Why attack Syria?

I don't understand what is the rationale for the Syria attack -- they shot up a building under construction and blew some stuff up and killed a few people, then flew back to Qaim.
Was it just a bunch of rogue soldiers "taking matters into their own hands"?

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military's reach.
"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

But later in the article we find out that there aren't large numbers of foreign fighters coming into Iraq anymore:

The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been cut to an estimated 20 a month, a senior U.S. military intelligence official told the Associated Press in July.

That's like five people a week, not all of whom would be entering at Qaim anyway.
So was the American military just showing off? Or are they trying to provoke a war with Syria? And what would be the idea behind that -- do they think starting another needless war would actually help McCain win this election?

Shorter

Shorter Mark Levin:

Why are all these conservatives supporting Obama? Don't they know the new sheriff is a ni....?

UPDATE: TBogg summarizes the Levin column this way:

Great line of the day

From Richard Wolffe on Countdown

Keith, I'm going to be as restrained and measured as I possibly can about this. But this is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far and there's been a lot of competition for that prize. Fruit flies aren't just to do with this kind of research. They are a standard scientific model in genetic research along with a whole range of other organisms and cells including mice, rats, I mean there's nothing fluffy or funny about it. It's scientific research. And if you deliver your first serious policy speech and you make this kind of basic error, you either don't have a scientific adviser, or you don't have a speechwriter who knows what they're saying.

Emphasis mine.

UPDATE: RossK explains exactly why those fluffy, funny fruit flies are critical to cancer research today.

Great post of the day

I don't have the direct link, but a commenter on Taylor Marsh quotes humorist David Sedaris talking about undecided voters:

I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Cry me a river

Is it just me, or are too many of the new TV shows this fall showing scene after scene of crying parents, weeping friends, sobbing children, and misty-eyed co-workers?
I guess I'm getting pretty tired of watching actors, even good ones, emote all over the screen.

Then again...

Flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!

TBogg, shorter

Yes, she really is "Cariboo Barbie"

Rock paper scissors

Steve suggests a plan for the Liberal leadership:

On one level, it's the height of elitism, decidedly undemocratic, downright unfair. However, the idea floated yesterday, one I've also considered, of simply having the Liberal caucus lock themselves in a room until they come to relative unanimity on the next leader does have merit. A vote, whomever wins, that person is the defacto leader.

The comments to his post are thumbs down, but I think this has merit. After the Liberal experience last time, when a bruising, expensive, year-long, nine-contender campaign finally produced a leader who apparently couldn't get along with his caucus, maybe there is a better way.
Or else lets just have Rae and Iggy play a few rounds of rock paper scissors, eh?

Gee, what a surprise

The New York Times is reporting that Bush has decided not to close Guantanamo.
Oh, who could ever have expected that?
My litmus test for whether Obama is really going to try to change things in the United States, or whether he is just going to go along to get along, is whether he orders Gitmo closed. He would have to deal with a shitstorm of faux outrage from the Pentagon and from the Bush enablers in Congress, but its a decision that must be made. Here's why:

Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, David S. Addington, have made it clear in the internal discussions this year that keeping Guantánamo open under a new president would validate the administration’s decisions dealing with terrorists, the officials said.

Conservatives or Liberals?

Which party is this MP talking about?

He paints the party brass as ultra-aggressive, unaccountable apparatchiks who treat politics as a blood sport, more interested in scoring points off the opposition than in governing well. They wield tremendous influence, forming an impenetrable barrier around the leader and treating MPs like underlings. 'The elected officials shouldn't be working for the unelected people.'

Answer here.

Dion had his opportunity

Rabble's Duncan Cameron writes:

In his televised press conference Dion admitted that the party had lacked the resources to counter Conservative propaganda, and mount a campaign to put another face on his leadership.

Sorry, but Dion is not blameless here -- he had ample opportunity to respond to the the Conservative attack ads.
It doesn't cost a penny to give a good speech in the House of Commons.
And surely, when Dion was elected leader, the Liberals could have sent him across the country to appear on radio talk shows and talk to local media and tell Canadians who he was.
Cameron made another couple of observations I thought were interesting. About Dion's leadership he said:

Dion lost his leadership when he agreed to go along with the Conservatives on a meaningless agenda to remain in Afghanistan, when he should have been affirming his leadership by opposing the war. Instead of flushing out his enemies within caucus, and building links in his own province, he preferred to support the continental militarization of Canada.

And about the candidates for the next Liberal leader he says:

Big money and its friends have done well by the Liberal party. An executive vice-president of the TD Bank looks like the right choice to Liberals comfortable with this symbiotic relationship. But a McKenna candidacy does not appeal to the people that elected Dion Liberal leader: young people, idealists, citizens devoted to environmental causes, international development or national unity. Of course these are precisely the people coveted by the NDP and Green Party alike.

What the world thinks of Cariboo Barbie

Humourist Nury Vittachi (via) writes about What Palin means to Asians

A Western journalist called me the other day to ask what Asians thought of Sarah Palin.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I’ll ask them.”
I held my hand over phone, counted to 20 and then got back on the line. “They like him,” I said. “But they think he should make more episodes of Monty Python.”
There was a long pause. I heard the journalist’s brain cell click into place. “That’s not Sarah Palin,” she eventually said. “That’s Michael Palin.”
“Well, Asians would like her to tell her husband to make more episodes of Monty Python.”
“Actually, I don’t think Michael Palin is her husband.”
I took a sharp intake of breath. “They are not legally married? That’s something that Asians definitely do not approve of.”
“No, no, no, she’s married to someone else, not Michael Palin.”
“That makes it worse,” I said.
There are few things in life more pleasurable than tormenting American journalists. The only downside is that it is so easy. They are absolutely convinced that the rest of the world watches every detail of what happens in the United States as if it was some sort of wacky global sitcom designed to entertain the rest of the planet. Actually, that IS more or less the case. But I still like teasing them.

Ignoring deficits

So the news du jour seems to be that Harper might run a deficit.
And from what I am reading lately, running a deficit would be a good thing -- the economy needs government spending now, not cuts and cutbacks.
There is apparently a new anti-deficit focus among the American right-wing. For the last 8 years, they couldn't have cared less about Bush spending trillions on Iraq, and it was Cheney who said "deficits don't matter" But now of course they don't want Obama to be improving health care and infrastructure, so now deficits are baaaaad -- I expect we'll see lots of punditry over the next few months worrying so much about the deficit and how irresponsible it would be for Obama to spend anything. dday at Hullabaloo calls it creeping neo-Hooverism, and no doubt this attitude will bleed over into Canada, too. I hope Harper just ignores it -- he's pretty good at ignoring things!

King Ralph

Well this is interesting -- Goodale wants to be interim leader instead of John McCallum. I guess we'll know tomorrow, but I hope Goodale makes it -- the Liberals need someone who will generate press coverage over the next seven months by hammering Harper in the House over what I expect will be the inadequate, poorly planned, and ideological Conservative responses to the coming Canadian economic crises. Go, Ralph!

Great line of the day

From Atrios, talking about the Powell endorsement:

I think what little credibility Colin Powell had is in a little vial of white powder somewhere, and have no desire to help rehabilitate his image. Still such things are not aimed at me, but at that segment of the population for whom the recommendation of their first black friend might encourage them to get a second one.

Momentum

Obama has the mo' now. His campaign appears to be finishing off with a series of large rallies all over the States.