snippety stuff (weekend wrap up edition)

John McCain hands the US Latino vote to Barack Obama on a silver platter by going to Mexico and telling locals he'll build that border fence. The whole point of foreign visits is to attract votes, no?

Argentina's Congress might actually get some work done tonight, as the lower house is now debating the export tax law.

Ecuador is in party mood tonight as LDU de Quito bring back the Libertadores Cup, the biggest club prize in Latin American football. The team won it on Wednesday and landed back in Quito this morning to a rapturous welcome.

The racist scaredycats running the so called half-moon states of East Bolivia tonight faced reality, and losing their jobs, by accepting the recall referendum votes in "their" (hahaha) territories on August 10th. This time the votes in their regions will actually be monitored by neutral outsiders (from Mercosur) and the pro-Morales voters won't boycott the vote, so something approaching democracy might actually be witnessed this time. If they lose, according to the rules Morales himself gets to choose the successors. Then the fun will really begin.

Alan Twobreakfasts Garcia is off to Colombia on the 20th July, to meet up with Uribe and Lula da Silva. The whole idea is to "deepen relationships", all on Colombia's independence day. Garcia will be accompanied by his daughter. His son is staying home.