Martin County isn't used to taking no for an answer, but it might find defeating All Aboard Florida a too-steep hill to climb.

It is reminiscent of the quandary faced by Gen. Maurice Gamelin on the evening of May 15, 1940. Suddenly he realized that German panzer troops had broken through the supposedly impassable Ardennes.

French troops to the north were cut off and rendered useless, troops to the south were falling back in disarray on all sides and no reserves were available between the front and Paris. "Yes," he told the prime minister, "it means the destruction of the French Army."

WASHINGTON -- "Once an agent, always an agent."

This was the terse response of Nina Khrushcheva on New Year's Eve 1999 when her mother commented favorably about the new president, Vladimir Putin, who was then speaking on TV.