With the stomach-turning shakiness on Wall Street reverberating around the planet, our global interconnected is painfully apparent today. But it's perhaps fitting that today also happens to be the day on which we celebrate the wonders and promise of the networked world; What do Nancy Pelosi and Starbucks have in common, besides the west coast thing? They've seen the power of online-based idea tools in action; Tomorrow in Reno, Nevada, the Obama campaign will kick off a timely series of swing-state discussions focused on how technological innovation can power economic revitalization; and a great deal more.

I've been on the road since Thursday, first at a working meeting of the National Conference on Media Reform (NCMR), where I moderated a panel on the same topic, and today in Houston at a miniconference at the Baker Institute on the internet and politics. A couple of times over the last two days, I managed to pull out the N95 and shot a couple of fun, Qik videos with some of the folks I bumped into at NCMR. Check out Jane Hamsher, Susan Crawford, Robert Greenwald, Deanna Zandt, Craig Newmark and Tom Steinberg.

John McCain takes a drubbing on YouTube; the conservative blogosphere and Obama's Auschwitz "gaffe"; Congress, Franking Rules, and wikis; the Forum on Participation and Politics Online is next week; your humble Daily Digester passes the baton; and Newt gets 100,000 signatures on a domestic oil drilling petition.