So, to commemorate the second half of the month, brief commentary on the September 2007 Norfolk Southern Railway calendar photo.

We are treated to a near head-on shot of a mixed freight near Vesuvius, Virginia. NS 9230, one of the railway's ubiquitous GE D9-40CWs, is on the point. The most visible thing is, of course, the locomotive's white striping on the front with the rampant stallion. All lights are functional, so they're nowhere near a grade crossing.

Bob Bahrs, a conductor from Dover, N.J., shot the photograph on the way back from a reception held at the O. Winston Link Museum in the old N&W passenger station in Roanoke.

Originally drafted on 18 September 2007 at 20:26:35.

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I hate the Jays.

Reliant is closing.

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Since everyone seems to be doing it, the ISI's National Civic Literacy Board Civics Quiz.

Your correspondent's luck held fast, as I managed to score 59/60 for a percentage of 98.33% accuracy. I missed question 58 dealing with the effects of a purchase of bonds by the Federal Reserve. I said it was a decrease in the supply of money, on the notion that if the Federal Reserve is spending money to buy bonds---which I interpreted to be Treasury bonds---then they would have less money to introduce into the stream of commerce, et cetera. By the ISI's mark, this is wrong, but I don't care. I'm not an economist, hated my economics classes in college, and consider a career in economics only slightly more promising than taking command of Army Group Vistula in April of 1945.

I think I got lucky on several questions due to the fact that I probably share a broad philosophical and political viewpoint with the ISI. Some of the questions, especially on trade and theories of government, depend upon your viewpoints. If you're a fan of an interventionist central government, then you're going to miss several of these.

Nyah nyah, Goldberg.

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On The Baseline asks, "Should [Russian tennis authorities] choose the superstar who has never bothered to play for her country in a team competition, or rely on the hardworking players who have supported their nation [and won the 2007 Fed Cup for Russia] for their entire careers?"

The superstar in question is Maria Sharapova, who needs neither introduction nor link. The "hardworking players" are, severally, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Anna Chakvetadze, Nadia Petrova, and Elena Vesnina.

I'm neither Russian nor an authority on tennis, but my gut reaction is to bench Miss Sharapova in favor of the others. Certainly, she brings a lot of glitz, glamour, and sex appeal to any Russian Olympic team. You could almost bet on NBC's cameras being quite interested in covering the Russian team, and there would be a fair amount of publicity for Maria Sharapova with special guests the Russian Olympic contingent.

Therein lies the problem: Do the Russian authorities want to have someone on the team that's focused on the Nike pre-match press conference to announce a new Olympic design for her on-court attire, or do you want someone who'll probably be more obscure than not when preparing for the match?

Maria Sharapova is probably a better choice than Elena Vesnina from a purely statistical standpoint. But that depends upon Sharapova being healthy and Sharapova being focused, and I think it's fair to ask if she will be. Manny can be Manny, but world-class tennis seems to be a lot more capricious, and the talent a lot closer, so letting "Maria be Maria" could be a bad thing.

Another factor I consider relevant is the correlation of talent vis-a-vis Sharapova and the others. Benching the former is not like benching Wayne Gretzky circa 1986 in favor of some guy brought up from the WHA because he's a drinking buddy of someone in the front office. An argument can perhaps be made that Vesnina should be benched for competitive purposes, but Kuznetsova is currently world #2, Chakvetadze #5, and Petrova #8. That ain't nothing to sneeze at.

This question may be related to the situation the United States had to and has to ask each time it assembles a mens' basketball team. In 1992, we wanted to win, and assembled the Dream Team. We had capable, competent players who worked together as a team, and we annihilated the other national teams. In later years, it seems, we've gone for the glitzy picks (Hello, Allen Iverson!) and well, to put it bluntly, we've lost. At some level, you want competent and dedicated men (or women, whichever) who don't lose focus on why they're there, which is the earning of a gold medal.

This is not to equate women's tennis with men's basketball, because they're different sports, but rather to illustrate the foregoing principle. The Russian national authorities should pick the women who have gone to bat (or the baseline, as it were) for their country. In a competition where national pride is inextricably intertwined with personal achievement, a lesser player who comes out on the court with fire in her blood may be more valuable to the national reputation than a fragile glamour queen, no matter how good-looking and possibly good the latter may be.

---

-This is all academic anyways; if all goes well, that 2008 women's singles gold medal is going in Belgium's column, assuming there still is a Belgium at that point.

-Am I being hard on Maria Sharapova? Sure, I am. I'm trying to be objective about her, and that may yield unpleasant results. A snide thought occurred to me as I wrote this: "Well, a fragile Sharapova versus an undercompetitive Vesnina? Either way, the slot might be a loss, so one might as well go with the patriotic one."

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EDIT: The link, as usual, has been changed because F24 have not figure out how to run a website. See here for the current story, where the snide Iranian's remarks have been deleted.

It appears that the French government now considers the worst-case scenario in the Iranian question to be war, and at least one minister suggests that the French and their associates prepare for that scenario.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stated on Sunday that negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program should continue "right to the end", while the French and Germans were considering an additional slate of sanctions to be applied to Iran. Kouchner also stated that he considered an atomic-armed Teheran a "real danger for the whole world" and the situation as, "the greatest crisis" at the present.

The Iranians were, of course, outraged, and said nothing important, and the Israelis were, of course, very pleased that the minister's comments had been made. Some commenter named 'amir safari' snapped that 'Mr Kushner had better shut his slotty mouth and stop pestering our country'. Some fool named Kenneth T. Tellis determined that the United States were a greater danger, ostensibly due to our developed and deployed strategic arsenal. He also questioned whether 'we'---whoever that is---should be a part of the "American wolf pack", while claiming that his "we" should set its sights on the U.S. and not Iran.

Fascinating. President Sarkozy's regime may be something of what the Atlantic community needed, which is to say some steel in the backbone that doesn't belong to either Washington or London. I am also pleased that major French energy companies (i.e. Total and Gaz de France are being encouraged to pass on Iranian contracts. Since the intricacies of the French system are opaque to me, I don't know what the nature of official urging would be, whether it's mere rhetoric or something more muscular.

The issues raised during the run-up to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM may yet be overcome, and Teheran's belligerent intransigence is appreciated here. I have hoped for a rapprochement between Washington and Paris due to the mutual interest of Western states at stake here, and perhaps the Sarkozy government will not be so focused on opposition as a reflexive answer.

For the record, I am decidedly skeptical about the Iranian claims of peaceful development and their supposed 'need' for atomic energy to fuel the national grid. Yeah, 'cause they don't have any other sources of energy in that country. To paraphrase Jason Geddrick in the first Iron Eagle, "You've got a whole country full of it!"

I am also amused when I read some outraged claims by the Iranians that they have a right to (variously) atomic power or atomic weapons, and especially so since I vaguely remember it being claimed as of right due to their developing status. The Iranian nationalists would do well to remember that they freely chose to throw away their progress and development ca. 1979 when they backed Ruhollah Khomeini and gaily marched off to war with Iraq.

Get it through your head, Teheran: You may think you have the right to build your atomic weapons program. Fine. Maybe you do; in the abstract, it's nice to ponder. In reality, other nations may assert a right to have a say in whether a violent Islamic-exporting regime with links to terror should be allowed to develop atomic weapons, and don't be surprised if someone takes violent exception to it.

---

Minister Kouchner's remarks are unavailable as an English-language transcript, so I can only repeat what France24 puts up.

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Seen over at redstate:

Rudy especially seems ready and willing to mix it up with the Dems, particularly Hillary. That is something I do really like about Rudy. I want a nominee who can go toe to toe with the "always at war" Dems. Rudy has a bit of that "junkyard dog" thing that is refreshing after almost 7 years of Bush (whom I like) being Mr. Nice guy.

I wouldn't exactly bet the farm about Giuliani being ready and willing to mix it up with Democrats. The last time he was in the field against nationally-known Democrats, he sat the bench. I'm not really interested in placing all our hopes on a guy who has a history of bailing out against Hillary Clinton, prostate cancer or no.

I doubt Jack sees it that way, but go figure.

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If you've been regularly reading over the last few days, you've seen a hideous design in place. That was your correspondent trying to figure out the three-column stylesheet, and failing miserably.

So, until I figure out how to make it work and look good, we'll go with the old standby. Meanwhile, do check out the widget from On The Baseline Tennis News. I go to them for womens' tennis news, and so should you.

I've also crammed the archives (dating back to October 2003) into a drop-down list, so enjoy that. Additional work continues to bring you a better-looking and better-functioning experience. Alas, Messrs. Loewy, Dreyfuss, Patten and Stevens have all passed from the scene, so don't expect anything sleek and streamlined, although I wish I had the talent to do so.

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Woo hoo, David Ortiz delivers two walk-off homers at Fenway in a thrilling come-from-behind victory. Celebrations, joy, and many happy returns of the day.

Oh, wait. It was against the Devil Rays, the dregs of the AL East. At least the lead is five games, rather than three. Luckily, there's an opportunity to go up six on the hated Yankees two days from now.

(Post title inspired by Alien Loves Predator, specifically Preston's remarks in the last panel.)

Your correspondent still doesn't know what the devil he's doing with the layout, so a reversion to a slightly-modified variant of the original is impending, probably for tomorrow.

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Oops, looks like someone forgot to tell Mike Huckabee that thou shalt not do anything that challenges GROWTH for it is a jealous and demanding god.

That's right, kids! That nuisance PAC we all know and loathe, the Club for Growth has decided that Mike Huckabee is guilty of---wait for it---speaking to unions. Their bill of indictment reads thusly:

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has taken to calling himself a “fiscal conservative,” but who ever heard of a fiscal conservative who raised taxes and spending through the roof while governor of Arkansas? Mike Huckabee is also calling himself “a different kind of Republican,” but that’s just a codeword for a big-government Republican who wants to cover up his tax-and-spend record with folksy talking points and one-liners. Sorry Tax Hike Mike. No dice.

Their full website on the issue is located at Tax Hike Mike!.

Enh, whatever. The CfG usually seems to get involved when a candidate fails or has failed to genuflect towards its hat-on-the-pole of GROWTH and whatnot. I don't have time for Huckabee---one President from Arkansas is enough, thank you---so it's not really my concern, but it's nice to see that the CfG can get back to its usual fratricide now that the FEC's suit against it may be over soon.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to David Freddoso over at the NROC.

And yes, the layout is still very strange-looking. I'm trying to figure out the system I've implemented.

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There are things afoot under the hood of this particular publication. I'm trying to revamp it. Don't be surprised if the site looks weird all of a sudden for some reason.

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Or as it is better known, "The Wall". According to some chap named 'bluey' over at Redstate, anonymous vandals have damaged some of the vertical black stones with an oily substance.

Classy. Real classy. There's never an opportunity to use a Louisville Slugger on these people.

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In a "Daily Thread" over at The Daily Kos, we get to see the Reality-Based Community in action. Let's look and see:

Yeah, Elizabeth Dole's not from North Carolina. Because, you know, Salisbury was annexed by the Commonwealth of Virginia during the Great Depression, as part of Governor Byrd's ambitious "invade as you go" plan of expansion. We've kept it secret for more than seventy years.

You'd think that these leftists would know more about the people they hate, but this one apparently doesn't. But remember---we're the ignorant bigots. They're the high-IQ intellectual elite.

---

Grier Martin is a currently-serving Democratic Member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, representing a northern portion of the City of Raleigh. He has been mentioned as a potential opponent for Mrs. Dole in the 2008 senatorial campaign. Mr. Martin holds the rank of Major in the U.S. Army Reserve and has served in Afghanistan.

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Just a few brief notes from watching the results of the women's US Open in New York:

-Dear Maria Sharapova: If you hold press conferences to announce what you'll be wearing in the tournament, it is advisable to stay in the tournament for a little more than you did. You're a fetching lass and enjoyable to watch, so long as the sound is off, and I wouldn't mind you staying in a given event longer than you seem to do. It might help to be mindful of Bud Collins' criticism about variety in your game.

-Congratulations to Justin Henna. Or whatever it was that the CBS team kept calling Justine Henin. Last time I heard it pronounced by a French speaker who may very well have been her, it was "Zhoo-steen En-een", but I don't suppose you can tell that to the chaps in the broadcast booth.

Miss Kuznetsova looked totally outmatched against Miss Henin, sort of like I am against anyone with the slightest clue of what they're doing on the tennis court. It appears that, based upon her performance in the Open, Miss Henin decided early on that she was going to win and simply stuck to the plan. It's a far better result than her outing against Marion Bartoli, who thankfully went home after facing Serena Williams.

Congratulations, Justine. Glad to see you winning.

-Ha ha to the Williams sisters. Better luck next time!

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Cliff May has a post up at the NROC describing something our friends at moveon.org are up to. In short, they apparently intend to run an ad in today's New York Times asking "General Petraeus or General Betray us?" This is, of course, a pre-emptive strike against whatever conclusions General Petraeus may draw in his much-awaited report to the Congress upon military operations in Iraq.

I concur in Mr. May's question---are they questioning a general's patriotism? If we on the right were to do this, or even hint that the political left suffers from a deficit of love of country, they'd go ballistic. Meanwhile, they go all out and suggest that a commanding general not named Benedict Arnold will betray American interests by "cooking the books for the White House", and that's OK.

The lone consolation here is that moveon seems to have a tin ear when it comes to doing anything other than revving up its foam-at-the-mouth formations---recall the Bush ist Hitler ad they ran a few years ago---so perhaps this'll backfire and they'll find themselves looking at the usual failures and bemoaning La Pelosi.

Paraphrasing an old remark made by former President Richard Nixon, "When the liberals do it, that means it is not immoral." It must be nice.
---

Additional coverage is provided by the Weekly Standard. The executive director of Vets for Freedom states,

Let's be clear: MoveOn.org is suggesting that General Petraeus has 'betrayed' his country. This is disgusting. To attack as a traitor an American general commanding forces in war because his 'on the ground' experience does not align with MoveOn.org's political objectives is utterly shameful. It shows contempt for America's military leadership, as well as for the troops who have confidence in him, as our fellow soldiers in Iraq certainly do.

Ha ha.

EDIT: Byron York has a piece on the 'Betray us' campaign here.

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Mr. Auster writes today, commenting upon a story in the New York Times on the troubles of Dell in regards to computer sales. In brief, the Times believes that Dell has stuck to its old business model for too long.

Mr. Auster disagrees, saying that Dell strayed from its path of world-beating customer and technical support. He highlights "the world's worst customer and tech support",

provided by frequently incompetent or barely competent, passive Indians who do not speak English that is readily understood by Americans; who follow scripts instead of their own intelligence and knowledge; who substitute excessive and irritating politeness for actual response to a customer's problems; and who are mired in an unresponsive and unaccountable bureaucracy.

I dissent from Mr. Auster and his correspondent, Chris L. I have had a Dell computer since 2004, and it has been a very good instrument. I've had to call them on several occasions regarding hardware maintenance or replacement (mostly fans) and I haven't had any real trouble with their Indo-Pakistani staffs.

This is one of these things that confuses me about the issue. All I ever hear is that the Indo-Pakistani replacements are barely literate, yet I've always gotten people who I can understand and who wind up, after some cajoling and back-and-forth, generally providing a fix to the problem I'm calling about. In fact, I don't mind talking to a pleasant chap on the phone from Bangalore or whatever.

I thought about it, and my good fortune in technical support has not been due to some status of mine as a highly-educated, cosmopolitan transational elite. I speak English, with a vestigial ability to comprehend some Spanish, a couple words of French, and whatever German I could pick up from World War II movies and games. I've never been east of Western Europe, and I don't live in some multi-cultural hellhole of diversity, so my exposure to vastly different cultures is minimal to nil. (I also don't see that as a terrible thing, just one that I intend to tamper with at my leisure and on my own dime; no Federal program or NGO necessary.)

So why do I have good luck with these people? I think a lot of it comes down to temperament. I deliberately try to remain calm and placid when dealing with these folks, and I think it helps. I don't mind asking them to repeat themselves---"Wait, I didn't hear you clearly"---when I don't understand what they say, and I don't mind if they ask me to repeat themselves.

As for the supposed passivity of these folks, is that a bad thing? Maybe I'm betraying the ol' Type A personality, but if they're passive, that ought to mean that I can direct them as I see fit, ideally to a favorable resolution of whatever problem I'm having. Passive tech support means, at least to me, that I can get further than I would if I had to deal with some hostile greaser from New Jersey who'd say, "Tough" when the call turned complicated.

I think the better view is provided by that Indian living in the West, who complains about Dell living for the next quarter's profit report. If I read the Times article right, that's been Dell policy since Day One, but there are ways to do that, and there are ways to muck it up. It appears that Dell managed to find the latter with its corporate choices, and thus is reaping the negative results. It's a topic for another piece that I'll never write, but the over-emphasis on This Quarter Is All That Matters can't be helped by the presence of economists and financial analysts sticking their noses everywhere, constantly demanding higher profits, lower costs, and growth, and everything-else-be-damned-so-long-as-there's-GROWTH. Hello, Jim Kramer and Larry Kudlow.

Enh. I doubt anything I've hammered out here would dissuade Mr. Auster or his correspondents, so let me leave you with a valuable maxim that kind of guides my dealings with Indo-Pakistani technical support: "Politeness helps". Outsourcing is a dastardly thing and I don't care for it (or the exporting of our industry to Red China) but that doesn't confer upon the citizen a license to be rude and hostile to some poor sap on the other end of the line in God-only-knows-where, India.

---

NB: I am not encouraged by the account of Michael Dell wanting to "turbocharge growth" by acquiring small companies. You could ask the shade of Stuart Saunders whether buying up small companies like Executive Jet did much for the growth of the Penn Central Company.

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This just in, a couple of days late. Apparently, the Canadian Pacific Railway is buying the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad.

Per the CBC, the CPR said late Tuesday it will pay the $1.48 billion in cash, plus contingent future payments of up to US$1 billion based on progress on a long-term DM&E expansion to carry coal from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.

If this does work, it would help to drive a stake into the BNSF/UP Powder River Basin system. That alone might be worth dropping the flag on the Class II carrier. News as I discover it.

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Normally, I like Rick Brookhiser. He does, granted, usually come across as a jaded urbanite who's good for historical data on the Founding Fathers, but sometimes he delivers other interesting gems once you take into consideration his limitations. Not last night, though. He gives us a summation of the Republican candidates so far, and dubs Thompson "by far the weakest potential president of the top tier Republicans".

Mr. Brookhiser's snide analysis of the top tier (Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Thompson) says of the ex-NYC mayor, "Strongest is Giuliani who, alone of all the candidates in both parties, has done something. Two things—saved New York City; and led America for two days six years ago."

Blah blah, saved New York City. To someone outside of the Five Boroughs (and therefore the irredeemable hinterland), saving that cesspool is of dubious value. Sure, hizzoner may have cleaned out the Augean Stables, but they're still the Augean Stables at the end of the day.

Furthermore, what's this "led America for two days" stuff? I don't remember the Mayor of the City of New York being in the line of Constitutional succession to the Presidency under the 25th Amendment (or any other law, for that matter). From what I understand, the National Command Authority was never really out of position and since all Cabinet officers and members of Congress and various others in the coordinate branches of government survived, there isn't any cognizable claim to a city mayor in New York State being the "leader".

By Mr. Brookhiser's logic, I could perhaps argue that the Chairman of the County Board for Arlington, Virginia "led the nation", because last time I checked, the 11 September attacks hit other targets than Manhattan. Oh, wait, it's the City Desk guy for National Review; only New York matters to them.

Bah. I don't want that Yankee as our nominee.

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You've got to love the Angry Left. They stick to their narrative of America bad, (anywhere else) great, no matter what the circumstances may be, and they're not really worried about letting things like facts get in the way.

George Will has penned an acid column knocking the recently-elected Nicolas Sarkozy for something. It's early in the morning and I'm not firing on all cylinders anyways, but the gist of it seems to be that Sarkozy may act in the perceived interests of France, as opposed to the EU or the US. The horror!

I don't know the truth of it at this point, and I really don't care. France will do what France will do, and we can only sit back and watch, kind of like Edmund Burke reportedly did when Robespierre & Co. were trashing the capital.

What's worth reading in the column is some of the reactions. As of 0945 here in the East, none of them extend beyond standard Kossack fare, whining about a Bush-Cheney boondoggle or how great the Fifth Republic is while simultaneously damning America. Yawn.

I had to laugh at the last pair of remarks by a chap who calls himself 'Gatsby1':

I wouldn't exactly go out on a limb claiming that the current French political system is far older and inherently more complex than that of the United States. Last time I checked, we're still under a system agreed to in the 18th century. The government that sent Comte de Grasse to the Virginia Capes---thank you very much, Louis XVI; wish we'd been able to help you in your time of need---had been annihilated prior to 1800 courtesy of the aforementioned Robespierre & Co., so Mr. Gatsby1's claims are somewhat fallacious.

If you want to get mean about it, the current system governing France hasn't even gotten to 50 years of age yet, with the Fifth Republic being instituted by President Charles de Galle in 1958.

My interest remains 'officially piqued' at whatever reforms that President Sarkozy may or may not make while he is at the helm of the Fifth Republic. I hope our nation and theirs are able to cooperate on questions of economy and security to a higher degree than was previously possible with the government of Mr. Chirac. Perhaps we can talk them into giving us some pointers on operating a high-speed rail network?

---

UPDATE: After another bowl of cereal and reflection, one of Mr. Sarkozy's crimes per Mr. Will is as followsL "Sarkozy has, however, said, "I don't wake up every morning asking what Hayek or Adam Smith would have done.""

As I said before, the horror. Asking what Adam Smith would have done could be almost as maddening as asking what would Jesus do, only with less guidance. Not asking what Hayek would have done is, well, something that commends Mr. Sarkozy to me.

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Breaking news via CNN: Some sort of noise has been heard in the Utah mine where six men are trapped.

See here for more.

Your correspondent is offering prayers for their successful rescue at this point in time.

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This morning's trip around the blogroll unearthed a piece by Nikolas Gvosdev in The Washington Realist about the Georgian missile thing from last week.

Mr. Gvosdev, editor of The National Interest, lays out three possibilities for the event in question:

If we rule out that the missile launch and its subsequent impact in Georgia was some sort of accident, we have three main possibilities.

One possibility--and an explanation embraced by some circles in Russia--is that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili manufactured this incident.

[T]his was an operation conceived of and given the blessing of senior figures in the Kremlin--maybe not President Putin himself, but done in a Henry II style--"rid me of this troublesome priest".

Finally, what appears to be the most likely--but no less troubling--local "frontier" elements working with South Ossetians. There is of course precedent in Russian history for commanders on the borders to act with no instructions (or in defiance of instructions) from the center, but this isn't 1783.

---

Naturally, you should read the whole thing; I've only excerpted parts of the story. One wonders just what's going on out there.

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