I was looking at my assignment for Agency & Partnership the other night, and I happened to see the cover of my casebook. What to my wondering eyes did appear, but the name of a Professor whose blog is linked here.

That's right, I've got a copy of Agency, Partnerships, and Limited Liability Entities: Cases and Materials on Unincorporated Business Associations by William A. Klein, J. Mark Ramseyer, and, most importantly, Stephen M. Bainbridge.

Heh heh heh. Whoah. For what it's worth, Professor, I like the book so far.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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On January 17, 1897, the Roanoke Machine Works were purchased by the Norfolk & Western Railway.

This would, of course, be part of the process that would lead to the mighty "Roanoke Shops" which would turn out the A, J, and Y classes of locomotives in the 1940s for the N&W, all part of what they called 'Precision Transportation'.

One of each of the penultimate classes of N&W steam locomotive survives today; the Virginia Museum of Transportation has the last surviving A and J types, and the National Transportation Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, has the last Y. There are three tracks in Roanoke under the Claytor Pavilion, and the Y6 belongs with her sisters.

Information courtesy of the 2004 Norfolk & Western Historical Society Calendar.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The visual presentation of this quiz result has been altered by me in order to avoid causing retinal burns.

"Sin is incurable by the strength of man, nor does free will have any validity here, so that even the saints say: 'The evil which I do not wish, this I do.' 'You are not doing the things which you wish.' 'Since my loins are filled with illusions,' etc."

You are Martin Luther! Yeah, you have a way of letting everyone know how you feel, usually with Bible quotes attached, and will think your way through the issues, although sometimes you make no sense! You aren't always sure of yourself, and you can change your mind about things, something you actually consider a strength. You can take solitude, especially with some music.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I generally do not get involved in the high-level muckity muck that goes on in the blogosphere in terms of religious issues, primarily because I do not understand them. As a happy-go-lucky Methodist, I think I should probably be happy that I got Martin Luther, unless John Wesley was an option. Then I'd be embarrassed for not getting him.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the team over at Evangelical Outpost for posting this.

UPDATE: John Wesley is indeed an option. Oh, too bad.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 08:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Matthew Stinson has a non-traditional run down on the remaining Democratic candidates for the nomination, with analysis written as if America is a gal in a bar, and the candidates are trying to catch her favorable attentions.

I laughed several times while reading, so I highly recommend that you click here and read it.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 08:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, not exactly a spot per se but an annoyance nonetheless. Comment spammers annoy me, so they're going to be banned. Although TCP is a fair and just man who values the rule of law, this blog, in the words of Jed Eckert from Red Dawn, is not a democracy. (Admittedly, this means that it's free to be a rule of law blog and not a rule of the mob one, but work with me.)

Therefore, two IPs are banned for comment spamming:

-24.50.163.53
-81.218.198.82

Welcome to the list, gentlemen! You'll not be posting back any time soon. No ACLU or capital murderer sympathizers to plead your case here. Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Matthew Stinson for giving me the idea to publish banned IP numbers.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 04:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven't graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?

The real answer to this is, I'm afraid, not for publication.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?

Just kidding. I can't recall any engraved gifts like that.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I like Joe Lieberman. I don't know why I like him, but there's something inherently amusing about the droll and dry sort of wit he'll roll out with while on the stump. I heard audio of him singing a song to some people, and darned near laughed out loud, because it was so novel, and rather comic.

Per that Buckley brat Rich Lowry, we get a new story about Joe on the stump. You've got to admire the guy's pluck, saying he wanted Carol Moseley-Braun in his administration. At least it shows optimism. As for Iraq, Joe's quip about Wes Clark is amusing. He ought to try and play up his dry wit, and see if it works.

Senator Palpat---er, Lieberman probably has no chance in the primaries---this could change, if the current fanatics infecting the Democrat electorate would go away---but that doesn't mean I'm not fond of the guy. Heck, electing him for a term would be worth its weight in gold simply to see how the vaunted Arab street reacts. Too bad decorum wouldn't allow him to stand up and say, "Well, you know, we got tired of running the country by proxy through banks and big business and so forth, so we just decided to go ahead and assume direct control of the reins of our client state, America." Or another potential President Lieberman scenario: "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I have just signed legislation that will outlaw the Middle East forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Heh heh heh. Talk about really messing with the Islamists' heads!

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hooray!

At approximately 10:05:05 last night, visitor number 1000 came by. As best I can tell, they came from attbi.com and were sent here by Google.

I managed to get about 500 hits before the end of 2003, and now I've doubled that in two weeks. Fantastic, eh. All you readers out there, I appreciate your patronage.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I just saw my first Wesley Clark commercial the other night. The only reaction I remember to it is that there was a disclaimer on the pictures of American GIs fighting in Vietnam, and it read something about "FILE PHOTOS OF AMERICAN COMBAT TROOPS".

I suppose that was put there so as not to leave room for someone to make a big fuss about how the infantryman in the picture wasn't actually Wesley Clark and the like. I don't remember a whole lot else about it, other than the statement of responsibility at the end, which ran something like "I'm Wes Clark, and I authorized this ad". I'm curious as to whether a) that's a Federal requirement b) it's a Virginia requirement, and c) what the requirement actually is. The way that the Clark people weaved that audio snippet in was actually kind of jarring, and it didn't flow well with the overall tone of the ad.

Enh. I suppose I'll get to see that loathsome batch trudge through Virginia in search of Democratic support. If any of them are actually within easy reach, I'll probably go to a public event or two, especially if Kucininch comes around. Hee hee. "Country Pundit last seen shouting 'Take a bath, you hosers!' as an unwashed mob converged upon his stalled car".

Enh.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm a fan of Steven den Beste's work, even when what he writes is impenetrable to my brain. I'm no longer exactly sure how I ran across this article, but it's a good one to explain "another side" on the global playing field.

Transational Progressivism is, as always, a long-form essay on a topic. It's wholly worth reading, and I suggest that you do so. I'm fond of getting inside the other guy's head (the better to defeat you!) and this helps. If you've ever sat down and asked, "Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?" in response to a lot of the non-governmental organization whining that seems to go on (or that from the 'Europeans' in Brussels), this will explain things.

The scary thing for me is that I had a professor in undergraduate who heartily embraced these sorts of theories. He used to wax long and eloquent about the greatness of international law, and how it was a good thing. Naturally, he wasn't very pleased when I quipped (more loudly than I should have, in retrospect) that, "International law consists of those things that your navy can enforce". He was also very fond of the European Union. (You also could have done the assignments, which might have helped. --Ed.)

Yeah, my grades from him usually suffered. That is not to say that I was 'punished' for my stances, but it is difficult to excel in a class where one don't grant some of the initial premises that the class is based upon.

I was and am an ardent nationalist who isn't particularly interested in bending America's knee to the United Nations or any other unelected, unaccountable, and unrepublican establishment. (At the same time, there's usefulness left in the UN, and I wouldn't pull out. It just needs a structural tweak or two and then it could be better.)

Anyways, enough from me. Get thee to the article, and learn more about the people who sit on a different side of the table. It's important to know what they're thinking, even if you and I think it's bunk. Whether it is or not is completely irrelevant; the point is that this is how they think and everyone else must position themselves accordingly.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 07:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ugh. The final semester of law school has started. I so don't want to go through with this. I would readily prefer avoiding the inevitability of taking the Virginia bar.

On the other hand, I got a grade back in a class that I was expecting to retake. Two full letters above what I thought I'd get, and I'm pleased. Hooray. Nevertheless, I don't want to actually have to get out into the real world and pull my weight, darnit. Isn't there some super-rich family that just would love to have a grumpy, acerbic, and sarcastic wiseacre amateur political analyst and lawyer as a son-in-law, married to their uber-babe daughter whose accent is either English or proper Southern? (There are plenty of them out there; it's just that none of them are interested in you. --Ed.)

Oh well. Once more into the breach, and unfortunately, I don't think I'm Richard Sharpe at Badajoz.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Picking up where yesterday's entry left off, I was browsing around the Norfolk Southern's website, and found this speech made by David R. Goode at the kickoff for the O. Winston Link Museum funding campaign.

Mr. Goode is the chairman, president, and CEO of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, which is the parent company for the Norfolk Southern Railway. Mr. Goode's job is to earn money for the shareholders, and since he's held his job since 1994, he must be doing something right.

His speech struck me as rather brief, but then none of the executive speeches I've read that have been given by Norfolk Southern officers have struck me as being long. No one will include in a collection of great oratory, but something nagged at the back of my mind as I read it. I haven't yet put my finger on what exactly was bothering me about it, and it may be nothing.

Anyways. Those of you who like reading speeches made by people, go check it out and see what you think. I have no connection to any party to the events, but I'm glad that the Norfolk Southern Foundation, along with employees of the N&W/NS, have seen fit to donate a pretty hefty chunk of money to the campaign. Hats off to all involved.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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First, an introduction: I like railroads, and I like the business of running a railroad. That being said, the late Norfolk & Western Railway and the current Norfolk Southern Railway lead all others in my esteem.¹ This of course means that I've been to the Virginia Museum of Transportation several times. Haven't you? I've stood beside the silent flanks of N&W 611 and N&W 1218, and it's an awe-inspiring experience. The sheer scale of these things is astounding, and it's a little humbling to think that we used to be able to make these things, but that, like much else of our basic industrial capacity, has been vanquished. (We're paying you for a toast to a museum, not for an ill-tempered rant against globalization and the de-industrialization of America. If I wasn't busy calling someone in Punjab to order some iron girders, I'd come up there and beat you. --Ed.)

And so it goes that I'm also a fan of the work of the late O. Winston Link. He was a photographer and advertising man who spent time on the Norfolk & Western in the late 1950s, as the railway phased out the use of steam locomotives. Link shot hundreds if not thousands of pictures of the N&W in action, most of them in black and white. His work is, to an uneducated observer, an example of technical prowess masterfully combined with a compelling subject. Link's work on the N&W is documented in two books that I'm aware of, Steam, Steel and Stars and The Last Steam Railroad in America, both of which are highly recommended.

At any rate, a museum to the man and his work has finally been put together in the former headquarters of the Norfolk & Western, in a manner that I'm sure Link would approve of. The old N&W passenger depot in Roanoke, Virginia, has been converted to use as the O. Winston Link Museum, and it opens today, 10 January 2004. I'll let the Museum speak for itself:

The Station is the last structure to be renovated within Roanoke's Historic Rail District. Other significant renovation projects include the Virginia Museum of Transportation (former railway freight depot) and the Roanoke Higher Education Center (former N&W General Office Building North). N&W General Office Building South has been renovated for use as upscale downtown apartments.

The Station is a Virginia Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Recently, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources deemed the Roanoke Station eligible for national level significance on the Register. The Station is significant due to the "vital role played by the Norfolk & Western Railway in the development of the rail systems of the United States, and the vital role played by the N&W in the enormous expansion of American Industrial capacity."

Norfolk Southern Corporation (formerly Norfolk & Western Railway) used the Station for offices after passenger rail service was terminated from the Valley in 1971.

Yes, and that last paragraph grates considerably. I'm still hoping that our representatives in Richmond and the powers that be at Three Commercial Place in Norfolk are able to come to an agreement on the provision of passenger rail service to the Roanoke Valley and points west. And yes, I'd use it. I'd much rather sit on my butt on a train than have to drive on the interstate highways. I digress.

I am very glad to report the opening of this museum, and I'm just sorry that I couldn't have been there, due to previously existing academic commitments. If you've never been to Roanoke, the present's looking better all the time.

The only bad thing about this news is that now I'll have to schedule even more time when I go to Roanoke. Bother! Let's just hope they've got a well-stocked gift shop.

¹ Next on that list is the late Penn Central Railroad. Yeah, I've got a thing for black and white locomotive liveries.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 09:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I recently decided to take a look at the SiteMeter stats and see what I could find that was interesting. One thing popped up, and I don't have any explanation, but here goes:

Forty-five percent of TCP visitors are on the East Coast of the United States. Twenty-five percent are in the Central time zone. About twelve percent are in the Mountain time zone. Ten percent are in the Pacific time zone. The remainder come from Western Europe, with a concentration in the Scandinavian countries. I've seen *.fi in the data for a while, and I'm really kind of curious as to what's bringing them here. Not that I'm complaining.

I suppose that I'd kind of like to know what attracts so much traffic from the Atlantic coast, and why (if there's any coherent reason) that there's a drop-off that's almost by half with each continuing step as you head west. Interesting.

To all the visitors, be you from NBC, Disney, the DOD, the Federal courts, or anywhere, thanks for coming!

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm still not sure what's going on here, eh. I hope it's temporary.

UPDATE: The problem was due to an absence of postings for the recent period. Correction of this is under way.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a moment. Just a moment.

I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit.

Something's wrong and I'm looking into it while I work with some other stuff.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Per the discussion available in an earlier discussion of the MoveOn ads, I am "moving on" from the discussion of their ads.

Thus, you probably won't see any more discussion of them on this site. As I kept trying to hammer home, I consider them unreasonable and immature, and therefore no longer worthy of inclusion in the debate. Thanks for playing, children!

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Earlier on, your humble correspondent swore a vow to refrain from the discussion of two large things making their way around the World Wide Web from celebrity culture. One involved someone's recorded romp, and another the continuing legal saga of a celebrity whose name will not be mentioned. This policy remains in effect, and it will not be revisited or reconsidered. Unlike Roe v. Wade, it is settled law. (Take that, Patrick Leahy!)

That being said, your correspondent also sees much merit in Comrade Commissar's suggestions for the blogosphere, excerpted in relevant part below:

Commissar does not mean to reject a comrade's request. Suppose you get email from Comrade, "Hey I wrote interesting post." He wants you to link to it. Here's rule: You link to it.

Comrade Commissar, in his infinite benevolence, has offered me an opportunity to comply with his dictum, and now we do, much belated.

Fisk Does никогда-land is the post, and if you've got past those happy Christmas feelings and want to hear about some nasty-side effects to a nasty British journalist, from a sarcastic viewpoint, visit it.

(Journalistic integrity requires me to note that the real story is here, and basic human decency requires me to say that I'm glad nobody was killed. At the same time, one has to note the oddity of Mr. Fisk's response in that he understood the actions taken against him. That may be the kind of man who, when confronted with a criminal, wants to know what he did wrong and how he can be of assistance to the poor unloved criminal. That is, of course, the wrong response. Ideally, one would reply as Anavel Gato does in one of the closing episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory to something like this: "DIE!")

NOTE: This post is yet another continuing victim of me forgetting to change the 'Draft' radio button to 'Publish'. I'm too picky to go and change the default setting, because I usually keep a post or two in the hopper and prefer them to be floating about without publishing. This is common at TCP, and I trust all will work around it.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I got this in the mail from Blogs for Bush:

Chairman Calls on Democrat Candidates to Repudiate Ad Comparing Bush to Hitler

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie today called on the nine Democrat presidential candidates to repudiate an ad posted on the Moveon.org website comparing President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.

GILLESPIE: If you look at some of these outside groups that are coming together to defeat the president, they will spend over $1 million a day next year to defeat him. One of those groups is a group called MoveOn.org, a group that, after September 11th, said we shouldn't respond in a military fashion, that we should just take diplomatic means to address this tragic occurrence and this terrorist strike. But they have been running an ad selection campaign on their Web site, and one of the ads that was submitted that they considered viable for airing -- with $7 million, by the way, in funds that we don't know where it comes from, but we know they've said they'd spend $7 million to air the ad that they've settled on -- one of them morphed President Bush into Adolf Hitler. That's the kind of tactics we're seeing on the left today in support of these Democratic presidential candidates.

The transcript, edited by me for clarity, follows:

GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
SUBTITLE: We have taken new measures to protect our homeland,

GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
SUBTITLE: I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator,

GRAPHIC: Pictures Of Hitler
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
SUBTITLE: God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them,

GRAPHIC: Pictures of President Bush
HITLER: (Speaking In German)
SUBTITLE: and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.

SUBTITLE: SOUND FAMILIAR?
BACKGROUND: Cheering German Crowd

This is disgusting. At some level, it also insults the roughly 13 million Jews, gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, and other assorted victims of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei for political purpose. Is it really the act of a reasonable man to compare Adolf Hitler with George W. Bush? Is it really reasonable to compare the Final Solution against innocents to the capture and confinement of enemy combat personnel? Sorry, but I don't see any equivalence between Anne Frank and John Walker Lindh.

Reasonable men can perhaps disagree over the question of Iraq. Reasonable men should probably not disagree over the question of the Afghanistan operation. There may be areas of legitimate discussion for Afghanistan, but I would want any party who chose to dissent from the attack to be very, very focused in these legitimate areas, or else I'd write them off as being neither serious nor reasonable, and thus not part of the discussion.

I am, of course, aware of the long-standing tradition of comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler. It's my litmus test for reasonability. Why am I so precipitous with this? Because it's patently ridiculous to compare Hitler to Bush. Adolf Hitler slaughtered a bunch of "undesirables" because they had the rotten luck to be classified Ãœntermenschen in a system where only the Herrenvolk was allowed to survive.

I ask the men of moveon.org the following questions: Where are the concentration camps? Where is Kristallnacht Amerika, wherein Arabs are dragged from their homes, their businesses, and off the street for murder? Where are the Nuremberg Laws? In Hitler's Germany, such an attack as occurred on 11 September 2001 would have probably led the SA or the SS into the streets at the head of mobs to destroy every single synagogue that they could get their hands on.

Where were the mobs of Americans led by Homeland Security men storming their local mosques and murdering Islamics? Where was the forced "resettlement" of Arabs?

The simple answer is the accurate one: Nowhere. There isn't anything like that in this country. There is absolutely no support for a comparison that equates Adolf Hitler with George W. Bush. Hitler used false reports of a Polish attack on a German radio station in Gliewitz to bolster support for a German assault on Poland. This was false. It was staged by German troops, according to generally accepted sources. On the contrary, nobody reasonable appears to doubt that around three thousand people lost their lives in Virginia (you bastards, this isn't over yet!) Pennsylvania, and New York. Unlike the radio station (or even the Reichstag fire), an external party (namely al-Qaeda) has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Adolf Hitler told Jews that they were responsible for what he did to them. George W. Bush calls for the protection of Arabs and goes out of his to bend over backwards in support of Islam. Yeah, they're just alike.

Moreover, al-Qaeda has initiated several strikes against American targets before. The dead from the USS Cole come immediately to mind. There does not appear to have been a similar National Socialist effort to create a unified "Jewish conspiracy front", other than for Hitler to sit around and mouth about how the Jews had it in for the people of Germany. There wasn't a Zionist radio station which functioned as a virtual propaganda arm of a well-funded, world-spanning militant group led by a rabbi, unlike a wee little going concern named al-Jazeera.

The most odious thing in the ad is the attempt to link Adolf Hitler to the Christian faith of George W. Bush. The purportedly Christianity of Hitler is a useful tool for secularists and weak-kneed "Christians in name only" who are readily eager to brickbat the two-thousand year old faith in exchange for platitudes from the cultural left. Unfortunately, just like the rest of this ad, there are factual problems of truth. Adolf Hitler didn't like Christians. He didn't like the concept of a Savior who wasn't out to layeth the smack down and brutally crush all who stood against him. Hitler had no use for Christians, and perhaps had them penciled in as 'next' after the Jews had been handled. Some students at Rutgers Law took note of this; a Dave Shiflett column goes into more detail.

I've seen this ad, and the transcript seems to be a true record thereof. If indeed moveon.org is running this ad---a quick view of their site didn't show it---then this is additional evidence that they are unreasonable, and should not be considered a part of the national discussion of politics. Simply put, they don't belong at the adults' table. This is irrational and immature behavior. It is another example of the sort of behavior that I wrote about earlier in I Don't Want Dean---an entry I again recommend for reading---and briefly in Matrix News of Varying Quality. I don't believe in rational discussion with irrational and unreasonable fanatics. Therefore, I don't believe in meaningful engagement with the men of moveon.org. Their protests will not be heard, and their arguments have no weight.

These are the men who back Howard Dean the strongest. They propel him, they support him, and they are unequivocally dedicated to Dean. For shame, moveon.org, for shame. And shame on you, Howard Dean. You embarrass the State of Vermont with your acceptance of their support.

Those wishing to view this ad may download from the RNC website/press release set up to do so. The direct link is here.

UPDATE: The Simon Wiesenthal Center has issued a press release on the subject; they're not happy with moveon either. View it here.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:31 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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It appears that, from CNN live reports, we have heard from our Spirit lander on Mars. Hooray!

Viking and Mariner, perhaps we will some day recover you. This is good news, and I'm glad that this has happened. I have no news about the fate of the British/ESA probe; I hope they find it sooner or later.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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