Too many of the Serious People bloviating about the convention in our media are deranged, incompetent, out of ideas, wrong about everything, and they don't care about the little people. Unfortunately, that's not really news, so I guess they get a pass for not covering it, hmmm?

I thought the funniest moment of last night was PBS' Jim Lehrer clarifying that "not all veterans are Democrats." That's obviously true, but General McKinney, Beau Biden and the rest of the Veterans for Obama made such an impressive case, I can't hold it against someone for thinking it needed to be said. But how's the convention watching been treating you, any highlights or press lowlights on your mind?

- Michael Barone proves self to be a complete tool in front of the whole country. Shorter Barone: John McCain's ads have made Obama's good performances with crowds a liability for him, and also, driving home slowly from the hospital with a new infant doesn't really make you a protector figure.

- From soon-to-be-homeless to taxpaying homeowners, the story of how Washington State decided to invest in people who live in mobile home parks that were being sold off to developers.

- How we know that the wingnuts know that the goal in attacking abortion is really attacking women's rights.

- Oregon tribe to recognize same-sex marriages. (via)

- Health care has been a big focus of the convention, as it has been of the public, though the media at large is perhaps uninterested.

- As usual, Juan Cole brings a comprehensive roundup of Iraq-related news, but as much as the constant violence and the Iraqi government's desire to have the US out by a date certain, the lack of water and basic services stand out as serious concerns in Iraqis' lives. How much sand do conservatives have to bury their heads in to think that Iraqis are on the verge of a peaceful future?

- Shorter Norah O'Donnell: Because I didn't watch C-SPAN, I dinged Democrats for not doing something that my network had simply refused to air them doing.

- As several speakers at the Democratic Convention have noted, a sensible energy policy would be a new jobs bill. Though if those jobs are going to be in the renewable energy sector, there's plenty of work to do revamping the energy grid.

- Random science thing ... grazing animals often align north-south.

- Two Sudanese airplane hijackers who landed in Libya, surrendered, and freed their hostages there have asked for asylum.

- Thai police have arrested demonstrators as protests around the Prime Minister's compound continue. The government is dealing with the protests as a police matter, where applicable, and the military has said they won't get involved.

- John McCain forgets 1989.

- Finally, a note to commentators who don't deserve links (because they're just garden variety tools of no particular interest), re Hillary Clinton's speech: It is, in fact, common practice for politicians to talk about their life story and political history in speeches. Someone who didn't know this, perhaps someone tuning in to their first political speech after not listening to any primary stumping or the rest of the convention, might have heard Mark Warner's keynote last night and said that it sounds like he was still holding on to his 2006 presidential ambitions because he told stories about needing student loans, failing in business before succeeding, and his legislative record, but that would just be stupid. Though when the speaker is a Clinton, all manner of stupidity is excused.

If politicians don't talk about their lives, they're distant. If they do, it's 'all about them.' Blame a fish for swimming, why don't you. And get a grip. Or a room. That sort of wanking should be done in private.

Suicide (n) - The most preventable type of death.

This is the ongoing story of a species whose leaders have a death wish, and whose members at large mostly don't. Also, sometimes they got to wondering what should be done about a large geopolitical concentration of fellow beings operating under the brand name "China".

"China's rise and ongoing transformation are the global story." - Bob Costas, who went on to point out that the country is home to one-fifth of humanity, commenting on the close of the Beijing Olympics, August 24, 2008.

"So who will be Tibet's Charlie Wilson? Who will bring the Chinese empire to its knees? Who will stop it from devouring the Earth's resources, sponsoring genocidal regimes, displacing its own people by the millions and keeping them in the dark about events within their own country?" - Glenn Hurowitz, April 14, 2008.

"China has become the world's leading polluter, and also continues to be one of the worst, if not the worst, human and worker's rights offender on the planet. However, considering that we imported 200 billion dollars in goods from China in 2004 (the most recent year for which I could find a figure), or about 10% of the entire Chinese economy in 2004, we are hardly in a position to criticize. Whenever you consume 10% of another nation's economy, you are giving more than tacit approval to the means by which that produces its economy." - Chris Bowers, August 9, 2008.

After reading that Glenn Hurowitz article back in April, it occurred to me that the leaders of China, whatever their faults, probably have one main goal in mind all the time: don't be another Russia. Don't let the country dissolve into an overtly kleptocratic enterprise whose young citizens' main choices are often between joining the mob, selling anything to leave, and drinking themselves to death.

China's leaders want half of their 2050 population to be able to have a car and travel abroad. They want to lift 80 million of their people out of poverty. [1] While they're trying to get to there from here, why should they listen to us?

Without meaning to diminish what's going on in Tibet and Darfur, I don't think it's right to wish Russia's fate on an entire country in collective punishment for their leaders' actions. I don't think it will help.

On the other hand, China's probably headed down that path all on their own. But it's nothing to smirk about. We're going to end up wherever they do.

Dan Schnur, McCain's communication director during the 2000 presidential campaign says that the maverick has returned, even if no one noticed. And McCain could prove it by picking Joe *ing Lieberman as a running mate. Schnur's argument is gibberish, of course, but I'll attempt a partial translation ...

Schnur: "On one hand, he is an unconventional politician who has made a career out of violating partisan and establishment norms."

Translation: There's some guy named Norm who got financially violated in the Keating Five ripoff and walks funny to this very day. But unlike other politicians, John McCain got to have a career after practicing allegorical proctology without a license.

Schnur: "But he is also a strong conservative, not just on the national security issues on which he and Mr. Lieberman agree, but also on economic and social policy matters on which Al Gore's former running mate is well to the left of center."

Translation: Time to remind my fellow Republicans that they could have done worse than a nominee whose voted with Bush 89% of the time between 2001-2007.

Schnur: "Mr. McCain is also a very visceral politician ..."

Translation: See! He does have something in common with all us mere mortals, he has viscera!

Schnur: "But the most important benefit that Mr. Lieberman would bring to the ticket is that it would allow Mr. McCain to be a maverick again. ... It's not like Mr. McCain hasn't tried to be unconventional. But Barack Obama turned down his invitation ..."

Translation: John Sidney McCain needs permission to go to the bathroom be a maverick.

Schnur: "There is nothing that John McCain treasures more dearly than his nonconformist reputation, the idea that he's a different breed of politician."

Translation: ... because otherwise the relentless tedium of his pampered existence would weigh upon his jaded soul like a pert, blonde lobbyist who unfortunately reminds him of all his friends' mistresses. But at least he doesn't eat lettuce.

Schnur: "Mr. Lowry correctly argues that John McCain would have to pledge to serve only one term in office, while Mr. Lieberman would have to promise not to seek the presidency in 2012."

Translation: Yes, I know Republicans hate him that much. But come on, people, the Supreme Court is almost ours. Pleeeease?

Schnur: "Meanwhile, John McCain appears to be wrestling with which course of action makes sense. For him, it's not a matter of choosing between emotion and political calculation, but rather two different personal allegiances."

Translation: My former client does not make political or emotional calculations. His decisions are based entirely on whether or not your repeated kisses have worn part of his behind shiny.

So there you have it. Even Republicans make sense sometimes.

Day after day this year, you've gotten the news reports, watched the TV and proclaimed Bowman-like to the heavens, though in considerably more angst than awe, "My God, it's full of wankers." Followed by, maybe, "Where do all these wankers come from, anyway?"

Well I don't know exactly where they come from, but I do know that they were all young once and will, inevitably, retire.

When that happens, it would be nice if there was a standing talent pool of non-wankers that could take their jobs. That's a challenge, though. Getting into politics usually requires the ability to live without getting paid while you build up experience, which is to say that you need either a lot of money or a cast iron stomach and a roomy car. It's hard to get your foot into anything above volunteering, which is important, but not the fast track to management by a lot.

So when the cheerfully enthusiastic founders of Swing Semester approached me to advise* them on their plan to send over 250 18-26 year olds (and they don't have to be in college or even college graduates) to swing state cities so they could learn the ropes of progressive organizing, I told them that I thought it was a great idea. I wasn't the only one. Here's what Derrick Ashong had to say about it:

Mike Connery, author of "Youth to Power", was also impressed. He described it as a semester abroad right here at home. Participants can either earn college credit or get a foot in the door of a new career, or both, during an intense political immersion program. They'll have the opportunity to effect positive change in a very important election. And as Connery suggested, the last couple elections have been decided by a relative handful of votes; every little bit counts.

Swing Semester is focusing on cities in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico, and they need you. Or a young person you know with great drive and fabulous political potential. Or more host families for the participants, so they can really feel like part of the community they'll be working in. Or help covering room and board costs. All would be appreciated.

Details here.

Donate here.

Anyway, I know it's not an overnight solution. But wouldn't it be nice if, when all the DLCers, Carvilles, Colmeses, Penns, Daschles and Fords retire from politics, they could be replaced by people who give a damn?

* Yes, I'm on the Swing Semester advisory board. No, I don't know what good it's done them. Though they have exposed me to blinding levels of optimism, which I probably needed, so there's that.

I was on a panel at Netroots Nation about tying environmental issues to other progressive causes, and one issue that I wish I'd brought up was how immigrant mistreatment is tied in to our broken food system. The ICE raid on an Agriprocessor's meatpacking plant in Postville, IA, is a good example.

You may have read "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser. In it, he describes how agricultural and food processing employers keep costs down by employing immigrant labor that can't fight back when working conditions are unsafe or the pay is substandard. The largely Latin American immigrants come to the US to support their families through honest work, often making dangerous journeys out of bad circumstances, and then unscrupulous people like the management at Agriprocessor uses their situation to abandon attention to safe business practices. The food industry takes a gamble not only with the safety and lives of their employees, but with the safety of anyone who eats their products.

If you were under the impression that they care about people in general, well ... did you know that due to industry lobbying pressure, it's illegal to test cattle for mad cow disease?

Someone from USDA told me with a straight face that even if there were sick animals out there, they're sure the slaughter protocols eliminate the possibility of potentially contaminated tissue getting into the food supply. Slaughter protocols, mind, are carried out by people who are made to stand on the slaughter line so long that sometimes they have to relieve themselves where they stand. It's against the rules to allow any spinal or central nervous system tissue into the food supply; I suppose in the same way it's against the rules to allow E. coli into the food supply, guess that means it must not ever happen.

And that's all kind of horrible, gross, skeezy unpleasantness. But as bad as it is, it's beginning to be eclipsed by the behavior of the US government in rounding up immigrant food industry workers and either railroading them into serious criminal charges or leaving them to languish in detention along with their minor children. Immigrants who work in other industries are getting treated this way, I have no doubt, but their overrepresentation in the food sector makes these workplaces easy targets for government employees looking for the big roundup.

Following is an excerpt from the deposition of an interpreter brought in to help with the Agriprocessor raid in Postville, IA. It describes some of the people caught up in the government's haste to prosecute the packing company's workers for (mostly) identity theft because they used Social Security numbers provided to them by their employer:

In taking exception to an election reform plank that was included in the evolving netroots platform, Chris Bowers has come down in opposition to platforms in general. I have to disagree on that one, because instead of a basis for exclusion, I see a platform as something around which you can begin building a solid alliance.

As an example, there's a tangible benefit to having an entity called the Democratic Party which is defined by a statement of principle. It's well enough understood that a given Democrat probably doesn't endorse every plank, such that Democrats can then define themselves by their agreement or disagreement with it. What would it mean to say that someone was a liberal Democrat without a generic mean of Democratic political goals? It's a way, though admittedly not the only way, to define who you stand with.

If the netroots, such as it is, ever wants to have more influence than it has now, there needs to be greater alliance building and better organization. There need to be goals. People need to feel like individual they trust are working on the issues they can't be experts on. They need to believe that when it comes to their own major issues, someone has their back.

Take labor organizations, as another example. They're caricatured by the right as being tools of the Democratic Party, but that belittles the exceptional party discipline Democrats maintain in their favor. They get from Democrats what the NRA gets from Republicans: full cooperation.

The House Agriculture Committee is one place where you can see this in action. It's where Blue Dogs go to pleasantly pass time in the company of other conservatives and a resolutely grim atmosphere for a progressive. But when a vote comes up for including prevailing wage requirements on federal funding, every one of those conservative Democrats is on board. There's no breaking ranks.

Not every member of the alliance that makes up the Democratic party gets that kind of consideration. Obviously. But there's a tangible entity to work with and be defined by or against. There's an ordered set of other potential allies that you can go to, as a member of this political alliance, and have some degree of affinity with -- even if you've got no other natural means of introduction. It shows what it's eventually possible to accomplish.

What are we doing? Who are we doing it with?

I don't want to get too existential, but if a group can't answer those questions, its influence is going to reach a certain natural limit and then stagnate. Its projects are always going to be ad hoc, each alliance and working group reinvented from scratch.

And maybe that particular plank wasn't well considered. Perhaps the buy-in and consensus of trust isn't developed enough to start crystallizing a collection of writer/activists into a more definite affinity group. But I think the former is a conversation worth having in good faith, and the latter, a goal worth working towards.

• We can't drill our way out when "America consumes roughly 24% of the world's oil supplies yet the U.S. has only 2% of the world's oil reserves."
  
• Do women have an inner glass ceiling?


• Click here for news, because Avedon always finds the cool stuff.


• McCain's "One" ad is explicitly calling Obama the Antichrist to a certain segment of the public. (via)


• Adultery is very fascinating and all, but like, dude, Russia and Georgia just started a war.


• Liberals have pottymouths. This makes everything we say totally effing irrelevant.


• Our system incentivizes cheating workers out of benefits, so it shouldn't be surprising when it happens, even if it's sad.


• McCain, Obama, Big Oil.


• Some thoughts on the totalitarian trade show going on in Beijing.


• George Orwell's diaries are coming online. If you're following along at home, this is a good time to put that 'destroy old diaries' task in your scheduler, while you're thinking about it.


• The House Minority Leader thinks that the Speaker of the House should be hanged. Hey look, look over there! Adultery!

Now, you. What's up?