On a day when the football world will spend most of it's time mourning the loss of a great coach, the only thing a true Ohio State fan can do is offer up a tribute to the greatest college football coach of all time... Woody Hayes. Woody on Bo Schembechler: "We respected one another so damn much. Now that doesn't mean I didn't get so mad at him that I wanted to kick him in the, uh, groin." God bless ya Bo. It's a shame you and Woody weren't able to coach against one another for more years than you did.

Article See?? Games are good for you! Yeah! Now I have an excuse AND justification! Anyway, good article, and it is true about the final raids. Tonight I'll experience one firsthand, Molten Core, and the amount of preparation and coordination that go into a successful expedition are incredible. This is why we will probably not get past the first boss, but it will be good experience for future raids. Should anyone locally wish to join in on the fun on my server, go to Runetotem and shoot me (Giblet) an in-game email.

I hope the troops are digging into their trenches. The Democratic leadership is beginning to emerge in the new Congress. The highlights? Dick "American Troops are Nazis" Durbin and potentially John "American Troops Killing Iraqis in Cold Blood" Murtha, as well as the usual suspects. As I mentioned, this is to be expected. Some conservative Democrats are not anti-military, but the party leadership clearly is. Carl Levin, the new leader of the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has declared we are to start leaving Iraq in 4-6 months. God bless the troops as they weather this storm. On a brighter note, Trent Lott is back in a leadership role in the Senate. Some Republicans disagree, but I've always liked Lott... we'll see how he performs as Minority Whip, beating milquetoast candidate Lamar Alexander by a single vote (somewhat disheartening, this). Hopefully, John Boehner can secure the top spot in the House. Matt at WMD has been a relentless supporter, and it would benefit the nation greatly.

I'm thinking of posting occasionally on support advice regarding PCs, since I've been in the industry now for 8 years, and would like to help out those who have questions or have seen issues. Today's advice: save everything you love and cherish, and wish to keep, in your my documents folder. Today at work, an individual's windows installation corrupted. I tried everything I knew (the big stickler was the administrative password refused to work despite multiple attempts to change it using various means), and eventually wound up having to reimage the hard drive. Because this individual saved files in many folders, on all partitions, I had to create a backup of the entire drive so as not to lose any of their information. The full backup, about 25gb over usb 2.0, took about 45 minutes. The restore may not take as long. The point is, if I knew where the files were that this person wanted to keep, I would not have had to backup the massive windows folders, temp directories, and other extraneous directories. This would have resulted in the backup and restore taking about 5 minutes, and saved both my time and more importantly, theirs.

The local morning show here featured an interview with Amy of Policy Matters, and I'll paraphrase what I took away from the interview since I unforunately wasn't recording it: 55KRC: So, about this minimum wage increase, people have argued that it is good and bad, what is your take? Amy: Oh, it's great! Super! Fantastic! Anyone that thinks otherwise is out of touch, and hates workers! 55KRC: But won't this cause prices to be raised at businesses that operate with workers mostly around the minimum wage (restaurants, etc)? Amy: Pennies on the dollar! Most people are happy to pay more so that minimum wage workers can make more! Higher minimum wage equals MORE jobs in the studies we've done (no citation). 55KRC: But if you look at companies like Ford, where a Mustang may have cost $3,500 dollars 50 years ago, but today costs $35,000 and now they realize as a company that they are going to go bust from raising salaries so much, the evidence appears to be to the contrary. Amy: You guys and your listeners are out of touch! Since so many people in so many states voted for it, it must be right! 55KRC: Well, Hitler won an election to gain his power... Amy: Yep, and George W. Bush won an election as well! *uncomfortable pause* It was here that I stopped listening. So there you go. Kudos to Jerry and Craig, who I feel are normally not very good at doing interviews, for asking the right questions here. I wish I had an audio file to share, it was truly... revealing that the left still not only holds a delusional obsession with the president, but feels that those who disagree with them are to be talked down to. Prepare yourself for the next 2 years, and possibly more given that the enemy controls the media. Update (Same Day): From an official release - Policy Matters Ohio is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide research institute dedicated to researching how our economy can work better for everyone in Ohio. Yeah, a "nonpartisan" group whose founder who believes the administration of George W. Bush is comparable to that of Adolf Hitler. No agenda here, move along...

Rush brought up a good point yesterday, and it has changed my perspective somewhat on the outcome of the most recent election. The Democrats are anti-military. Though the Democrats that overwhelmingly gained new seats sold themselves as centrist, the party at large clearly billed itself as anti-military and extremely left wing. We should not be surprised when they take this approach to governance. The American people, for whatever reason, have voted for change. We, as a people, are highly intelligent. Unfortunately most of us are also highly fickle and only pay cursory attention to politics, getting most information from the NYT, WaPo, CNN, or MSNBC. My major concern is not this, it is that our president may not have the backbone to stand up to them. In the news today, Iran has blared that it's nuclear program is nearly complete. Because of the afforementioned media outlets, we will allow them to become a nuclear armed nation. It is an inevitability, and if the American republic unlike the republic of Rome somehow manages to survive the current siege, it will be a historical anomaly. Already, 5 years after the biggest planned assault of the war against our nation (but far from the first), America has begun it's retreat. Democrats weren't the only ones celebrating one week ago. As I stated previously, should the Democrats surprise everyone and show themselves to be a party that cares about the continued survival of this nation, and civilization in general, then grand... we can once again have a reasoned debate on domestic issues, while agreeing to fight the War on Terror abroad. Until then, all we can do is hope the populace is in a good mood in 2008 and opts for the survival of the nation over "change."

This weekend should be packed full o' football for me. While I've all but given up on my Titans and Bengals in the NFL, the high school game of the year in Ohio will be taking place on (thankfully) Friday at U.C.'s Nippert Stadium. If I'm feeling healthy, which has been rare of late, I may drive down and catch some of the action between Tom's St. Xavier Bombers and the Colerain Cardinals. The next day, a buddy and I are likely going to hop down to Nippert yet again to catch the mighty Rutgers Scarlet Knights take on U.C.'s Bearcats. We will not be in the stadium after 3:30pm, however, as sticking around any longer than that would prevent us from catching every second of The Game, live. This rivalry, in my opinion, is the greatest in all of football, at any level of football. The only trophy typically brought home from this game is that of the Big Ten Conference Champions. This year, however, the prize is greater still. A national championship is very likely to ride on the outcome of this game. I was actually moderately surprised to find out that this is the very first time the schools are meeting as numbers 1 and 2 in the nation, and how incredibly fulfilling this matchup is shaping out to be. My brief analysis, and I don't pretend to be unbiased but do attempt it regarding sports prognostications, is that the Michigan Wolverines are a very, very good team. Their defense is probably the best in the nation this year, and the offense has scored enough to get them the wins. Ohio State appears to have the complete package they were lacking in years past. The offense, projected to be outstanding, has not disappointed thanks to the brilliant leadership of Troy Smith. A very young defense did what Tressel defenses do, and came of age early in the season standing up to (at the time) #2 Texas and rolling through the rest of the year. I feel that the Wolverines will have a tough time scoring on the Buckeyes, and feel this game will end in favor of OSU 24-14. It's possible that both teams could wind up in the Fiesta Bowl, and if the game is close, I don't see how they could not.

ProEcclesia has the story here. It's one thing to let greeters or cashiers decide how to greet individual shoppers during the season, it is another to ban a specific phrase claiming it is "disrespectful." If someone is offended because you wish them a Merry Christmas, then perhaps they shouldn't be roaming the streets, free to take out their oversensatized emotions on whoever or whatever they wish. I would not be offended if someone decided spontaneously to wish me a Happy Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever their faith would allow for during this holiday season. There's a reason I don't go to Best Buy anymore, and that's their overpriced goods and nonexistent store help. Now I have another! Jay puts it better than I can: "Best Buy considers the use of "Merry Christmas" to be disrespectful." And I consider it disrespectful for a retailer to try to make money off of a holy day celebrated by the overwhelming majority of people in this country without even acknowledging it.

Wait... this must be like the 24th time this show has jumped the proverbial Fonzie shark. Family Guy and The Simpsons have taken it upon themselves to not only criticize the military, but insult recruiters and the organization itself. Everyone who still watches The Simpsons must only do so out of habit. I stopped watching about 15 years ago, when it became uninspired and started recycling jokes. Once South Park pulled the cover away from the methodology for writing Family Guy shows, and Seth McFarlane decided to start using it as his personal political stage, that show also ceased to be funny. Why is it that when some entertainers find immense fame, they feel an absolute need to taint it with their political leanings? At least Matt and Trey are equal opportunity satirists, this is what helps to keep South Park fresh and interesting. It's too bad about Family Guy and The Simpsons... they were good cartoons, once upon a time.

Looks like Blogger has decided to change something... making it more friendly to java formatting. The S.O.B. feed is now up (thankfully), which helps me to come up with ideas and stay informed throughout the day. Seriously, check them out, it's all good stuff. I've been toying with the idea of giving a rundown and personal commentary on each S.O.B. blog, and may go forward with that idea in the future. I would also like to make some other formatting changes, and we'll see if Blogger's new outlook on blogging life will enable that! So here we are. The Democrats will control congress for at least the next two years. I, for one, am keeping an open mind. If they decide that keeping the tax cuts (and possibly pushing the tax rates down further) is a good idea, if border control is at the forefront and real change is made, if there is a genuine commitment to winning the war on terror, and if they affirm true constitutionalist judges, then I will abscond the Republican party and vote Democrat next time. If the Republicans can not find their balance and once again push for true conservative ideals, then I will have a hard time voting for THEM in the next election. With so much in the balance, however, control of Congress and the Presidency may once again force my hand to vote for lukewarm candidates that couldn't carry Ronald Reagan's... hat. Once again, we will have to battle the media AND the Democrats, as well as George Soros' money and the powerful Dem 527s. We shall see.

I had meant to post this as an addendum to my previous post, but Tom at BizzyBlog has a great analysis of the election as well, including some great points about Jean Schmidt: * She won an 11-person special election primary in June 2005 where the Christian Right’s fair-haired voting scofflaw tried to parachute in for a quick victory. * She survived a nationally-focused special election in August 2005 where her Iraq War vet opponent pretended to be a Bush-supporting Republican on TV while cursing her in personal appearances. * She survived a challenge in May 2006 from the same voting scofflaw who accepted the help of slash-and-burn artists while pretending to be “dignified” himself. * And finally, she has survived an opponent who got the help of a gullible (or co-conspiring) newspaper and, I believe, the active assistance of a write-in candidate who (as of this moment) received less than half of votes the non-illustrious David “Mr. 362″ Smith did in 2005 (with 4 times as many votes cast). With their help, she dishonestly played the nuclear NIMBY card in the 2nd District’s easternmost counties. For this reason, and others, Vic Wulsin, and not Jean Schmidt, should be the one wearing the “TLB” tag. I was fortunately able to vote for Schmidt in her oddly close election this cycle, next time I will be in OH01, however, represented by the Honorable Steve Chabot. As NixGuy puts it: Chabot showed suprising strength and uncanny political acumen. He let cranley pound on him for weeks on the “changed in DC theme” Then in the last week of the campaign he trots out the house and the old car. Not many other candidates would have had the patience and nerve to withstand that without fighting back, knowing they had a great answer. DeWine certainly didn’t. We're pretty lucky in this part of Ohio, with Steve Chabot, Jean Schmidt, and John Boehner in such close proximity as legislators. The renewal of the Ohio Republican Party should start here, in districts with real conservatives, the home of Ken Blackwell. The state party needs an absolute overhaul, ridding ourselves of anything Taft, DeWine, Voinovich or their ideological chums bring to the table. There are times I find Hannity palatable to listen to (more often than not, but less often than you might think), and yesterday was one of those days that he was really "on." His advice (or demand, as is his nature) was that Republicans not sulk, hold our heads low, or turn away from our noble goal. Rather, stand up and fight, get mad, understand why and how we lost, and turn it around in 2 years. This is the approach that I am taking. Some columnists, such as LaShawn Barber, are making the argument that Campaign 2008 begins NOW. I certainly do appreciate her zeal and energy, and applaud her decision to jump back into the fray so soon. Personally, and mostly because I did not anticipate Tuesday would go quite so badly, a month out of the game for some soul searching sounds about right for me. I'll still write and comment about various items on the political agenda, and hopefully bring more news to those that read looking for Catholic insight and analysis. In 1996, I left a comment on the USA Today message board regarding the Dole candidacy following the Republican primaries. Only recently it seems to have disappeared from the search engines, but I wrote that for Dole to win, the Republicans would have to unite in the face of adversity and focus on their goals and true values to defeat President Clinton. They did not, and as a result we were rewarded with another 4 years of Democratic policy in the White House. The time to unite is now. I'd recommend following Barber and Hannity's advice, and if you are feeling motivated, jump back into the fray today. We truly have not a second to spare, and now we have something to run against other than ourselves.

The simple, short answer is that we stopped being the party of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. In 1994, Republicans swept into the House and Senate by nationalizing the election on smaller government, lower taxes, ending corruption, and term limits. They had clearly lost sight of these principles, and it has cost them dearly. Hopefully, though I had hoped this day would not come to pass, the Republicans in Congress will learn a lesson. Compromising your principles does not play well with the people. Over the next two years, we will have to fend off impeachment, completely opened borders (how we will do this, I do not know), higher taxes (likely vetoed by the President), an impression of weakness given to the terrorists, and socialized medicine among other issues. We will no longer get any of our judges through the Senate. Despite what could be called a "typical" 2nd midterm for the President, much will change. The good news? There isn't much, other than that we found out George Allen would not be able to win the presidency before it became a more disastrous situation, and now we have something to "run against" in the Dem majority. Hopefully, the party of not-so-loyal opposition will change their tune and actually show some resolve with regards to the defense of this nation during their stay in power. One notable item is that conservative bloggers are not crying foul. They are not blaring voter fraud, poll intimidation, or any other conspiracy theories. It seems as though most of the conservative bloggers are turning inward, criticizing the party for what it has done wrong, and offering ideas on how to fix it. This is why we are going to be successful in the future, and need to work on getting our act back together by 2008. Unfortunately, the President offers us a lukewarm champion and spokesman. His betrayal of the base has been stunning, and I hope he can find it within himself to come back and govern in the mold of Reagan. Dean Barnett has the best article I've seen so far on this. From his post: In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog. That client was the Republican Party which had broken its Contract with America from 1994 and had become unmoored from its conservative principles. As its advocate, I couldn’t make a more compelling case for Republicans staying in power than the fact that the Democrats would be worse. I believed in that case, but when that’s all the party gave its advocates to work with, you can honestly conclude that Republicans got this drubbing the old fashioned way – we earned it. As far as Ohio is concerned, we can directly thank Bob Taft and his ilk. There was little hope from the outset in this state, with much thanks to the Ohio Republican Party for essentially endorsing Petro in the primary, and never really getting excited about the Blackwell candidacy. I reiterate my disappointment that Ken Blackwell had to run this year, hopefully we will see him show up in a future race somewhere in Ohio (maybe as a Voinovich opponent in the next primary). Mike DeWine sealed his own fate by disregarding his constituents and siding with the "Gang of 14" in the Senate. It will be a while before Ohio recovers, we now have a very liberal senator in the mold of Glenn and Metzenbaum for the next 6 years, and a Dick Celeste clone in the Governor's mansion for 4. The disastrous minimum wage increase also passed in my home state, and this means jobs will flee the buckeye state even more quickly than they have been (which is saying something)! At least Jean Schmidt and LaSalle grad Steve Chabot were able to pull out victories. We now need to regroup, and refocus our message. We need to start acting like conservatives again, or risk not winning elections for some time to come. The polls say people were voting against Bush, not against their respective congressional candidates. Next time, let's give them someone to vote FOR.

I've not been feeling so well lately, also I've been quite busy. Aside from those usual excuses, here are the Chuckoblog endorsements for tomorrow's election: Federal: US Senate - Mike DeWine US HR 02 - Jean Schmidt State: OH Governor - Ken Blackwell OH HR 28 - Jim Raussen City: Cincinnati City Commissioner - Phil Heimlich These are the elections important to me that I can make a difference in, and will be voting in kind. Personally, though I don't put much trust in polls, I do not see much hope for Ken Blackwell pulling it off. This is a HUGE disappointment for me, as I have followed his career relatively closely, and feel he would be a superb governor. This is, quite frankly, just a bad year to be a Republican in Ohio. Ken has been an incredible campaigner, positive, and full of energy. The voters in Ohio are just not listening. I suppose in large part we can attribute this to the man who has done more for the Ohio Democrat Party than anyone else: Bob Taft. Good riddance to you sir, you have been a terrible governor. Another huge disappointment appears to be the impending doom of Rick Santorum's Senate run. Another fellow who has had relentless energy on the campaign trail, closed the gap several times, but despite this has been unable to surmount Bob Casey's incredibly huge media advantage. It's just depressing to see someone just not campaign or take any stands on real issues, and win against an opponent who has thrown all of his energy and very soul into the race. Predictions: United States Senate: GOP Hold United States House of Representatives: Too Close to Call I figure I'm going with most of the pundits on this one. Some in the GOP have predicted a hold of the House, I feel this is rather optimistic but in recent days it has arrived as a good possibility. We just need to maintain our energy, and let the GOP GotV effort defy the pundits that are predicting a blue landslide. VOTE.