Cheers the absence of Dignitas clinics in the US.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
-
Grayling, Dawkins et al. start new college
Grayling will be the first Master of the New College of the Humanities, which will give a degree from the University of London.
-
PZ in Dublin: Maryam Namazie rocks the conference
She made a fierce, impassioned, reasoned criticism of Islamism and its degradation of humanity — she was wonderfully clear and humane.
-
Poet and publisher summoned to appear in court
For saying that Ponnar and Shankar, two figures revered by the kongu vellala gounder community as deities, are dalits. Srsly.
-
The discovery of arsenic-based Twitter
The true significance of the aliens-that-weren’t will be how it helped change the way scientists do science, Carl Zimmer reports.
-
Chicago Cubs to make It Gets Better video
The Cubs have contributed to several gay groups and hosted an annual Pride Day at the Cubs’ home park, Wrigley Field.
-
Boston Red Sox make It Gets Better LGBT Video
Joining the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs. Booya!
-
Nigerian ‘baby farm’ raided
The proprietor is undergoing interrogation over allegations that he normally sells the babies to people who may use them for rituals.
-
Nigeria: “baby farm” girls rescued
Aged between 15 and 17 years, the girls were locked up and used to produce babies, said Abia state’s police chief.
-
Punjab state tells women what to do
Says newly-married women should cut down on phone use. Doesn’t say newly-married men should do that.
-
Giles Fraser finds a new way to snipe at new atheism
Something about not hating humanism enough, and not caring that Freud said humans are etc.
-
Malaysia: women launch ‘The Obedient Wife Club’
“We just want to ask all the wives to be obedient wives so that there will be fewer problems in our society.”
-
Nonchurchgoers save a church
That’s what I call generous.
-
Appeals court lifts ban on Texas graduation prayer
The school’s valedictorian had filed an intervention lawsuit that claimed she was being deprived of her right to pray for her classmates and community during her speech.
-
Felice Gaer asks pointed questions
“I think that voluntary means that one is free to leave,” she tells the Irish government.
-
Women politicians urged to support Magdalenes
One Department of Justice official said most women entered the laundries voluntarily. Srsly! -
High school atheist is bullied and threatened
Wait, isn’t it only new atheists who bully people?
-
A force beyond, giving our lives meaning
It’s not god though, Ronald Aronson notes. It’s the vast web of social processes that make human lives better.
-
Kids with bombs
An alarming number of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan believe immortality is at their fingertips – provided they’re detonating the bombs strapped to their bodies.
-
Jack Kevorkian dies at 83
The desperation that drove dozens of dying people to travel to Michigan to be hooked up to his “mercy” machines helped convince many of the need for a right-to-die.