More and more Americans are waking up to the fact that with a few notable exceptions, both Republicans and Democrats in Washington are basically employees of corporate lobbyists. How do we fight the corporate beast?

There are a multitude of reasons NOT to award the Chinese a contract for our new high speed rail. And yes, jingo-istic industrial support is one of them.

Last week, Jerusalem gave Washington the finger by announcing the construction of new settlements, timed for maximum humiliation of Vice President Biden. The Vice President was furious, and, as Spencer notes, told the Israelis they were endangering American troops. So beyond the pale was the Israelis action that the Secretary of State called it “insulting.” But for the ADL, it’s the Obama administration that’s the problem.

Who knew anyone remembered Albert Camus, let alone his book, The Rebel? How could it be relevant in the age of the internets?

You could see it coming. Somewhere, a young boy in a dinosaur t-shirt holds his dying mother’s hand and remembers that the distant voice on the phone, the Insurance Voice, said simply, “No.” He could be forgiven for fearing he’d spoken to someone he shouldn’t have.

You could see it coming. Wall Street banks are too big to fail, and the black-souled ghouls of hate radio and FoxNews tell us our neighbors’ lives are too small to save.

If this is the best we can do after the nation pours its collective hope into something, it really is the end of empire. And everyone in town, at one level or another, seems to know it.

After being humiliated in Jerusalem over the settlement construction in Ramat Shlomo, Joe Biden tells a closed-door group that Israeli intransigence in the peace process “is is starting to get dangerous for us…

In a move that could bolster efforts to pass the health care bill, the Catholic Health Association, representing more than 600 Catholic hospitals, endorsed the measure today, rejecting the claims from anti-choice groups that it would publicly fund abortions.

Math geeks of the world unite, it’s Pi Day. Special thanks to artist Nathan Mazur (and Neatorama) for the tasty illustration.

Make sure you set your clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time, you don’t want to miss your favorite bobbleheads.

Barney Bear’s Victory Garden. This Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon was originally released on December 26, 1942.