Compared to what liberals must face in the Middle East and beyond, what right do westerners have to put their paltry fears first?
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Burzynski Clinic threatens Andy Lewis of Quackometer
Via a PR guy who sounds like Sonny Corleone.
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Movement brings white supremacists to Kalispell
Pioneer Little Europe invites “racially conscious” white Americans to relocate to Montana’s Flathead Valley to help create a heavily-armed Aryan homeland.
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Churches told dying “patients” they were cured
There is evidence that evangelical churches in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are claiming to cure HIV through God.
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PEN on the murder of Rafiq Tagi
Rafiq Tagi first came to PEN International’s attention when he was arrested on 1 November 2006 for an article comparing European and Islamic traditions.
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Index on Censorship on murder of Rafiq Tagi
In Azerbaijan, those who physically attack journalists are never brought to justice and the cycle of impunity there is truly shocking.
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Paul Sims talks to Robert Lambert
The problems with recruiting reactionary patriarchal homophobic theocrats in order to prevent violence.
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Jonathan Rée on dissing God
When Stendhal said “God’s only excuse is that he does not exist,” he was continuing a tradition of angry piety handed down from the Hebrew Bible and medieval Islamic poetry.
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Mona Eltahawy tells of sex assault in Cairo ministry
She told CNN: “My left hand and my right arm are broken. This is as a result of a brutal beating by the Egyptian riot police who surrounded me.”
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Sign the petition to 2Day and Fox FM sponsors
Cancel advertising until Kyle Sandilands is dumped from radio show.
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Andrew O’Keefe on White Ribbon Day
On Kyle Sandilands: “It says it’s perfectly ok to have a public discourse that is aggressive and sexist.”
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Huffington Post on “We Are Atheism” campaign
Like the “It Gets Better” campaign, the idea is to let young atheists know they are not alone.
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Obama thinks he “owes” Catholic bishops’ conference
Reproductive Health Reality Check reports that Obama will cave to demands by the USCCB to eliminate insurance coverage of birth control without a co-pay.
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They finally killed Rafiq Tagi
The Islamic Republic of Iran has denied any role in his murder.
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Atheist writer Rafigh Taghi killed in Azerbaijan
Taghi, author of anti-Islamist and anti-Iranian regime articles, spent one year in prison for “inciting religious hatred” by “insulting prophet Mohammed” in 2006.
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Australia: shock jock calls journalist a fat slag
“What a fat bitter thing you are. You’re a piece of shit. You haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth girl, or I will hunt you down.” -
Taylor and Sacks agree: new atheists suck
Sacks says Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris over-simplify religion, producing critiques that are superficially profound and profoundly superficial. Awesome, dude.
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Susan Jacoby on the fetish of suffering
The Iowa forum was a triumph of the union of psychobabble and public religiosity that has come to dominate American politics.
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BBC says UK madrassas are “modernizing”
“In close knit neighbourhoods most Muslim children regularly attend their local madrassa, in part due to peer pressure, as everyone living near the mosque does so.”
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Sabir Hussain jailed for child assaults at Keighley mosque
The madrassa teacher admitted four charges of assaulting boys at the Markazi Jamia
Mosque in Keighley as they learned the Koran.