Voices without Votes continuously aggregates interesting links about the election from world bloggers. Our authors take turns picking their top 3 personal favorites every weekday.

1) McCain, the warrior?

Fearless blogger Jotman (Thailand) wrote today about Americans’ tendency to believe that John McCain possesses superior military leadership qualities than Barack Obama. Citing a recent CBS poll in which 48 percent of respondents say McCain is ‘very likely’ to be effective and 27 percent say the same of Obama, the blogger says:

Fundamentally, I think Americans are dead wrong if they think McCain would make a superior military leader to Obama. We all know that McCain is a warrior, but what evidence do we have that he is an especially gifted commander? Very little.

On the other hand, the tactical skills Obama has demonstrated during the campaign against the Clintons, and his campaign to date against McCain, plus Obama's prescient decision not to support the invasion of Iraq, are positive indications that Obama a strategic thinker — the kind that makes for an effective military leader.

2) Fareed Zakaria for Obama

The news that popular pundit Fareed Zakaria expressed his support for Obama was nearly overshadowed by Colin Powell's endorsement, but Arab-American blog KABOBFest didn't miss the scoop. Author Will quoted Zakaria, who stated in his Newsweek column:

I admit to a personal interest. I have a 9-year-old son named Omar. I firmly believe that he will be able to do absolutely anything he wants in this country when he grows up. But I admit that I will feel more confident about his future if a man named Barack Obama became president of the United States

Will then went on to say:

I personally have always had mixed feelings about Zakaria. He's always been too big on liberalism, without address the many victims of the purveyors of that ideology. It's like rampant socialists who ignore crimes in socialism's name. However, he does expose many Americans to international views. For instance, without his show on CNN, Americans may never get to see eloquent and educated third world pundits speak (even if most of his guests are also pro-West liberals). But what difference does it make if Obama's cast of supporting characters are the same old, same old, and all the change we were promised ends up as much less than what we were sold?

Then, we can revel in the joy that we'd be getting screwed by a leader of color. It would make us feel more like back home.

So when President Omar Zakaria is kissing Israel's ass during the 2048 centennial celebrations of Israel's birth, I can look back at how far American racial politics has come; American Muslims will have finally arrived to the promised land.

3) Bear Murdered, Covered in Obama posters

My third “fave” of the day is not so much a favorite post as one which deserves attention. VivirLatino shares a story of a bear shot in the head in North Carolina, then draped in Barack Obama banners and dragged to the front of Western Carolina University's administration building. The Obama banners were stapled together and placed over the bear's head.

The blogger reacted to the incident:

Signs and whispers are one thing. Murdering a bear with a gunshot to the head and putting pictures of a human being on it is something else all together.

Where is this blessed “America” that the far right is so eager to rub our faces in? Where is the rule of law? Where does the idea come from that if you don't like a person's politics, the next best thing is to kill him (or otherwise imply murder through the murder of other beings?).

I hope the FBI/Secret Service has made its way out to North Carolina.