Well, no, it isn’t really. But in 80 million tiny images from MIT, you can get a pretty good idea of the answer anyway.

The mosaic is comprised of smaller images each of which is an average of several other images each representing the same noun. The images are organised by semantic meaning, hence the areas of similar colour, such as the large green area which is related to vegetation etc.

(Via)

From New Humanist:

A letter published in today’s Daily Telegraph makes the case for repealing the law: “As the Law Commission acknowledged in 1985, when it recommended repeal, it is uncertain in scope, but lack of intention is no defence, and the law is unlimited in penalty.

This, together with its chilling effect on free expression and its discriminatory impact, leaves it in clear breach of human rights law. In the end, no one is likely to be convicted under it.”

The letter is signed by a host of honorary associates and distinguished supporters of the Rationalist Association, the BHA and the NSS, including Richard Dawkins, RA President Jonathan Miller, philosopher and regular New Humanist contributor AC Grayling, historian David Starkey and author Philip Pullman. It’s even been signed by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, with the letter pointing out that “the Church of England no longer opposes its abolition on principle”.

The NSS point their members and subscribers to www.theyworkforyou.com where you can write to your MP in support of the amendment. The BHA have a specific “Write to your MP” page with a pre-set message about the law. Don’t delay! MPs will vote on the amendment as early as tomorrow.

Despite for a while receiving a growing amount of traffic, the editor withdrew from regular posting almost by accident, and other contributors with similarly busy lives have also failed to satiate your news hunger.

BrightsOnline.net will be undergoing an overhaul in the next few months aimed at making regular management easier for editors, as well as providing more routes for collaboration and contribution from all visitors.

In the meantime, in lieu of a season greet from BrightsOnline.net, here are two thoughtful mid-winter messages, both aimed at the widespread “demonology” which regards secularists as rabidly anti-Christmas, a major theme in the British press this year.

• The President’s Mid-Winter Message — Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society (UK)
• Sorry to disappoint, but it’s nonsense to suggest we want to ban Christmas — Polly Toynbee, President of the British Humanist Association

Links to “mid-winter” messages from other secularist figures from anywhere in the world would be welcome (use the comments below).

This is despite a two-thirds public majority who think that no religiously-affiliated schools should receive any state funding (BBC), and despite last year’s DfES-commissioned report — “Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils?” (LSE) — which concluded that there was “clear positive selection of pupils into faith schools on the basis of observable characteristics that are favourable to education”. These “observable characteristics” account for the results disparity which the government still continues to use as an excuse for furthering the faith school agenda, even though their own DfES-commissioned report shows that these successes are down to nothing but social selection, so effectively the better results of faith schools are just a measure of how much the local population is skewed in its favour by covert selection and so-called “pushy” parents.

The British Humanist Association condemned today’s report as a “disgrace” (press release).

The British Humanist Association has condemned the Governments ‘joint statement’ with religious groups released today, joining teacher representatives and some religious groups such as the Hindu Council UK in objecting to increased support for ‘faith’ schools.

Andrew Copson, BHA Education officer said, ‘To expand state-funded faith schools is to increase discrimination in school admissions against pupils and their parents and to increase employment discrimination against teachers. It means more pupils will be segregated by religion and ethnicity and denied the right to a fully balanced education or to school with children from different backgrounds and learn with and from them.’

‘Again and again opinion polls have shown clear majorities opposed to faith schools and their expansion but the Government is dismissing these serious and widespread concerns as mere ‘misunderstandings’. The Government has behaved disgracefully, both in its general policies and in the way it has conducted itself in this present announcement, stitching up a statement with religious vested interests behind closed doors.’

The BHA also urge anyone who objects to state-funded “faith” schools to do something about it. Via supporter email:

It is vitally important that we let the Government know how misguided this statement is, and how divisive an increase in the number of state-funded faith schools will be. We are urging all members to write to their MPs to make them aware of their thoughts and positions on this document, and to ask what action their MP intends to take on this issue.

From the Scotsman:

Jean-Claude Van Espen, an investigating prosecutor, said up to 12 people, who have not been named, should be charged.

His investigation concluded that the church’s Europe office, based in Brussels, and its Belgian missions, conducted unlawful practices in medicine, violated privacy laws and used illegal business contracts.

[…] The church accused the prosecutor of hounding the organisation. A court will now decide whether to press charges against the Scientologists, who are expected to challenge the move when a hearing takes place in the next two to three months. This could delay the case for years.

Scientology has been active in Belgium for nearly 30 years and is seeking to expand in Europe.

[…] A Belgian parliamentary committee report in 1997 labelled Scientology a sect and investigations were launched into the group’s finances and practices, such as the personality tests conducted on new members.

Investigators have spent a decade trying to determine how far Scientology went in recruiting converts after numerous complaints were filed with police by former members claiming they had been the victims of intimidation and extortion.

Justice officials seized financial records, correspondence, bank statements and other papers during the inquiry to track the flow of money to Scientology. Police also raided the offices of several consultancy firms linked to the church.

This calendar is the result of a collaborative effort. Its producers are Brights who meet in the Action Forums of The Brights’ Network. As Brights, they have in common a naturalistic worldview, free of supernaturalism. The photos and quotes included are meant to show just how awesome our universe is. The various events marked in this calendar have been chosen by individual Brights. They represent a spectrum of achievements selected to remember that humanity has always been striving forward, trying to improve both ourselves and our environment. Check out The Brights’ Net site at www.the-brights.net.

His candidacy provoked military threats and mass secular protest back in April. He has said that he will not contravene the country’s secular constitution, and he has won kudos in Europe during negotiations for Turkey’s EU membership, but secular opposition and many secularist campaigners remain unconvinced that the new President Gul will not use his powers of veto in the direction of an Islamist agenda.

Only time will tell…

(See Guardian, Al Jazeera.)

The discovery of a new species of great ape that roamed Africa 10m years ago has forced scientists to rethink the earliest steps of human evolution.

Fossil hunters working along the Afar rift in central Ethiopia unearthed remnants of teeth they claim belonged to the primitive ape, a previously unknown species of gorilla they named Chororapithecus abyssinicus.

The finding, if confirmed, will redraw the evolutionary tree of primates, suggesting that humans and chimpanzees must have split from their gorilla-like ancestors 3m years earlier than thought. Geneticists have previously put the date at which the human and chimpanzee lineage split from gorillas at around 7m years ago, with humans and chimps diverging more recently, at 5m years ago.

New Scientist reports on the discovery that particles of dust immersed in ionized gas can behave as information-transmitting replicators, essentially meaning that they could support “genetic” inheritance, and perhaps even support a full, living, evolutionary process.

Also, widely linked across the internet an on television news, the world has watched amateur nature video. A pride of lions attack a herd of water buffalo, but events take two unexpected twists leaving the spectators aghast and amazed. The video is on YouTube here.