Universities can still have some funding, provided they do research on David Cameron’s hot new idea.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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For women in Afghanistan life is crap
It is estimated that 70-80% of marriages are forced. The literacy rate of Afghan girls of 15 or more is just 12%. Violence and abuse are widespread.
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Nick Cohen on the demo
Conservatives and Liberals will hand over much of what’s left of the public sector to corporations seeking to build private monopolies at public expense.
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Libyan woman alleges rape by security forces
Security forces moved to subdue the woman. Even a member of the hotel’s kitchen staff drew a knife. “Traitor!” he shouted at her in contempt.
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Zimbabwe: churches ban HIV and Aids medication
They tell people to take holy water instead; hundreds die.
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A spiritual connection via pole dancing
“This is just another attempt to think through how to live a full Christian life.”
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Spain: Catholic medical staff stole babies and sold them
“Nuns and priests who simply decided that the child would be better off with families they trusted than with the ones to which they had been born.”
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Egypt: MB elbowing aside the secularists
The young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force.
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A new interview with Hitchens
‘It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often as not in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.’
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Amnesty International on arrests in Tahrir Square
AI calls on the Egyptian authorities to investigate allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters.
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Atheists get their morality from theists so ha
“The atheistic understanding of morality comes directly or indirectly from what is commonly referred to as the Judeo-Christian ethic.”
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OIC states drop “defamation of religion” campaign
New resolution “condemns any advocacy of religious hatred that amounts to incitement to hostility or violence.” Non-believers not mentioned.
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Pakistan: children play “suicide bombing”
Teenagers are the best suicide bombers, because they’re easy to train and to brainwash.
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Dan Savage and Terry Miller on “it gets better”
Miller’s school told his mother: “If he looks that way, if he talks that way, if he walks that way, there’s absolutely nothing they could do to protect him.”
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UN: Vatican defends “right” to bash gay rights
Religious homophobes “are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views,” a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council.
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Larger groups have more utility
Smaller ones have less.
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Does religion belong in the classroom?
“There are a million Hindus in the UK but only 30 Hindu primary school places a year for them.” Beg the question much?
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Roberto De Mattei explains the catastrophe in Japan
“…catastrophes are the just punishments of God” inasmuch as “to the guilt of the Original Sin are added our personal and collective sins.”
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Texas bill would outlaw “discrimination” against creationists
Universities would be forbidden to fire anyone “based on the faculty member’s or student’s conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design.”
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Orac on anthroposophic medicine at the U of Michigan
Anthroposophic medicine is based on many ideas with no basis whatsoever in science that can best be described as pure magical thinking.