You've no doubt heard that Fred Phelps, the terror of Topeka, Kansas, and patriarch of the "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist church, died late Wednesday night at 84. While Phelps came to infamy picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard and countless other gay men, that was only the beginning of his family church's two-decade hate tour across the country, as Jay Michaelson reminds us: " they expanded their targets to include women, Jews, Barack Obama, and eventually, anyone associated with the United States itself —including dead soldiers, whose distraught relatives were mystified to find fire-breathing fundamentalists shouting at funerals." For the LGBT rights movement, there's no question that Phelps was, in Richard Kim's words, "a useful bigot." Phelps exposed the lie behind the old Christian copout, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." He said it himself: “It’s pure nonsense to say that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, and he hates the sinner. He sends them to...

Diplomatic hell broke out this weekend when the citizens of Crimea, the southwestern region of Ukraine at the center of a standoff between Russia and the West, voted to secede and join Russia . Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally reclaimed Crimea and gave a speech which The New York Times characterized as "emotional" : “'Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia in the hearts and minds of people,' Mr. Putin declared in his address, delivered in the chandeliered St. George’s Hall inside the Kremlin before hundreds of members of Parliament, governors and others. His remarks, which lasted 47 minutes, were interrupted repeatedly by thunderous applause, standing ovations and at the end chants of 'Russia, Russia.' Some in the audience wiped tears from their eyes." Needless to say, U.S. politicians are not amused by Putin's antics. Speaking from Poland on his solidarity tour of NATO allies, Vice President Joe Biden called the move "nothing more than a land grab" by the...

In 2014 we are used to stories that have neatly-defined, if contradicting narratives, and which resolve themselves relatively quickly, fading into the ether. Which is what makes the story of the Malaysia Airlines flight that has been missing for a week such an engrossing one. The narratives are muddled, the experts all seem to be at a loss, and no one's quite sure what the exact facts of the case are. Recent developments have thrown things even more into doubt, and into a place of speculation about possible dark motivations behind the plane's disappearance. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources "briefed on the matter," Flight 370 flew for five hours at a normal crusing altitude and was in touch with satellites after it lost contact with civilian radar. "The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent 'pings,' the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called...

You might think, given the country's general secular drift, that Bible epics would not be Hollywood's latest cash cow. And you would, of course, be wrong. This year, no less than four movies (loosely) based on Biblical stories will appear in theaters near you. The deluge began last month with Son of God , a feature-length version of the "The Bible" miniseries (without the Satan character that just happened to look like our president ). An Old Testament story is up next. The trailer for Noah , which first aired during the Super Bowl, looks like your average apocalypse flick, except everyone is wearing scruffy linen tunics. There's thunder, flying mud, the occasional fireball, lots of monsters, and— in lieu of Jesus's flowing locks —some truly spectacular facial hair . This week, The New Yorker profiled Noah 's director, Darren Aronofsky (of Black Swan fame), who proudly declared that his upcoming film is the "least Biblical Biblical movie ever made." In Aronofsky's vision, Noah is an...

For the millions of American reality-show junkies who just can't wait for the return of 2012's most outrageous hit show—the Republican presidential debates—this week's Conservative Political Action Conference has offered a tantalizing sneak preview. Just about every potential 2016 cast member was in D.C.—and everybody had something to prove. For Chris Christie, excluded last year but invited back now that he's being "attacked" by the media—instant conservative cred!—had to show he could get the 'wingers on their feet. Which, Christie being Christie, was a snap, especially with guaranteed-to-please counterfactuals like this one about Democrats: “They’re the party of intolerance. Not us.” (And hey, if you doubt for a second that Republicans are indeed the lonely beacons of open-mindedness in this land, check out the instantly famous photo of the near-empty conference room where they held their minority outreach panel on Thursday .) Bobby Jindal, who's trying to prove that being detested...

In the wee hours of yesterday morning, while you were still blissfully asleep, Russia's president and tiger-fighter-in-chief , Vladimir Putin, gave a strange, rambling press conference. In it, he insisted to reporters that there were no Russian troops on the ground in Crimea , and likened U.S. foreign policy to a dark science experiment. "They sit there across the pond as if in a lab running all kinds of experiments on the rats," he said. “Why would they do it? No one can explain it.” The strange remarks prompted immediate speculation about the state of Putin's mental health. A few days ago, the New York Times reported that Angela Merkel had tried—and failed—to talk sense into Putin, concluding that the world leader is "in another world. " Julia Ioffe says that Merkel is right—Putin has lost his marbles . But is dealing with Putin really, as Mark Halperin claims, like "playing Russian roulette" ? Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is "amused" by the headlines. Putin, he says, isn't...

We haven't heard a lot from Joe Biden lately. Though he's undoubtedly influential within the White House, the public would be forgiven for not knowing just what kind of vice-president he's been. Given that his predecessor practically created his own sinister shadow government, that may be a blessing. But with whatever time he has on his hands, Biden has apparently been thinking a lot about whether he wants to take one more crack at the big office in 2016. At least that's what a bunch of anonymous "allies," "loyalists," and "people familiar with his thinking" told The Wall Street Journal . It would be Biden's third run for the Oval Office, and even though the first two (in 1988 and 2008) didn't go particularly well, he's the vice president now. And no race with Biden in it could fail to be entertaining. His gaffes—and there would surely be many more—are like no one else's, offered up with his unique brand of good-natured cluelessness. Who can forget the time he said to a state senator...