The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

New polls out of NH.  Short polling periods and are by ARG and Rasmussen, so they can be taken with a grain of salt... although I have heard ARG, being a NH company, is much better there than in other states... such as Iowa.

American Res. Group    01/04 - 01/05    600 LV   
Obama 38
Clinton    26   
Edwards 20

Rasmussen    01/04 - 01/04    510 LV   
Obama 37
Clinton    27
Edwards    19   

Full results on RCP or individual sites!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/ 2008/president/new_hampshire-primary.htm l

I'm always skeptical of polling, but it does appear Obama received a nice bounce.  Tonight's debate becomes more critical both for Edwards and Clinton to slow Obama's momentum and for Obama not to make any major gaffes and lost the momentum.

This is pretty cool.  Its a vocabulary building game called Free Rice.  As you play the game, small advertisements are seen below and those companies pay to the Non-Profit running Free Rice.  The non-profit uses this money to by 10 grains of rice for every word you get right and donates them to third world countries.  Its a cool game and a great way to help out others.

http://freerice.com/index.php

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/1 0/02/blackwater/
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/1 0/02/blackwater_bush/index_np.html?sourc e=rss

For whatever reason, Blackwater is something NOT getting a lot of play on MyDD and other blogs.  The articles speak for themselves, but this is disgusting and frankly explains a lot in why Iraq is so  messed up.  For all of Bill Clinton's faults, he NEVER would have fucked up this bad even on his worse day.

In what is a respectable move of sticking to principles, conservative power brokers are meeting to talk about the possibility of backing a third party conservative bid for the White House.   With Guiliani leading in many polls, conservatives don't want to find themselves with a pro-choice candidate and instead wanting to find someone as oppressive and hate filled as themselves.  

Although no plans have been officially made, a meeting of 40 powerful right wing theocons was held this weekend to discuss the issue.  Apparently, most of them take all the credit for Bush's re-election (instead of giving credit to Diebold and the hackers who helped manipulate their machines) and are PISSED at what they see as a betrayal.

They are smart enough to realize that their candidate won't win, but see it as a way to shock the GOP establishment.  They feel like they are taken for granted and feel entitled to have a big voice within the GOP.

In analyzing this, of course, this would be the greatest thing EVER.  A fracturing of the GOP would assure us not only the White House but a MANDATE SIZE landslide victory.  Given the RW hatred of all things Hillary, I doubt they would do this if she is the nominee, preferring to go with the ABH approach; of course the reverse is that would be EXACTLY the thing to shake the GOPers leadership and show the importance of the Theocons to the GOP.  However, Edwards, Obama, Richardson and several others may be handed a strong mandate on a silver platter.  It will be interesting to watch if these people are ACTUALLY this stupid, but it would be outstanding if they did.  

Alan Keyes in 2008?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071001/ap_p o/conservatives_third_party;_ylt=AlqRbyz VWeVCNsvrofUguxqMwfIE

As most of you know, Bonds 756 home run ball, breaking Hank Aaron's record was auctioned off recently.  Mark Ecko, fashion designer, bought the ball and did a truly wonderful thing... he is not keeping it but instead letting the public choose its fate.  

Ecko set up a website http://www.vote756.com/ to allow people to vote on the balls fate.  The three options are:

Send it to the Hall of Fame
Brand it with an Asterisk and send it to the hall as a form of protest
Blast it into space

Please go an vote today!

Full Article:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap -bonds-756ball&prov=ap&type=lgns

I was reading Jonathan Singer's front page post on the current state of the GOP being worse than Watergate.   Certainly, Republicans are in a heap of trouble right now as the Bush brand they so anxiously wrapped themselves in during the 2002 and 2004 elections has come back to fully bite them in the ass.  Things have gotten so bad in a short time that we went from the Republicans saying that the Democratic Party would be the permanent minority party following 2004 to losing both chambers and their President having one of the lowest approval ratings in history.  

Of course this is more because of their abuse of power and overall terrible management of the country rather than anything we as a party did (with the exception of the Dean 50 state, every district Congressional Election policy).  But either way, we reap the rewards and are poised to control the legislature and the White House for the first time since Clinton's first two years; and the goal of the mythical 60 votes is actually realistic in the next 4 years; something many of us doubted we'd ever see.

So that leads us to the question of the day... The Democratic Party is in its best shape in decades.  We are on the precipice of being able to pass some major achievements in legislation.  Would we be in this position had the 2000 election not been stolen?  Was it, in terms of the long term, the best thing to happen to us as a party.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070815/ap_o n_el_pr/edwards_nevada_1;_ylt=AkFwfDmQa7 GZjLCazCc69S0b.3QA

The AP is reporting that John Edwards is moving some staff out of Nevada, choosing to concentrate on the early constests of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.  

Those involved haven't reported an exact number, but are saying a handful.

I find this surprising from the Edwards camp, given the large Union base of Nevada, a group figured to be big Edwards supporters given his economic populist messages and staunchly Pro-Union message.  Exactly HOW many he pulls out will be very telling, but until we get a number, I see several possible reasons behind this...

1) Edwards feels that with all the states moving up, Nevada will not have a prominent place in the nominating process and would that Iowa, NH and SC will make or break him.  

2) Edwards thinks that the polling showing she-who-will-not-be-named way ahead is accurate and is not going to compete as hard due to this.

3) Edwards thinks he is a shoo-in due to the union base of Nevada and doesn't think the resources are more important in other states.

4) Edwards doesn't have the money to compete against she-who-will-not-be-named and Obama and is choosing his battles carefully to fully maximize his dollars.

Of course this could be the media making mountains out of molehills but it will be interesting to watch as things continue and we continue to fight to have our party represented by someone other than she-who-must-not-be-named so we can take back the White House in 2008.