“The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets.” Only Moses is supposed to do that.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Gulnaz on CNN
Raped and impregnated; imprisoned for being raped; threatened with death; may marry her rapist.
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UN report on violence against women in Afghanistan
A law meant to protect Afghan women from abusive practices such as rape and forced marriage is rarely enforced.
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A lawyer in Iran writes to Maryam Namazie
A child born of adultery (non Islamic marriage) shall not belong to the adulterer. (1167. Civil code) Marriage before puberty with the permission of the male Guardian is legal and possible. (1041.Civil code)
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Sebastian Rotella on the Bombay attacks and the ISI
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a terrorist chief arrested for the brutal attacks in India, is still using a cell phone while in prison. Watch out.
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UC Davis police chief put on leave
After two campus police officers sprayed seated protesters with pepper spray during a demonstration aligned with Occupy Wall Street.
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DR Congo is a failed state
Ordinary citizens are poor, hungry and under-informed. The government can’t provide decent education or health services. Rape is endemic in eastern provinces.
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Four-fold increase in polio in Nigeria
In 2003, northern Nigeria’s Muslim leaders leaders opposed vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility.
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Who elected Grover Norquist?
No one, but he runs the show anyway.
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A look at Schumacher college of woo
We are told we will learn “How to use inter-disciplinary scientific information in combination with knowledge gained from sensing, feeling and intuition”.
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Saudi religious police will cover women’s eyes
The men of the committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice will interfere to force women to cover their eyes, a spokessheik said.
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Simon Singh says P Charles is fixated about alt med
PC refuses to accept the failings of alternative medicine, despite compelling evidence that it provides little benefit to patients, because he is ideologically fixated.
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Jerusalem: women push back
It’s an essential fact of life here: women have simply disappeared from the city space, as if it were solely inhabited by men.
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Mehdi Hasan urges empathy for Iran
Via a bold thought experiment: “Imagine, for a moment, that you are an Iranian mullah.” A mullah? Why a mullah? Why not, say, a woman?
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Vatican to sue over pope kissing sheikh photo
Benetton said the idea was to combat hatred, but the Vatican isn’t having any of that blasphemous nonsense.
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How the NHS could save money on homeopathic treatments
Stop paying specialist homeopathic hospitals, stop buying expensive homeopathic remedies, require patients to consider a placebo instead.
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Sam Harris is wrong about science and morality
What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to distinguish right from wrong.
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When women and girls are the enemy
Here, Jewish girls as young as six, wearing skirts below the knee and shirts to the elbow, are being targeted by the Haredi, called ”pritzas” (prostitutes).
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It’s all the fault of the new atheists!
“The extremely aggressive campaign against religion being waged by the New Atheists, led by Richard Dawkins” is why people hate science.
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Reinforcing negative gender stereotypes is not harmless
There are long-term career consequences to gender stereotypes.
