x-posted at Progressive Bloggers, A Creative Revolution, and DailyKos.

Today Costa Rica passed their CAFTA free trade bill with a razor thin 51% majority, with 49% opposing.  That with fear tactics, de rigeur for trade deals.

A few days earlier, an analysis of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA was posted.  

Read on for what Costa Rica just voted themselves.

What happens when an island Premier tries to get a small pittance of what he's owed from his own land?

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations (yes, that group) today, and he hammers the Democratic Congress on an issue they have surprisingly found their spines for, despite cries of 'isolationism' and 'protectionism' from President Bush.

Read on if you have the stomach.

I read about the death of another US soldier on the web today, the same day that Bush crows about supporting the troops and Petraeus reports to Congress.

It shocked me just how base these platitudes are: the author details the complete lack of respect for those very troops in Iraq, and I think it will amaze you, too.  Bush 'supports the troops' like Saddam Hussein was a revered father-figure.

Here's an interesting article I just saw on AP:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...

Bush Seeks Legal Immunity for Telecoms

Friday August 31, 2007 7:01 PM

By KATHERINE SHRADER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration wants the power to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy suits for cooperating with the White House's controversial warrantless eavesdropping program.

The thing to note here is the reports on the divide in the Democratic caucus.  Which would of course mean the Republicans can pass a bill, even with a supposed "Democrat" majority.  

There is a divide among Capitol Hill's majority Democrats about whether the companies deserve any protection. Some believe they were operating in good faith, on orders that appeared to be lawful. Others believe lawyers at the companies had a responsibility to ensure the requests weren't an abuse of presidential power.

The secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) talks in Montebello, Quebec on August 20 are already getting animosity from organizing protesters.  US president George W. Bush, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper are meeting to unify regulatory bodies and security in North America.  In fact, two protesters have already been arrested.

Previously classified documents from the case of Maher Arar have just been released, over the objections of the Canadian government.  Arar was the victim of CIA extraordinary rendition and torture in Syria, for the period of an entire year, on the basis of a false and coerced statement from another captive.

It also tells us why the US government and all governments these days are so interested in secrecy based and executive privilege on 'national security', like in the Duke Cunningham/Thomas Kontogiannis case.  

Canadian protesters to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in Quebec, Canada, have been cordoned off 25 kilometers/15 miles away from the SPP meeting place.

The Service and Prosperity Plan for North America (Canada, the United States, and Mexico) is holding a meeting of the three leaders in Montebello, Quebec on August 20-21, 2007.  This is apparently the third meeting for the SPP.  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/... or look on Google or Yahoo news for more recent information about the SPP.

A progressive group, The Council of Canadians* was trying to get some residence for the SPP meeting, 6 miles away[1], and were told by the US Army, RCMP, and Quebec police that this was not allowed.

I knew this day would come.  After being glowingly portrayed in SiCKO, health care insurers and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), composed of doctors NOT nurses, are attacking Canadian health care.  They are basing this on the hard work of a 2005 Supreme Court of Canada decision called Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General).  Previously to Chaoulli, I believe the CMA officially lobbied for Medicare.