Criticism of religion is not racism.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Julian Baggini on Ethical Consumerism
It’s about doing some good, not about feeling pure and pious.
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News From ‘No to Sharia in Ontario’
Demonstration Sept. 18, news articles, press releases, open letters and more.
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Johann Hari Reviews Occidentalism
Woolly types who think victims are always morally pristine will be irritated.
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Sharia in Ontario
Homa Arjomand points out girls are segregated then forced to marry men twice their age.
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Johann Hari on Catholofascism
Influence of Opus Dei will mean difference between life and death for thousands of poor people.
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It’s August – Here’s One for a Laugh
Jetlag Guide to Molvania, where the waiters can’t be faulted, as they’re armed.
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Christopher Hitchens Reviews Edward Said
He felt obliged to speak for the unheard, which could tempt him to be propagandistic.
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Religion Always and Everywhere Exonerated
Ancient religious texts shouldn’t form the basis of social policy now.
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Tom DeGregori onJulia Child’s Democratic Elitism
Child helped make abundance, variety and luxury available for everyone.
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Czeslaw Milosz 1911-2004
Poet, essayist and opponent of mental captivity.
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‘Contemporary Popular Knowledges’
Gossip as a form of knowledge? Don’t you mean ‘knowledge’?
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Neuroscience and Free Will
The binding problem of perception has implications for free will and agency.
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Revolutions Can Look Forward or Backward
Ishtiaq Ahmed says contemporary Islamic notions of revolution value a pristine state of the past.
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Harsh Words for Latest Eagleton
Narrow but not focused, high-table rambling, platitudinous, repetitious…
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Slightly More Favourable View of Eagleton
But still ‘Sometimes Eagleton sounds like a don passing fruity high-table judgments’
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Outlook India Asks: What If?
What if India hadn’t been partitioned, Rajiv hadn’t unlocked Babri Masjid, Gandhi had lived, India had become a Hindu theocracy?
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What’s Up With the Left?
Self-righteous anger merely a cover for indifference bred by failure.
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Aaronovitch on How Ideology Blinds
Almost indestructible ideological commitment that led communists to deny what they saw.
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Research on Kennewick Man Still Restricted
Justice Department forbidding DNA tests, limiting access.