There's anger in the Middle-East this week over those pesky Danish cartoons. We're being flooded with images of angry people taking to the streets to burn flags and yell and shake their fists at the heavens, but what strikes me the most is the serendipitous product placement in so many of those images.

Like this one with the Dairy Queen in the background. (Happy Birthday, Salo!)

Or this one with the bootleg Levis 501 T-shirt.

Or this one. (Can you spot the Adidas logo?)


Or even this dangerous use for what used to be a Seven-Up bottle?

These aren't edited in photoshop. They're completely real and were all shot in the last week.

So my question is this: Are these images a testament to the global appeal of big brands... or are they the result of a brilliant marketing mastermind's devious product placement scheme?