A far-right group pitches a fit; no one else is perturbed.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Bernard-Henri Lévy updates news on Ashtiani
Only one thing, in fact, is sure. The stoning has been suspended, not canceled.
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Cardinal says BBC has anti-Christian bias
Complains of “a radically secular and socially liberal mindset”; demands more air time for clerics.
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Tim Crane on religion, mystery and evidence
Science and religion are different, yet religions rest on historical claims, but – uh – whatever.
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Vatican tools say gay marriage is like decaf coffee
“A gay relationship is like decaffeinated coffee, you do not wake up,” said a priest/bioethics professor at Regina Apostolorum U.
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Mark Vernon tells such a cute little story
All about Stephen Hawking, and his daddy, and not knowing where everything came from, and the name for that is “God.”
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The Guardian endorses God
God is too superior to be interested in our arguments about “Him” but the Graun knows all there is to know on the subject.
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BBC’s pathetic coverage of stoning in Iran
Talked to two people defending stoning but somehow never got to Maryam Namazie.
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Ashtiani receives new sentence of 99 lashes
Because the Times published a picture purportedly of her without a headscarf.
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Interview with Ashtiani’s son Sajjad
The outside pressure works. “You’re all we have. There is no one else, except for you, to give us a hand.”
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Atheists are murderers and terrorists
PZ Myers “vandalized sacred religious property”; run for your lives.
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Kenan Malik reviews Tariq Ramadan
There is a willfull shallowness about this work, a refusal to think deeply or to pose difficult questions, that is truly shocking.
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David Colquhoun sacked from alt med council
Now that they know he thinks reflexology is bollocks, they think he might be happier elsewhere.
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LRB on Frank Kermode
His writing was so much more exact, more stylish, more patient, more ironic, more playful, more attentive, more cunning, more cagey than ‘eloquence’ can suggest.
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Paul Davies: the meta-laws remain unexplained
They are eternal, immutable transcendent entities that just happen to exist and must simply be accepted as given; like a god.
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Baggini on Hawking and God
There is no room in the universe of Hawking or most other scientists for the activist God of the Bible.
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Sharia is just misunderstood
It’s just like the US Constitution, only older, so that makes it even better.
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Danish producers regret making ad for Sweden Democrats
Swedish broadcasters declined to show the film, and no Swedish production company was willing to produce it.
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Sweden: tv station rejects ad as hate speech
“The difference between freedom of speech and incitement to hatred against an ethnic group must be understood,” said Mona Sahlin of Social Democrats.
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Religious minorities suffering worst in Pakistan floods
The laws offer what is virtually state approval to those intent on attacking minorities.
