SuperSize my Gas Guzzler!

McDonald's has been giving away toy Hummers with kid meals - Theo even got one when we went to McD's before getting on an airplane. Well, someone took notice of this, and created this satirical website about it -- ronaldmchummer.com

The funny thing is, the Hummers were billed as "Hydrogen" vehicles -- wishful thinking!

Milwaukee Voted "America's Drunkest City!"

Check out this link from Lycos News. I wonder if it's because of all the beer people consume there?

Republicans Pushing for War with Iran!?!?

This New York Times story quotes numerous Republicans in Congress and associated with the White House as saying that we need to start another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran! Haven't they learned anything from Iraq? Or the recent Israel-Hezbollah war? It boggles the mind that they're willing to ignore all evidence, including the CIA's, to throw the country into another war! These people must be stopped at the polls this Fall, and thorough investigations on the run-up of the Iraq war must be initiated to expose the dangerous demagoguery of the Bush White House and Republican congress!

Excellent read: The One Percent Doctrine, by Ron Suskind

This fascinating book (link to Amazon) is an inside look into the clandestine world of the CIA and FBI after 9/11. It's a scorching indictment of the way the Bush administration, including W himself, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Powell, mishandled the actual war on terror to further their own goal of invading Iraq. Informative and sometimes frightening, it reads like a spy novel. Read the reviews on Amazon for an excellent summary of the book.

Proxy war in the Middle East: The Cold War revisited?

The current war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon reminds me of nothing so much as the so-called "Proxy Wars" waged during the Cold War between client states of the US and the USSR. Israel is practically the 51st US state, and Hezbollah is really a proxy for Iran, which, as this article from Mother Jones explains, is really a proxy for Russia and China.

In other words, the US is in a global struggle with China and Russia for control of oil resources in the Middle East, which is playing itself out in skirmishes along the Lebanese border. In a few years, if the rivalry between the US and China/Russia heats up in the next decade, the current conflict may be seen as the first of the new crop of proxy wars.

Why now? As some have reported, it might be a way for Iran to thumb its nose at Washington, just at the US and Europe were preparing to tighten their demands that Iran stop producing nuclear fuel. In a way, Iran might be showing the West just how much power it has in the region to wreak havoc with the Middle East, which is something that the Bush administration in particular does not want right now, given how badly Iraq is going.

This might have a positive side: as during the Cold War, proxy wars have a way of releasing some tension without having to go to an all-out war, which would be disastrous. They're like little earthquakes releasing tension along a fault. But of course, the threat of a small fanatical group in the Middle East getting their hands on nukes throws a wild card into the equation. That was never an issue during the Cold War.