The Guardian’s Comment is Free website was recently introduced in the UK, aiming to emulate the highly successful US-based discussion website the Huffington Post as a home for comment and discussion on a variety of topics, mainly political. Comment is Free, like the Huffington Post, aims to attract a more eclectic readership than would usually take part in discussions on the Internet, with articles written by journalists, politicians and playwrights.

It’s time for some more of the best content available on the web at the moment – if you have any recommendations, let us know. This week, video and podcast highlights – a TV time warp, the banana as the atheist’s nightmare, and what is a podcast anyway? Broadband recommended. YouTube is a great alternative to watching TV if there’s nothing else on, or like me, you have to contend with a housemate whose remote control has somehow jammed on to a channel which only shows murder mysteries.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: The summer solstice (in the northern hemisphere) and the winter solstice (in the south) is World Humanism Day.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: International celebration of Darwin Day (the anniversary of the great man’s birth). To mark this special occasion, there’ll be a supper of primordial soup (suitable for vegetarians), birthday cake, and readings from Darwin and some of his admirers, in Elmsett, from 7 to 9.30 pm. Email for an invitation and directions.

Link: National Secular Society – National Secular Society – NSS Shop They say “An exciting new DVD, exclusively available at this price [£16.99] from the NSS, examines atheism as it applies to the lives of real people. The DVD consists of six films, originally intended for schools, but far too good for such a restricted audience.” The Team Video DVD features a funeral and a baby-naming by Suffolk Humanist Celebrant Margaret Nelson, and interviews with students from Kesgrave High School near Ipswich.

As someone who in the distant past worked in a bank and has tried to keep up with developments in banking, I find the Little Britain sketch of the bemused customer being told that, whatever he wants, ‘The computer says no’, not only hilarious but rather too close to the truth for comfort. It’s also becoming nigh on impossible to shop these days without the ubiquitous bar code reader standing between you and the exit.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Margaret Nelson will review the Sunday papers with Rachel Sloane on Radio Suffolk, 95.5, 95.9, 103.9 & 104.6 fm.

The secular basis of our state education system is being undermined by the increasing involvement of religious organisations in schools. A secular system means that children of all faiths and none are educated together, in the same schools. In Northern Ireland parents set up the Integrated Education Fund to ensure just that, after Catholic and Protestant children had been segregated for decades, resulting in violence and death through religious bigotry. Has the British Government learned nothing from this?

This Friday in Suffolk, the sun is shining determinedly through the clouds, the end of the week is here, and all is well in the world. Here are some weblinks to assist you in wasting the rest of your Friday away. Friday afternoons weren’t meant for work, after all. So here are a few items to enjoy – Norse mythology, atheism as a cult, Star Trek’s new voyages in spandex, and Noel Edmonds places an order with the Cosmic Ordering Service.

Just as the NUT campaigns against faith schools and a Government adviser is arrested over the honours for City Academy sponsors scandal, Polly Toynbee writes “If ever there was a time to set out the unequivocal value of a secular state, it must be now.” Link: Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | This is a clash of civilisations – between reason and superstition Meanwhile, back in cloud cuckoo land, Peter Franklin’s Guardian comment is all about “secular supremacists” and education.