Introduction

This weekend we saw the first official celebration and statutory holiday for the Māori new year - Matariki.

Last week it was announced that the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade - the landmark case from 1973 that protected the rights of pregnant people in the US to have abortions. The ruling set out rules around what states could regulate depending on the trimester stage of the pregnancy.

This weekend I took a look at the FutureFit website. This site is designed to make people aware of their carbon footprint - the amount that their household is contributing to climate change through Greenhouse gas emissions.

NZ Skeptics has been running a project that investigates products sold in pharmacies that are based on pseudoscience - you know the sort of stuff - homeopathy, and various herbal remedies with scant evidence of efficacy.

I like to keep an eye on some of the more weird and wacky conspiracy theorists in New Zealand, as well as some of the more dangerous ones - I'm not sure why, but it feels like a disproportionate number of them come from overseas. Whether it be Lee Williams from the UK, who is ironically worried about immigrants coming to this country and the UN's secret agenda, or Damien De Ment from America, who thinks we should overthrow the government, these are some of the most vocal “alternative” voices in New Zealand.