First up, I’d like everyone to go to Pepper’s blog and find out why you ought to vote to give Pepper’s pal (aka Shelly Batts) a scholarship. Lindsay of Magic Thighs provides more reasons. Remember, the name you’re looking for on the ballot is “Shelly Batts”, not “Pepper’s Pal.”

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Motorola finally made a mobile phone for people like me. If I ever do get a mobile phone, it will be for making and recieving phone calls. Not for taking pictures, not for playing songs, and not for blow-drying my hair. I just need to be able to dial, talk, and listen.

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Raul of Liberal Avenger has a test to see whether or not you have a clue about the American role in international affairs. Read this article by Anne Applebaum. If you think that Applebaum might to onto something when she says that America’s foreign policy is defined by equal parts of realism and idealism, then you’re a twit.

As Raul says in the comments:

The idea that there are a bunch of guys in a room in Foggy Bottom, wringing their hands and saying “how do we figure out how to best advance global democracy?” is hilarious.

Of course, there are times when policy makers do genuinely try to promote democracy abroad. They do this when they think that it is in America’s best interest, not when they feel like being a bunch of idealistic altruists. In any case, it’s pretty rare that the US does more than give lip service to the promotion of democracy.

Also, the Liberal Avenger himself linked to this piece on the recent success of the secret gay cabal that really runs America.

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Stram of 15 Seats reminds us that the Republicans have a huge advantage in congressional elections, so the current anti-Republican wave will probably only produce slight congressional majorities for the Democrats. He links to Molly Ivins, who explains how Democrats are underrepresented in congress, thanks to gerrymandering and identity politics:

Combining the last three Senate elections, Democrats have actually won 2.5 million more votes than Republicans. Yet now they hold only 44 seats in that 100-person chamber because Republicans dominate the less populous states that are so heavily overrepresented in the Senate. As journalist Hendrik Hertzberg (of the New Yorker) notes, if you treat each senator as representing half that state’s population, then the Senate’s 55 Republicans currently represent 131 million people, while the 44 Democrats represent 161 million people.”

OK, we all know about the small-state advantage in the Senate. How did the People’s House get so far out of fair? Paul Krugman explains: “The key point is that African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, are highly concentrated in a few districts. This means that in close elections many Democratic votes are, as political analysts say, wasted—they simply add to huge majorities in a small number of districts, while the more widely spread Republican vote allows the GOP to win by narrower margins in a larger number of districts.”

And it’s not just gerrymandering and demographics that work against the Democrats. PZ Myers lets us know about the Republicans’ secret weapon. No, not Diebold, the other secret weapon.

And then there’s just plain old cheating.

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Stram also links to this story about Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, who killed herself in 2003 after objecting to interrogation techniques being used at a prison near Tal Afar.

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Marketing genius Alon Levy now has a Wednesday Links edition. Hmm…I had link days on Sunday and Thursday, and Alon started a blog and instituted a Saturday Link feature. Now he’s got a Wednesday Link feature as well. Can Thursday Videos be far behind?

Alon also has an interesting set of links relating to torture and abuse. These articles run the gamut of the issue, from abuse of women to abuse of prisoners. It’s kind of like a Carnival of Abuse, but not quite so festive as that name implies.

Finally, Alon’s got an analysis of a recent study indicating that internet porn prevents rape. Alon found the flaws, so I don’t have to. He really is the second smartest blogger in North America.

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Katie of Liberal Debutante is upset with me for making fun of Canada, so the least I can do is link to her wonderful article on long-distance relationships, which is mostly about the role of sex in a relationship. If you’ve got time, read the comments as well — apparently, a certain blogger is going to get his ashes hauled this December.

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This Old Brit wonders why the Bush administration is suddenly trying to tie Syria to the violence in Lebanon. We all remember what happened after Bush tried to tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks.

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Tex of Red State Feminist highlights a case in which a judge decided that a child would be better off growing up with a drug-addled wife beater in the United States than with a loving mother in Uruguay. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who would have gotten custody if the mother had been an abusive drug fiend, and the father was a citizen of Urugay.

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Gorilla’s Guides has a couple of disturbing reports:

Baghdad Is Under Siege

Sunni militias control access to the Iraqi capital.

U.S. Military Adopts Desperate Tactics

“Thousands have been killed here by the Multi-National Forces (MNF) and Iraqi allies, and the situation is getting worse every day,” a member of the Fallujah city council speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. “We have no role to play because the Americans always prefer violent solutions that have led from one disaster to another.”

(snip)

“Four firemen were killed by the U.S. army because they were late to get to the four burning hummers,” a young man who witnessed the attack told IPS. “They were not killed by mistake, they were killed in front of many people.”

The U.S. military has admitted that it killed three firemen by mistake because they were suspected to be militants.

These reports come directly from sources in Iraq. Whether we accept them as true, half-true, or outright false is irrelevant; this is the way most people view the occupation forces.

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Helmet of Phradlsfjjfsdl cites a study indicating that the world’s oceans will be overfished to the point that commercial seafood will be virtually unavailable by 2050, unless measures are taken to halt overfishing.

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Jim Downey of Unscrewing the Inscrutible links to an essay by John Cole of Balloon Juice. Cole is a conservative who believes that the Republican party has been hijacked by “frauds and religionists.” I know several moderate Republicans, and most are in agreemeent.

Also, Dr. Socks reminds us that the GOP is still very good at determining what the news media will focus on. This week, it’s John Kerry’s offhand comment at a campaign rally, rather than the incredibly bad economic news that recently emerged (link link link).

Here’s what Democrats will have to face up to between now and ‘08: they are going to win this year’s elections by default, not because they’ve done a better job of electioneering. The party is going to have to start doing a better job of responding to attacks and drawing the media’s attention to the important stories.

And most of all, the Democratic candidate for president is going to have to be someone who knows how to win in a state that has a substantial number of Republican voters. Someone like Russ Feingold or John Edwards, rather than someone like John Kerry or Hillary Clinton.

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Extreme Tech has a story about a confection that’s getting to be popular, even though it sounds extremely sickening: Deep Fried Coca-Cola.

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