Thanks to confirmation bias, we remember the coincidences and forget the vast sea of meaningless data.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Joke Obscenity Filters
‘Assassination’ becomes ‘buttbuttination,’ ‘passenger’ is ‘pbuttenger,’ and ‘passerby’ is ‘pbutterby.’
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Julian Baggini on Free Speech and Mockery
While comedy speaking truth to power is funny, the powerful laughing at the weak is not.
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Anti-Wahhabist Journalist Killed in Dagestan
Alishayev was an editor at an Islamic tv station who made a documentary countering Wahhabism.
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Carlin Romano on Bernard-Henri Lévy
It’s that openness to being shaken in his beliefs that makes Lévy more appealing than many of his detractors.
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Racism and Sexism or Neoliberalism?
It is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today.
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Harper Collins Australia Apologizes for Offending
Book teaches girls to play didgeridoo; some ‘indigenous leaders’ say this is taboo.
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Egyptian Women Describe Sexual Harassment
‘I get harassed 100 times a day. I tried everything to stop it but it doesn’t stop.’
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Emergence of ‘Morality Police’ in Yemen
A setback for women, already battling 70% illiteracy and one of the biggest gender gaps on earth.
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Iran Sentences Women’s Rights Activists
Six months in prison for writing feminist articles on a website.
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Contentious Polygamy Law in Iran
The proposed Family Support Bill would allow a man to marry a second wife without the permission of the first.
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Julian Baggini on Philosophy and the Art of Living
Self-help promises more than it delivers. For philosophy to do better, it cannot afford to make the same mistake.
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Royal Berkshire Hospital on Bare Arms Policy
The Trust Chaplain and Imam agree that the policy is an acceptable professional requirement.
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Telegraph on Women Buried Alive in Balochistan
No one has been arrested; human rights groups accuse local authorities of trying to cover up the murders.
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Pakistan: Murdered Women Exhumed
Only two found. Police have arrested six people, including some relatives of the women.
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‘Abstinence Only’ and its Discontents
The US has one of the worst annual rates of teenage pregnancies in the developed world.
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Treat Domestic Workers Fairly This Ramadan
HRW: employers of domestic workers in the ME and NA should consider the rights of domestic workers.
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Obama Answers Science Debate Questions
The other fella hasn’t answered.
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Woman in Niqab Encounters Hostility
‘People never say things to your face,’ she complains. Irony alarm explodes.
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Heresy Corner on ‘Respecting’ the Niqab
Noor Aza Othman of the Women for Justice Support Group Project, Malaysia, posted a comment – which was deleted.