Comedian Zach Galifianakis Interviews Obama: “What’s it Like to Be the Last Black President?” (+video)

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Photo Credit: darkuncle / Creative CommonsIn a bid to get young people to sign up for health care, President Barack Obama became the first sitting president in U.S. history to appear on “Between Two Ferns,” Funny or Die’s intentionally awkward interview series hosted by comedian Zach Galifianakis.

Seated between two ferns, Obama — identified on screen as “Community Organizer” — fielded interview questions he likely has never faced in the White House briefing room.

“In 2013 you pardoned the turkey,” Galifianakis began. “What do you have planned for 2014?”

“We’ll probably pardon another turkey,” the president replied. “We do that every Thanksgiving.”

The deadpanning continued from there.

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Air Force Academy Orders Bible Verse Removed from Cadet’s Whiteboard

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Photo Credit: MRFFThe Air Force Academy removed a Bible verse posted on a cadet’s whiteboard after it determined the posting had offended other cadets, a spokesman for the academy said.

The cadet wrote the passage on the whiteboard posted outside his room. “I have been crucified with Christ therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” the verse from Galatians read.

Mikey Weinstein, director of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me 29 cadets and four faculty and staff members contacted his organization to complain about the Christian passage.

“Had it been in his room – not a problem,” Weinstein told me. “It’s not about the belief. It’s about the time, the place and the manner.”

He said the Bible verse on the cadet’s personal whiteboard created a hostile environment at the academy.

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Dallas Seavey Pushes Through Windstorm to Win Iditarod (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bob HallinenNOME — Dallas Seavey came from behind to capture his second Iditarod championship in three years early Tuesday morning, mushing his team of seven dogs through a windstorm that knocked Jeff King out of the race and prompted Aliy Zirkle to hole up in Safety for more than two hours.

Seavey, 26, jogged beside his sled down Nome’s Front Street to help his dogs. At one point, he glanced over his shoulder, thinking his dad, defending champion Mitch Seavey, was gaining on him.

After crossing the finish line in record time at 4:04 a.m., Seavey sat on the back of his sled and leaned his head on his handlebar, exhausted.

“Dallas, did you think you could do this?” an Iditarod Insider videographer asked.

“What exactly did I do?”

“You just won the Iditarod, 2014.”

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Bush Pilots Keep Alaska Moving

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Photo Credit: Chip Porter/Getty Photo, Getty ImagesWithin moments of entering the plane, I smelled the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee. The java, however, wasn’t being brewed by a flight attendant in the galley, because neither existed on this four-seater floatplane. The coffee was cargo. More on that in a minute.

Through headsets that thankfully muted the engine noise, pilot Paul Norden’s voice crackled, “All right, we’re out of here.” The plane began to race across a runway of water at the Lake Hood Seaplane Base, the largest such airport in the world, an aquatic version of New York’s JFK. A few seconds later, the Cessna 206 was airborne.

In most any other American tourist destination, I’d typically grab a cab. But these planes are the “cabs” of the Alaskan wilderness — and the limos and the supply trucks and the ambulances and vehicles for anything else that needs moving over this gorgeous, unforgiving land.

As the Anchorage skyline quickly disappeared behind us, Norden pointed out myriad lakes and rivers as he headed northwest. Flying only 700 feet above the ground, it was easy to spot an occasional moose — once the pilot pointed it out.

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The War On Women Continues… Because We Use The Word ‘Bossy’

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Photo Credit: IJ Review Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg and the Girl Scouts of America have united to confront the issues that are really affecting females the world over. Step one: ban the word “bossy.”

Sandberg’s organization, LeanIn.org, is aimed at helping women achieve their career goals and get recognition for it. Her new effort is aimed squarely at the English language because one word has a “negative stigma” attached to it. With the help of Beyonce, she launched a web site Monday at BanBossy.com, on which is proclaimed:

When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up.

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Video: Kevin Bacon Explains the ’80s to Millennials

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Photo Credit: YouTubeKevin Bacon has an important message to share — about ’80s awareness.

The actor filmed a faux public service announcement for Mashable, in which he drops knowledge about the decade for those who might not remember it.

“Awareness of ’80s culture and technology has been in a significant decline,” he says in the clip. “Especially among a certain demographic — I’m talking to you, Millennials.”

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This State Could Jail U.S. Agents Who Enforce Federal Gun Laws

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Photo Credit: AP/Orlin WagnerA proposal in Missouri to nullify certain federal gun control laws could actually mean jail for federal agents who try to enforce them.

The nullification legislation passed the House General Laws Committee on Thursday, the Associated Press reported, after having passed the full state Senate last month.

The bill says any federal law impeding Missourians’ Second Amendment rights is null and void. Federal agents enforcing such laws could face civil or criminal penalties up to one year in jail with a $1,000 fine.

The effort might be futile, as courts have generally ruled that states can’t nullify federal laws. However, recent court decisions have also been more friendly to the individual right to bear arms. But it’s unlikely that Missouri Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon would sign the bill, after vetoing a similar measure last year.

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Snowden: NSA Leaders Have Harmed Our National Security ‘More Than Anything’ Else

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Photo Credit: Sunshinepress/Getty ImagesBy Dustin Volz.

America’s most high-profile fugitive visited one of the country’s most popular entertainment festivals in Texas on Monday, drawing thunderous applause from a crowded room filled with his adoring fans.

Edward Snowden, appearing from Russia through a live video stream, told attendees of the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin that Congress had fundamentally failed to do its job as an overseer of the government’s bulk surveillance programs, declaring that “we need a watchdog that watches Congress.”

The former National Security Agency contractor, in a conversation with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Christopher Soghoian and Ben Wizner, also charged the current and most recent chief of the NSA as the two people most responsible for jeopardizing the country’s national security due to their preference for aggressive collection of data rather than protection of it after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“More than anything, there are two officials who have harmed our Internet security and national security,” Snowden said, his image backdropped by an enlarged copy of the U.S. Constitution. “Those two officials are Michael Hayden and Keith Alexander.”

He added: “When you are the one country that has a vault that is more full than anyone else’s, it doesn’t make any sense to be attacking all day and never defending your vault. And it makes even less sense when you’re setting the standards for vaults worldwide and leaving a huge back door open.”

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Edward Snowden: NSA is ‘setting fire to the future of the Internet’

By Ashe Schow.

Edward Snowden, the man who leaked the National Security Agency data collection programs, said Monday the act of mass surveillance is “setting fire to the future of the Internet.”

Snowden, speaking via satellite feed (in front of a green-screen display of the U.S. Constitution) to a panel at the annual South by Southwest conference, urged attendees to fight back against the spy programs and remember that more countries than the U.S. are involved.

“The NSA, the sort of global mass surveillance that’s occurring in all of these countries, not just the U.S. — and it’s important to remember that this is a global issue — they’re setting fire to the future of the Internet,” Snowden said. “And the people who are in this room now — you guys are all the firefighters. And we need you to help us fix it.”

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Adam Lanza’s Dad Wishes Son Had Never Been Born, says ‘You Can’t Get Any More Evil’

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Photo Credit: Fox News The father of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza said in his first interview about the massacre that what his son did couldn’t “get any more evil” and he wishes his son hadn’t been born.

In his most extensive comments since the shooting, Peter Lanza described his struggle to comprehend the actions of his son, who killed his mother then gunned down 20 children and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in December 2012.

Lanza also told The New Yorker magazine in a series of interviews last fall that he believes Adam would have killed him, too, if he had the chance. And he often contemplates what he could have done differently in his relationship with Adam, although he believes the killings couldn’t have been predicted.

“Any variation on what I did and how my relationship was had to be good, because no outcome could be worse,” Peter Lanza told the magazine in an article dated March 17. “You can’t get any more evil. … How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he’s my son? A lot.”

He said he hadn’t seen his son in two years when Adam committed one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Adam killed himself as police arrived at the scene. He also fatally shot his mother, Nancy, in their Newtown home before going to the school.

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Study: Southern Poverty Center Ignores Liberal Hate

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Photo Credit: Breitbart An academic study has accused the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of having an anti-Christian bias in its reporting on hate groups in America.

Once considered the “gold standard” in reporting on violent anti-government or racist groups in America, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s reputation has begun to wither as it has started targeting conservative Christian groups including the Family Research Council (FRC) for what SPLC claims is anti-gay animus.

SPLC says FRC gins up hatred and possible violence against gays because it has reported certain ideas that are taboo to SPLC: that hate-crimes laws will be used to stifle preachers; that because of HIV-AIDS and other diseases gays may not live as long as others; that gay parenting is not as good for children as more traditional parenting; that same-sex attraction is not inborn; and that gays can stop being homosexual. Believing or espousing any of these ideas makes you eligible for the SPLC hate list. [Full disclosure: the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, of which I am president, was just placed on SPLC’s hate list for espousing some of these ideas.]

Professor George Yancey of the University of North Texas says he is not arguing one way or the other about FRC’s inclusion on the list but merely demonstrating SPLC’s outrage is subjective, selective, and never reckons progressive groups guilty of the same things of which it accuses conservative ones.

Yancey looks at the work of a left-wing group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), started by Michael Weinstein after he said he experienced discrimination at the hands of Christians in the military.

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