It's always fun when a local politicians meddle in world affairs. What is it about being a city councillor that makes you think you can also do brain surgery and drive a race car.

The Boston City Council is not alone in this. Cincinnati voted a resolution into law, last week, opposing the Iraq war, as did Minneapolis. In Detroit, the council tackled both Iraq and Dafur. New York also took on Sudan. In Dallas the city council may even have signed on to the Kyoto Protocals.

But the area champs of acting non-locally are the Cambridge City Council who have dabbled in everything from immigration to nanotechnology to the war to Starbucks to the Patriot Act.