Charles Windsor constantly interferes in politics and promotes every variety of reactionary superstition and new-age quackery.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
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Want to drive on the sabbath? Get a thought car
It totally works, because thought is not action, so you’re allowed to use the thought car.
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Katha Pollitt on the bitter tea of Greg Mortenson
Afghanistan and Pakistan have many honest aid workers, including many locals—they just don’t get the celebrity media treatment or the celebrity-sized budgets.
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Blair and Brown not invited to the royal wedding
Palace explains. We forgot. No, they’re not knights of the garter. No, it wasn’t a state occasion. No, they’re not Vic’s great-great-great grandsons.
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China scolds Salman Rushdie about human rights
Rushdie called for the release of Ai Weiwei. China calls this “blatant interference in China’s judicial independence.”
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Jerry Coyne on the archbish on evolution
Buried within the leaden prose is a deep and abiding dislike for evolutionary biology and genetics in particular.
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Charles Freeman on reliquaries at the British Museum
Glittering opulence risks concealing the anguish poured out at the shrines as those desperate for salvation pleaded with a saint to intercede with God for them.
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Hitchens on the upcoming nuptials
By some mystic alchemy, the breeding imperatives for a dynasty become the stuff of romance, even “fairy tale.”
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Stupid “birther” ravings carry on regardless
“It’s easier psychologically to come up with a rationalization than it is to admit that you were wrong,” said Ronald Lindsay.
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The squalor of US politics
Obama wearily produced his birth certificate, so the loons changed the subject. “How did he get into those Ivy League schools? Huh? Explain that!”
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Russell Blackford on atheists against atheism
Atheist thinkers have joined the backlash against the New Atheism, often employing far nastier tones than anything in the New Atheist writings themselves.
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Ron Lindsay on atheism, humanism and “interfaith”
We should avoid the “faith” label at least as vigorously as we avoid the “religion” label.
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Topp theologian says genocide ok if god says so
Look: the Canaanite adults were corrupt and deserving of judgement. The children inherit eternal life. It’s all good.
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Atheist “chaplains” in the military
Atheist leaders acknowledge the seeming contradiction, but they believe the imprimatur of the chaplaincy will embolden atheists who worry about being ostracized.
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Sanal Edamaruku on India without Sai Baba
Sathya Sai Baba launched a “counter revolution” of superstition, supported by irresponsible politicians and other public figures who should have known better.
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Barbara Forrest’s brave and important work
The Synthese controversy will have one good outcome if it brings Forrest’s work for real science education in Louisiana to the attention of the philosophical community.
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A Gnu does the Colbert Report
A C Grayling explains humanism to Stephen Colbert.
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Texas: Bill Nye booed for saying moon reflects light
See, the bible says there were two lights, a big one for the day and a little one for the night, and that’s good enough for Texas.
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Shaker Srinivasan on “Sai Baba”
Nothing exemplifies better the “peaceful coexistence” between religion and science than the cozy relationship between Indian scientists and the b-grade magician.
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Brooklyn: girls from West Africa recall FGM
Many elders in West African communities hold great social authority and do not seek parental permission to have it done to a girl.