That's right, you heard it here first. Vietnam II is on its way.

Impossible you say?

Well, I say you are wrong. I think that Vietnam is the perfect contestant to be chosen as the next victim err... lucky winner in the neocon global democracy crusade. Here's how I see it,

1. Vietnam is ruled by an oppressive socialist party dictatorship. This alone means little to those seeking to use war for the spread of democracy, they need a more convincing impetus. Well, they got it. Vietnam has confirmed that they have arrested Cong Thanh Do a 47 year old Vietnameze born American citizen and democracy activist. Do's California congresswoman has said,

"The Vietnamese government has a track record of human rights violations against people who work to bring freedom and democracy to Vietnam through peaceful means...His incarceration is outrageous. I will do everything possible to guarantee Cong Thanh Do's prompt release."

Peaceful means have failed. It's time to bring out the guns.

2. The war makers have access to a large and passionate anti-communist Vietnamese Diaspora that could be called on to fabricate intelligence about WMD programs and to tell hyperbolic stories of torture and human rights violations.

3. The US "cut and ran" after getting their asses handed to them in Vietnam I (which, of course, led to the domino like spread of communism all across the globe.) Unfortunately, according to Bush this "send[s] the wrong message to the enemy. It would tell them that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run. It would vindicate the terrorists' tactics."

The US government cannot afford to look weak especially after 9/11. They must show the world how tough they are, how they will not cut and run and how they will stay in every fight no matter how long it takes to defeat every enemy. Clearly, Vietnam I is a thorn in the side of the American tough guy image.

So, that's it. In my opinion it's not a question of if but when. Bring 'em on!

However, there is one pressing conundrum that Washington's warmongering elite will have to solve. Much of the pro-democracy opposition to the current regime in Vietnam has been labeled terrorists by both Hanoi and Washington. That means that a war for democracy in Vietnam would give aid to terrorists or, conversely, fighting the terrorists would help prop up a violent and oppressive undemocratic regime. How would the impeccable, moral minds of the Washington war crowd ever deal with such a terrible contradiction.

An Indian Catholic organization has called on members to starve themselves to death in protest before the release of the DaVinci Code movie. I think this is a marvelous idea, and that Muslims should take notice and emulate these heroic Christians.

An organization official said, "It's a more Christian way of doing things rather than pulling down things and tearing them up."

Well the Christian way has tended to be to slaughter people as Jesus allegedly dictated, but I guess it's been a couple centuries since that happened on any significant scale. So I guess he's right. Yes, any Christians so offended by a work of fictional entertainment that they lack the will to live, do the Christian thing and starve yourselves to fucking death.

I recently had a conversation with my dad where he opined authoritatively that China's boom would bust because its environment was being despoiled so quickly. I said, uh, European and American cities were putrid balls of toxins during the Industrial Revolution. Then advances came about that fixed most of the problems. The same will happen in China.

So today I come across an article in the London Times about New Year's rice dumplings.

"Ms Wang was happy to queue because she was confident a well-known shop would not try to flout food safety rules, a big temptation in get-rich-quick China."

Hm. It seems the market is on its way to taking care of bad food in China.

"Mr Jiao sold about 70 tonnes of yuanxiao this year — that is 4.2 million rice balls. He boasts that his rice powder taps into a new-found environmental awareness among Chinese consumers. The grains are soaked for five hours and ground for 24 hours in traditional stone mills. Everything is hand-made. His customers seem appreciative. “I prefer to buy ‘green’ food,” one shopper said."

Hm. It seems the market is taking care of bad environmental practices in China.