After her release from police custody, she was detained in Tripoli and prevented from leaving the country or going home to Benghazi.… Read the rest
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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
Photoshopping women out of history 
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A Hasidic newspaper slices the Secretary of State out of that photo in the Situation Room. Nobody here but us guys.… Read the rest
Hitchens on losing his voice
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping to have a word.… Read the rest
Simon Leys on Orwell in diaries and letters
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“I know from experience that once I have met & spoken with anyone I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel that I ought to.”… Read the rest
Australia: teachers protest goddy comic
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Shows a callous teacher ignoring bullying, urges prayer instead – on the website of Access Ministries, which runs 96% of RE classes in Victorian primary schools.… Read the rest
BHA on Nadine Dorries’s abstinence bill
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Teach girls to keep their knees together because boys will be boys.… Read the rest
“An expert weighs in” on bin Laden’s afterlife
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The moment martyrs die, they’re given new bodies in paradise and enjoy a blessed existence, “expert” says.… Read the rest
Debating creationism, ID and Holocaust denial
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Creationists and Holocaust deniers require a rejection of overwhelming scientific/historical evidence and thus rule themselves out of any serious discussion.… Read the rest
Why don’t the British love their intellectuals?
May 9th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
John Naughton doesn’t know.… Read the rest
Pseudo-historian David Barton has a good week
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The New York Times treated Barton and the world of scholars who’ve devoted their lives to disciplined historical analysis as though their analyses are of equal weight.… Read the rest
“Progressive” Xian group rejects LGBT ad
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Sojourners said “we don’t want to take sides.” Progressive my foot.… Read the rest
Apology for Spanish Inquisition executions
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Thousands of “heretics” were burned at the stake after Ferdinand and Isabella set up the Inquisition to root out remnants of Islam and Judaism.… Read the rest
Science hasn’t buried god so ha
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A professor at Oxford’s Templeton-Green College (yes) finds lots of gaps for god to sit in.… Read the rest
Cairo: Salafists attack Coptic church; ten dead
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Salafist groups have become more assertive in the post-Mubarak era.… Read the rest
BBC1: See You in Court
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Simon Singh v the BCA. Nick Cohen, Ben Goldacre and Dara O’Briain on libel law and freedom to criticise bad ideas.… Read the rest
Massimo Pigliucci on NPR on the Rapture
May 8th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
More bad uncritical reporting by Templeton “fellow” Barbara Bradley Hagerty.… Read the rest
Jackson Lears on Sam Harris and “positivists”
May 7th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Positivist reductionism, reductionist positivism, positivistic fundamentalism, fundamentalist positivism – it’s everywhere. Be afraid.… Read the rest
Alternative archaeology
May 7th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It is all too easy for political and religious extremists to appropriate the past and twist it to suit specific agendas.… Read the rest
Rainbows are god’s way of saying “not this time”
May 7th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some people know a threat when they see one.… Read the rest
