On Friday evening we looked up into the sky and saw a bright twinkly dot rising in the south – the International Space Station was overhead.

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Here’s a nice video from the Richard Dawkins Foundation featuring the philosopher AC Grayling. He’s explaining why the policy of ‘teaching the controversy’ in those areas of education that some would like to make controversial, even though they are really not at all controversial, does nothing but devalue education.

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See what’s been worth reading today.

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Now, how did we first come across the Cybraphon project? Was it via Radio Riel, that noted purveyor of steampunk music? I believe it must have been. Anyway, fresh from its BAFTA success, the robot is now collaborating with guest composers. The following video is a tango composed by Bernd Rest.

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From today, if you want to criticise religion in Ireland in a way that its adherents choose to find offensive, you might find yourself paying 25,000 euros for the privilege. To highlight this regressive new blasphemy law, the Atheist Ireland blog has posted a list of 25 blasphemous quotes and asking bloggers to republish them. So here we go.

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After a period when it looked like scammers had got bored with the 419, here it is back in abundance. We have received five or six of these in the course of a couple of weeks, after months of being free of them.

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Interestingly, the classic 419 scam does not appear to have had its day yet. This fine example dropped into the inbox a few days ago.

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One of those gloomy newspapers, the ones that always seem to think that the end of the world is nigh, the ones you don’t read if you have a glass-half-full sort of outlook, reckons that Bonfire Night is on its last legs.

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A thought-provoking experience on Wednesday when, for work purposes, I am required to attend a motorsports event. Without going into too much detail, it’s not a race, but a sponsors’ event, even though it does involve taking cars out on track. However, even though there’s no racing happening, everyone present has so much invested in the occasion that it’s almost painful.

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I wouldn’t blame you if you were put off by the title of this post. After all, it’s a pretty moot point which people will continue to argue over, disagree about and use as a subject for television documentaries probably for decades to come. And whenever these discussions kick off, Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane always gets mentioned, much to the annoyance of those people who don’t rate it very highly.

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