Sorry, folks, but not only was it impossible to see Sarah, it was difficult to hear her as well. And as soon as I got home—I left early, since there seemed no point in staying in a venue where I could neither see nor hear the person I came to see—I was called to work on something important at my paying job. I’ve had no time to go through my pictures and videos and see if there’s anything worth posting.

But I will tell you this: I feel like I wasted my time going today. That wasn’t what the McCain campaign was looking for. And I wasn’t the only one.

One of my biggest complaints about Palestinian demands for a state, is that they’ve never set up the institutions of government. Well now, in Gaza, Hamas has taken the first step. Call it P-OSHA. (h/t Daily Alert)

Gaza’s smugglers are going legit: Owners of the scores of tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border have registered with the Hamas authorities, pledged to pay workers’ compensation and hooked up their operations to the electricity network.

The once clandestine business has come out into the open. In one place, dozens of large tents, each marking a tunnel work site, were pitched just yards from an Egyptian watchtower beyond the border wall.

Elder of Ziyon who follows the tunnel industry actually had this story first.

Mere Rhetoric puts things a little differently from the way I did.

First of all: there are economists in Gaza, which is just how it was in Auschwitz right? More to the point: combine this with Hamas’s new online terror course and you kind of have to admit that they’ve gone from being a ragtag bunch of genocidal lunatics to being a well-organized cadre of genocidal lunatics:

I wonder if these new safety rules will apply to the north Gaza tunnels too?

Somehow, I don’t think that Hamas is building tunnels to smuggle in supplies from Israel. It sounds more like they want another few Gilad Shalits.

This news coming on the heels of Khaled Meshaal’s comment that Israel is “unreliable.” Of course, Hamas is suffering from a decline in popularity, so perhaps Hamas is demanding more for Shalit and Israel is balking, which would be motivating Hamas to up the ante.

All speculation of course. But it would seem to fit recent events.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Getting Shmuel Rosner on board at Contentions was a great move. He’s a little too much of a leftist for my taste, but he does have an eye for an interesting story, or an interesting angle. But his effort today, The Terrorism effect is bewildering because of its conclusion.

This means that an additional terror attack in 1992 could have killed the Oslo process-which makes one think about the strange ways of terror, and the deranged ways in which it serves to destroy both victim and aggressor alike.

Another terror attack in 1992 may well have helped Rabin even more. Shortly before the elections, a fifteen year old girl, Helena Rapp was killed. Rabin used her death to argue that Shamir’s policies made Israel less safe. A year after the killing this is what Clyde Haberman of the NY Times wrote:

One reason Yitzhak Rabin is Israel’s Prime Minister is a teen-age girl named Helena Rapp.

Helena Rapp was viciously stabbed to death by a Palestinian a year ago as she waited for a bus near Tel Aviv, and Mr. Rabin invoked her killing again and again during his election campaign last summer. Install me as leader, he told Israelis, and you will have someone flexible enough to forge peace with the Arabs but also tough enough to stop Arabs who think they can get their way by knifing Jewish girls. As the final vote proved, it was a winning strategy.

However progress on negotiations did not lead to a reduction of terror. As Haberman later noted:

Whatever the reason, the bloodshed was ample and sustained, diverting Mr. Rabin from peace negotiations and forcing him to deal with rolling thunder on his right. The opposition Likud Party, reborn under a dynamic new leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, ran hard with the terrorism issue. So did disaffected Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose anti-Government demonstrations have grown bigger and more violent.

It did the Prime Minister little good to complain, as he did, that the right was trying to capitalize on tragedy, which indeed seems to be the case but is little different from what he himself did last year. Nor did it improve his standing to point out that stabbings pose no existential threat to Israel, or to lash out at young Israelis for being too passive in the face of knife-wielders.

The point is that Rosner’s premise is wrong. Another terror attack probably would have helped Rabin and Labor even more..

HIs befuddlement at the end is also strange. In 1992, yes, it appears that terror helped bring Labor to power, which, in turn brought about the Oslo Accords. But in 1996, terror brought Likud to power, even though Likud opposed the unconditional implementation of Oslo with no regard to Palestinian compliance. But the violence of early 1996, showed that Oslo wasn’t working. In late 1995, after Yigall Amir assassinated Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres’s government withdrew from six Arab cities. It was the Palestinian Authority’s job to secure those cities and ensure that no terrorists were allowed to operate there. Of course Arafat allowed Hamas to operate in areas under his control, so the resulting terror took advantage of Arafat’s connivance. Unlike the terror of 1992, it showed that the peace process wasn’t working. When terror declined under Netanyahu, Israelis relaxed and voted him out of office.

Terror may affect election results. But terrorists are more opportunistic.The effects of terror on an election will be related to how the electorate views the government. I don’t think that there is enough data to draw consistent conclusions whether terror makes an electorate more hawkish or more dovish.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

What politicians will do for the Jewish vote. They push our buttons.

In my experience, the most obvious way politicians try to woo Jews today is to demonstrate their support of Israel and to appeal to long-held social values. The less obvious way is through, well, political buttons.

Back in 1940, Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate, was beaten by Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide. Normally this might make for just a footnote in history. But of great interest to Jews is the button that was handed out in an effort to gain their vote.

This seems to be the first instance of using Hebrew-style calligraphy to communicate — in coded fashion — one’s political allegiance.

I may not agree with this one, but it is the cleverest.

The complete slideshow starts here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The McCain camp is blowing it, big-time. They moved from the Arthur Ashe Center because it holds only 6,000 people, but we’re not in the Richmond Raceway. We’re outside, surrounding a small venue which is only about 100 feet away from me, and a band is playing—and I can’t hear them. I can’t see anyone, I can’t hear anyone. Except for the thousands and thousands of red-shirted McCain-Palin supporters.

I can’t believe the McCain camp was this unprepared. I don’t know why we’re not in the racetrack venue, which could easily hold this crowd—but we’re not.

I’m sitting in the shade with a bunch of people who are extremely aggravated that they can’t see or hear a thing. And, well, I’m in agreement with them.

If this is the way the McCain camp runs things, it explains why he’s so far behind Obama in the polls.

Don Surber observes:

… dictators are lousy economists

Case in point: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In an interview a few weeks ago with the New York Times, he assured the interviwer, Neil MacFarqhar that Iran’s economy was in fine shape.

NYT: I’ve been to Iran a lot, and I know people work two jobs to survive and they really are angry about the economy. When you talk to Iranians it is the one thing that they really criticize the government for all the time.

President Ahmadinejad: Let’s wait a few months and see how people will vote in the elections. We are always constantly in touch with the people, we live together side by side. I invite you to make the trip with me to Iran, to visit Iran so you can hear what people say. There is a lot of freedom in Iran. They express themselves, they participate in elections, they hold rallies and gatherings. We are not too concerned, and neither should you be concerned.

And then there was this exchange:

NYT: The other economic point is the question of gasoline. We know that Iran is one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world, and yet it imports 40 percent of its gasoline. That is another thing that people get upset about. Why is it so high, and why don’t you invest more money in refineries, for example?

President Ahmadinejad: Are people really angry over this?

NYT: Yes, occasionally they riot and burn gas stations.

President Ahmadinejad: That is not the reason why they put those on fire. We are actually about to build seven additional refineries. Of course gasoline is used at very high rates in Iran because it is extremely cheap. The government pays a lot of money to afford that.

People buy lots of gasoline because the government subsidizes it. Good sound economics there!

Anyway, the Times is reporting that all is not well with the Iranian economy.

In the latest sign of discontent with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, the merchants went on strike to protest being included in the country’s first value-added tax, a 3 percent charge on all products except basic commodities like dairy products and bread.

In an effort to persuade the traders to end their strike, Mr. Ahmadinejad said last week that the new tax law would be suspended for two months. But the newspaper Sarmayeh reported on Sunday that the traders had demanded that the law be permanently revoked.

Further:

Last year, Parliament approved the tax in an effort to increase the government’s revenue and make the traditional trade more transparent. The government began enforcing the law in late September, at a time when the annual inflation rate was hitting 30 percent and traders were frustrated by a decline in sales. International sanctions were also taking their toll.

“Merchants do not want to pay sales tax,” said the carpet seller who declined to be quoted by name. “There has been little trade in the bazaar since March because of the inflation. We cannot import or export anything because of bad relations with most countries and economic sanctions. And the government is increasing the pressure by enforcing new regulations every day.”

The United Nations Security Council has imposed economic sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear program. As a result, businesses must pay more for imports and cannot move money at major international banks.

So sanctions may not be stopping the Iranian nuclear program. But they seem to be fueling discontent with the regime. Not ideal, but at least a start.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I’ll be at the Sarah Palin rally in Richmond later today, and I will attempt to get video and commentary up ASAP. I’m bringing my laptop, and I bought a Flip video camera (and have lots of extra batteries.)

This should be fun. They’re expecting more than 28,000 people. I predict more than that.

The Labor party and Kadmia are falling all over themselves in a congratulatory stupor that neglects to mention that Tzipi Livni is going to be the next Prime Minister of Israel without having to suffer the bother of getting elected by the voters.

Several hours after Ynet published the main clauses of the apparent coalition deal between Kadima and the Labor party, both sides are claiming victory.

Labor Chairman Ehud Barak’s associates admitted that they were unable to secure all their demands, yet still claimed that Labor was able to obtain a large part of its initial requirements. However, officials in Kadima are insisting that the concessions made by the party in order to bring Labor into the government are insignificant.

Only the author is signaling a slight misgiving. But not the way you think.

Now, all that is left is to see whether the agreement reached over the past month between Barak and Livni will be maintained given Israel’s complex political reality, as well as the very different character of the Kadima and Labor leaders.

My Israeli friends, you are being had. You need to fight for the reform of your system. Two unelected Prime Ministers in a row? You have got to be kidding me.

Update: Soccer Dad points out that Olmert was elected. My bad. So it’s only one unelected PM.

Nablus is one of those areas that was put under Palestinian control. And yet, an alert Israeli soldier caught three Palestinians trying to smuggle nine pipe bombs through the checkpoint.

The three Palestinians arrived at the roadblock from the direction of Nablus. The female soldier asked one of them for an identification
card, but remained suspicious even after he showed her his ID.

At that point, the soldier asked the suspect to open his bag, yet he refused. The soldier insisted, prompting the Palestinian to remove a shirt and pants from the bag before closing it again. However, the soldier was not satisfied, opened the bag herself, and found three pipe bombs inside it.

At that point, troops at the checkpoint activated a special emergency procedure. The Palestinians suspect’s two friends were also searched and were found to carry three pipe bombs in each of their bags.

Huh. Nine pipe bombs. Wonder what they were going to do with them?

Checkpoints save lives. Screw the people who say they need to all come down. Not until the Palestinians stop trying to murder Israelis.

Oh, don’t count on the AP to carry this story. It doesn’t fit the narrative of the “cease-fire” and the “peaceful Palestinians.”