According to this, the CIA tested drugs on volunteer soldiers after testing them on Monkeys and Mice. That is the usual procedure for testing drugs.

That these drugs were previously tested and deemed ineffectual or undesirable by drug companies is relativly unimportant.

Without knowing what these drugs where or the disposition of the tests the information is relativly useless.

An anticholesterol drug that caused anal leekage or a heart medication that caused excessive sexual arousal might be shelved by a drug company, but secondary usages might be found by other researchers at another time.

There is little implication in this document that the adverse side effects were anything to write home about, the document (like the expense reports) could have easily been classified as a matter of course and not because anything in the document or the study it refers to was particularly incriminating.

MK Ultra this is not, quite frankly I would be far more interested in Salon publicizing the experiements the CIA did on unsuspecting persons in uncontrolled conditions.

This document is only fodder for conspiracy theoriests who will read into it more than it implies.

So here's the question, why are we assuming two nations with affirmed bills or charters of rights will waive those rights infavor of mergeing with a third nation that (may or maynot) have such rights?

If we are to use the EU model, the EU has a bill of rights that grants rights to its citizens that their home countries may not. That is a relinquishment of soveringty of course, but if history is a guide such relinquishments have favored better protections for nations and their workers not worse.

Secondly, aren't the United States, Canada, and Mexico each nations made up of smaller independent states? I know the US is exists essentially as an expansive trade agreement between relativly soverign states. Certainly if Texans and New Yorkers can work together for the common good, Verecruzians and Quebecors can too.

If the issue is just linguistic or cultural, I bleive that war was lost when the first no good Irishman set foot on pristein english shores, and when the decided to let Italians and Jews in, well, lets be honest our nation has never been the same. Sure the pigeon dialect of American remains ostensibly "English" but even among the vast expanse of the US that dialect can become as unintelligable as scotish to londoner.

If anything the influx of Canadians can only aid in the preservation of the Queen's tounge, but even that is a battle long ago lost.

As a final note, why is Salon acting as if the "swiftboat" controversey actually hurt Kerry? Are there any polls suggesting that the ads, book, and other media campaigns were the primary factor in someone's choice, or did it, as I suspect, simply harden the opinions of those already dramaticly opposed to Kerry?

The swiftboat was a dirty trick, but to act as if it helped or hinderred either candidate is to suggest that Americans as a whole are easily lead, ignorant of facts, and unable to hold opinions of their own. Perhaps that is Salon's stance, and perhaps Corsi agrees with it, since both feel the American people would so easily be lead down a primrose path without evidence to support their claims.

Why oh why did those mean Aliens or God place this unatural mechanism called man upon this earth to destroy all that was once pure and perfect.

This book like most environmental diatribes places man outside of nature, as if we were not mearly the logical outcrop of Darwinian evolution, and our actions not practical for the survival of our species in a hostile world?

Here's the funny part, if man were whiped from the earth tomorrow, the next ape will rise to the occasion and fill the nitch left by our rapid departure.

The garden without man is a jungle, and the strongest and smartest survive. They do not care whom they eat, only that their children live to eat another day.

Chimps already hunt and make war, if we were not there to keep them in their place how long before they start to farm and dam?

Man does not destroy nature, man is nature.

As to Ms. Havrilesky's question as to whether or not Academy members watch T.V. the answer is probably less than she does.

The Academy is made up of professionals in the field of television production, that's writers, actors, producers, soundpeople, makeup people, set construction people, essentially those that can, and thusly do.

As they say those who can do, those who cannot critique.

For acting nods (as well as some other categories) the votes of professionals in that field are weighted more heavily than those of academy members not in those fields. As such Actors have more of a vote in who is the best Actor on T.V. than say writers, directors or producers. The purpose of this is to avoid mediocre actors with fantastic writers and directors from receiving the acting award, when really it should go to the writer or director who set up the performance for the actor.

I do not watch 2 1/2 Men on any regular basis, though the few times I have watched it, it seemed a wacky sit com romp. Nothing to make me tune in every week, but enough to make me turn to it if nothing else is on, nothing about the show makes it unwatchable.

Now if I am to take Heathers assessment of the show, that it is absmaly written, then this can only raise the status of the comedic chops of the stars among other actors.

The Best Actor isn't the actor with great lines and a fantastic director, it is the actor who can take mediocre material and turn it in week after week as something to watch and entertain millions.

The more Ms. Havrilesky and her ilk deride the show itself, the more she makes the case that the Actors involved deserve special consideration by the academy.