I'm back a week now from a very invigorating vacation to Washington DC, where I soaked in the history and renewed some of my interest in American history.
If you are interested, I've got a healthy amount of photos from my trip at my Flickr account, and I highly recommend you visit DC at least once to experience "our roots" as Americans.

Just a few quick links for things that I've got sitting in browser tabs now that I thought were interesting, and coming off of this trip where I learned more about the grand creation of this nation, these are a somewhat disheartening look at where American politics has tumbled:

• Factcheck.org's analysis of 26 lies circulating about the House Health Care resolution - It bothers me how people resort to flat-out lies and misrepresentations these days instead of valid debate with informed points/counter-points.
• The Republican Party is Turning Into a Cult - I don't agree with the article's more harsh discussion of religion being inherently a bad thing, but I do agree that "faith" is heavily misused to justify things that can be empirically proven wrong. There is a ring of truth to the article as a whole.
• Open Your Minds, America - an excellent non-partisan article on how Americans are unwilling or unable to change their minds in the face of new evidence. It's what has lead to this shout-each-other-down, stick to sound bites, ignore the facts attitude that we see in political arenas and media today.