A concomitant of Democratic Peace Theory is obviously Thomas L. Friedman’s Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, the idea that no two countries with McDonald’s have ever waged war on each other. It’s rot, of course. Since Friedman first issued his tongue-in-moustache theorem, several McDonalded nations have proved him wrong: NATO vs Serbia; Israel vs Lebanon; and, most recently, Georgia vs Russia. But somehow the idea has taken root, so much so that today, on reading that Hugo Chavez had closed down all Venezuela’s McD’s, I immediately wondered how long it would be before American tanks rolled into Caracas. Burgers of the world unite.