I was calling for Al Groh's head after the embarassment at Wyoming. It wasn't the first time I had. If you check the archives, you'll find me calling for his head in late 2005 when that season was going down the tubes. Winning the bowl game in Nashville late in the season didn't encourage me much in the future of the team. Last year clearly confirmed that, but the end of the season and all the returning players gave me hope. Instead, we got off to a horrible start against a small time team like Wyoming where we were outgained in yardage by a factor of four and Wyoming had 28 first downs to our 5. It was truly embarassing as I read it on Espn.com out here on Guam (unfortunately, Jefferson Pilot Sports doesn't have any games on out here). Squeaking out victories in the last two games has me a little more encouraged, though not confident. Perhaps the emergence of Cedric Peerman and Peter Lalich as offensive starts will result in the rebirth of the UVA offense. Chris Long continues to play like a man child. Perhaps there is some hope to have a winning season and make a bottom feeder bowl given our weak schedule. Anything less than 6 wins, and Groh needs to go. He probably needs to go anyways.

Jim Gilmore is dropping out of the race for President says Politico.com.

Gilmore states:

I have come to believe that it takes more than a positive vision for our nation's future to successfully compete for the presidency. I believe that it takes years of preparation to put in place both the political and financial infrastructure to contest what amounts to a one-day national primary in February.

While Gilmore was always a longshot, his comments do beg the question of whether other worthier candidates are being barred entry by the demands of the present system.

What's your opinion? Is this the best we can do?

By Ben Beliles, from Guam, on the outer rim of the Republic

Fortunately, there are some voices crying out in the wilderness. Writers like the late Oriana Fallaci, the great Italian journalist, and the writer Victor Davis Hanson who continues to beat the drums about the encroaching radical Islamic advance against the West, do exist. Unfortunately they are few and far between in a society that is remarkably unconcerned.

What I detest most about the opponents of the war, most notably the Democratic rank and file who urge their presidential candidates to be as anti-war as possible, is their complete absence of appreciation for the tragedy that is occurring. They are often quite giddy about the prospect of defeat for their nation. They cheer like hyenas when their leaders talk about withdrawal like it’s some sort of sporting event. This merely highlights their lack of respect for the men and women of the armed forces who have laid down their lives for our country. They trumpet the death list around as if they really care about it, but what they are actually doing is stomping around on the fresh graves of the dead while using the list for their own political purpose, which is the weakening of the American political will to fight. In addition, while they feign a sense of appreciation for a military that they have reviled since well before the 1960s, the leftwing’s true colors are exposed by their blackout of the study of military history throughout the academy where recent studies have demonstrated the complete dearth of military historians and the absence of the teaching of military history. Perhaps the academy fears that teaching military history will glorify the military they despise.

Read on . . .

By Ben Beliles, from Guam, on the outer rim of the Republic

Unfortunately, the threat to our nation and our military does not begin and end with Iraq, as some candidates for President would like to pretend.

Iran’s threatening posture of sustained nuclear arms development as well as increasing public statements advocating the elimination of the state of Israel are not even given a seconds’ thought by many in the West, which is more concerned with one Iraqi detainee who died at Abu Ghraib when several soldiers went beyond the scope of what they were ordered to in direct contravention of American policy. The fact that those soldiers were held accountable is irrelevant to the international leftist movement and an international media largely influenced by that movement’s propaganda. Where is the marching the streets in response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s proclamations against Israel and the Jewish people? Where are the demonstrations and the little dolls of Ahmadinejad being burned in effigy? There aren’t any because no one cares. With growing anti-semitic violence and vandalism in France and the rest of Europe, we can only breathe a brief sigh of relief at the election of Sarkozy, with the hope that he can make some substantive changes in a nation that is on a dangerous tailspin into darkness.

Read on . . .

By Ben Beliles, from Guam, on the outer rim of the Republic

We have to face a stark reality. The West is losing. We are a civilization that has lost the political will to successfully pursue a war of more than a few weeks duration and a few hundred casualties. Consumed in our self-absorption, we no longer have time for dealing with issues other than when we are going to get our next buzz. There is no longer any great sense of moral purpose or destiny for the American people.

What highlights the weak moral courage of the American people and their stance on the war is that the vast majority of the American people simply are unaffected by the war we are currently waging. There is no gasoline or food rationing like there was in World War II on a grand scale. There is no draft, nor any chance of one being instituted, despite the fear mongering of Charlie Rangel.

Read on . . .

I am now reading William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity by Kevin Belmonte. This book is excellent so far. I read another biography of Wilberforce several years ago but was recently inspired yet again by Wilberforce’s life by the movie Amazing Grace which received a somewhat limited release nationwide this past February. I watched an early screening of the film at the Charlottesville Film Festival and saw it again when it was released in February. Walden Films did an outstanding job telling the story of Wilberforce's life (and his life's work) with the picture, and I intend to purchase the DVD when it is released in August.

If you are not familiar with the life of Wilberforce, I encourage you to read about him and the community of reformers that he lived with in Clapham, a suburb of London. Their example of working together to effect real change through legislation is quite the contrast to our late pathetic Republican majority in Congress which did absolutely nothing it set out to do. All the work that we did to elect a Republican Congress accomplished almost nothing except for a bloated federal government, compromise on almost every front with the Democratic party, and the promotion of Ted Kennedy’s legislative packages on everything from education to immigration. If you are tired of Republican legislators who run on a platform of reform and then are too afraid to wield their majority, read about Wilberforce. It will make you realize there is an alternative to merely the accumulation and maintenance of power, which seemed to be the only waking obsession of Hastert and his buddies.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to point something out to our readers about how this blog works.

While there are, at present, five contributors, we also encourage anyone who reads this blog to create their own bulletins (i.e. blog posts) about any topic that strikes their fancy. Those bulletins will show up in the right sidebar, along with the front page content.

If we like what we see, the powers that be may promote your bulletin to the front page, as I have done for reference with nickfinity's post below.

This is a community blog, not a vanity project, so feel free to add your own $.02 to the discussion. We'll all be better for it.

There should be celebrating in the streets of Charlottesville tonight. The Daily Progress is reporting that UVA Point Guard Sean Singletary will withdraw his name from the NBA Draft and return to school for his Senior Season.

Singletary has already brought so many memorable moments to the UVA faithful, like this one. I can't wait to see what he does for an encore.

With Fred Thompson's visit to the Commonwealth this weekend and the GOP Presidential Debate coming up this week (Tuesday night at 7PM on CNN, for the uninformed), we thought it would be a good idea for our first poll on the site to take Virginia's temperature regarding the GOP Presidential field. Take note that the question is "Who are you supporting?" not "Who do you think will win?"

Access our "Polls" page on the menu bar above. The poll will be open for one week. Feel free to leave comments of support for your candidate on that page as well.

Happy voting!