The $800+ billion stimulus package that's lumbering through the streets of Washington has, somewhere in its bowels, language that would require public works funded by the bill to use American-made materials. No big deal, right? Another way to help domestic businesses, right?

Sure, if you're high on the wacky dust…

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher warned on Monday against "Buy America" provisions in a proposed fiscal stimulus law and said it could lead to devastating trade protectionism.

"Let me just be blunt. Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It may provide a high. It's addictive and it leads to economic death," Fisher told C-Span television in an interview for its "Washington Journal" program.

Is Fisher being blunt, or is he smoking blunts? Well, for starters, the Canadians are already making vaguely threatening threats in re: this protectionism…

"These protectionist measures, in a time of recession, only make things worse," [Canadian] Trade Minister Stockwell Day told public broadcaster CBC, after returning from the World Economic Forum at the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos.

"It can only trigger retaliatory action and we don't want to go there," he said. "We do not want to see that happen."

Here is a tip for surviving the forthcoming Canadian hockey mob invasion: simply add the letter 'u' to words at random.

This foouls them every time.

Barack Obama took a hard line against NAFTA during the 2008 primaries, but even then, hints emerged that his tough talk wouldn't turn into tough action.

Now anonymous sources confirm what we suspected: "tear up NAFTA" isn't even on Obama's to-do list…

After he becomes president in January, Obama will order a study on the world's largest trade agreement, then seek longer-term negotiations with Mexico and Canada on how to change it, according to three advisers, who spoke on condition that they not be identified. The recession, the collapsing auto industry, a record trade deficit with China and other issues are pushing Nafta aside, analysts and industry representatives said.

A study? Vague negotiations? Uh, way to tackle one of the most important international issues of our time, O…

"The whole issue of renegotiating Nafta was always a symbolic argument about the failed trade policies of the last 20 years," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union.

Man, if NAFTA-bashing isn't a national sport, we'll have nothing to symbolize the failed trade policies of the last 20 years.

Except the failed trade policies of the last 20 years.