co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to pursue such drugs. The company, which is testing medicine in people with Type 2 diabetes, was recently bought for $720 million by GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second-largest drug maker.

Sinclair said treatments could be a few years or a decade away, but they’re “really close. It’s not something (from) science fiction and it’s not something for the next generation.”

Bring it on. None of us is getting any younger. Plus this:

Sinclair has said that he has taken resveratrol supplements, but at the longevity event he cautioned that right now there is no proven magic pill to extend life.

His suggestion? Exercise.

Yeah, if they had a pill that did what exercise does, everyone would take it. Some background on this subject here.

HILLARY hits the glass ceiling? “She joined the world’s most prestigious boys’ club and proved she was as tough and competent as any of them. She decided the time was ripe for her to move up to the executive suite. She’d paid her dues — and then some. It was a promotion that she was clearly entitled to. But then, as she was poised to assume the role for which she’d been working for decades, along came some wet-behind-the-ears, inexperienced male competitor.”

SCOTT OLIN SCHMIDT: “As Hillary Clinton prepares to bow out of the Democratic race, I cannot help but feel that she is doing the nation, and her party a disservice by leaving the campaign. . . . A third-party Clinton could talk honestly about healthcare, free of the shackles of the nurses unions and other special interests which get in the way of true reform, and could offer a safety-net of care for Americans supplemented by insurance for those who need private healthcare.”

JOHN LOTT ON compact fluorescent bulbs and mercury. The danger is real, but minor, as noted here and here.

UPDATE: John Lott emails: “The point of my piece was to go through the rules advised by the EPA itself on how to handle these bulbs. Whether one thinks the EPA is correct or not, the point is that if even a fraction of people follow these rules, you will be imposing really big costs on users.” That’s true, though I predict that these rules will be extensively ignored.

BACTERIA LIVE A LONG TIME: “A team of Penn State scientists has discovered a new ultra-small species of bacteria that has survived for more than 120,000 years within the ice of a Greenland glacier at a depth of nearly two miles. The microorganism’s ability to persist in this low-temperature, high-pressure, reduced-oxygen and nutrient-poor habitat makes it particularly useful for studying how life, in general, can survive in a variety of extreme environments on Earth and possibly elsewhere in the solar system.”

A SAD PHOTO: Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan Campaigning at the Steps of San Francisco’s City Hall. She was a heroine, until she became an embarrassment.

THERAPIES THAT restore aging skin’s collagen production.

HERE’S THE TEXT OF OBAMA’S SPEECH, which won’t be delivered until later.

Comments on Hillary’s speech here. Text isn’t online at her website yet.

UPDATE: Fifty-four, fifty-six, whatever.

MORE: Obama says: “John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy — cities in Michigan, and Ohio, and right here in Minnesota — he’d understand the kind of change that people are looking for.” Er, what about the Forgotten America tour?

STILL MORE: Reader Randall Pickett emails: “This is really rich from the guy who didn’t campaign in Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, Florida, . . .”

Plus, A.C. Kleinheider on Hillary’s speech: That Ain’t Any Kind Of Concession Speech I Ever Heard Of.

MORE STILL: Ann Althouse has thoughts.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON PUBLIC PENSION DISASTER: “Liberal commenters wonder why I don’t associate public sector unions with the public good. This is why.”

THE TEN OLDEST BARS IN AMERICA: I used to live close to the White Horse Tavern; I liked it.

ANGRY WHITE WOMEN: “A new Pew Research Center poll points to a surging tide of fury, especially among white women. As recently as April, this group preferred Obama over the presumptive Republican John McCain by three percentage points. By May, McCain enjoyed an eight-point lead among white women.”

Will they stay mad? Or will they decide to forgive and go back to him?

FOX CALLS SOUTH DAKOTA FOR HILLARY.

UPDATE: They call Montana for Obama.

SO I’M WATCHING MCCAIN’S SPEECH and his delivery isn’t great. He’s stumbled over some words, and at one point flashed a badly timed smile that reminded me of Joe Biden. But on substance, well, he’s being pretty substantive. He’s laying out the differences between himself and Obama quite thoroughly and plainly. “I don’t seek the Presidency on the presumption I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. . . . My country saved me.”

Plus, this: “If I am elected President, the era of the permanent campaign of the last sixteen years will end.” Not quite a one-term pledge, but . . . .

UPDATE: Here’s the text. It reads better than it sounded.

STUMBLING ACROSS THE FINISH LINE.

AUDIO: Bill Ardolino on Iraq, on the Dennis Miller Show.

YOU CAN CONCEDE, but you can’t take back that video.

NIGERIA: Sliding toward the abyss? I hope not.

YOU DON’T NEED BILL AYERS TO SEE WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Phil Bredesen to endorse Obama tomorrow. “Bredesen will join the previously neutral Tennessee Democratic Chairman Gray Sasser and at least one other fence-sitting superdelegate in coming out for Obama at a Nashville news conference.”