Sorry, but I'm going to write again about Tesla cars…

As I mentioned in my introduction, this week I was interviewed about superstitions on the RNZ Nights programme. You can listen to the item here.

The last time I wrote my newsletter, I wrote about the NZ Skeptics $100K challenge. We'd just launched it, in conjunction with the NZARH (New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists), who are putting up half of the prize money.

Of late I've been seeing some very scammy advertising online for a product that makes astounding weight loss claims. Yes, I know, there are a ton of them out there!

Bronwyn, being the troll that she is, asked if I'd be writing about EV fires this week, after seeing news articles, here and here posted about a fire on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which involved an EV.

There's been a recent hubbub around the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of infectious diseases, with Covid being the most obvious one.

I've written about Voices for Freedom many times in the past. For review, they're a group of anti-vaxxers and “freedom” lovers and generally anti-government agitators. They started back in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic. They claim to have quite a following, though of course, that's unverified.

Last Friday I attended a service for Robert Woolf. Long time members of NZ Skeptics would recognise Robert's name as a committee member, and conference attendee. He also attended Skeptics in the Pub in Auckland back when it was first running.

We've written about Liz Gunn before. For a refresher, she's a former lawyer, then broadcaster/presenter on Television New Zealand (Breakfast and Good Morning shows) and Radio New Zealand. She disappeared from view for a long time, but recently popped up as an anti-vax conspiracy theorist.

If you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which most of our readers do, it's time for the 5 yearly census.

We've been promoting making submissions to the Therapeutic Products Bill. The NZ Skeptics committee has met and put together its official submission, and I've put in a personal submission.

I began my weekend on Friday night with a trip into the Auckland CBD to try to catch roving fundamentalist evangelical preacher Lincoln Russ.

Part of the fun of being on the NZ Skeptics committee is that we get sent emails from folk with some “interesting” views. In many instances the emails we get are provocative trolling messages, or sent from overseas accounts and blasted out to multiple skeptical organisations around the world.

It's 12th February as I write this. Happy Darwin Day! (And, a day before my birthday)

As most readers will know, I live in Auckland, which has been subject to torrential rain this weekend, resulting in wide-spread flooding, and three people dead, so far. It was certainly a record-setting event, with close to 300 mm of rain recorded over a 36 hour period at one site, and nearly 250 mm of rain at Auckland Airport (which was closed due to the resulting flooding). It's fairly safe to say that the amount of rain we got can be attributed, at least partly, to climate change. Expect more of the same in coming years.

This past week has been quite sad for me. We had to say goodbye to our dog Darwin. I hope you'll indulge me in some reflections on the experience.

One of the most frequent questions I encounter, whether serious or not, is about driving an EV in the rain, or through a carwash. Of course, EVs are well built, and the normal expectation of driving is that they encounter wet weather all the time. Of what use would windscreen wipers be otherwise?

Over the past couple of weeks, people have been reporting getting unsolicited messages via Facebook Messenger from various religious accounts. I got one myself, and thinking it was just ridiculous, immediately blocked the account. Here's a couple:

There's a new bill being introduced to parliament that is intended to replace our Medicines Act 1981 and the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. The bill is the Therapeutic Products Bill (TPB) and it's currently at Select Committee stage, meaning that the public is able to provide submissions on it (currently 30 days left as this is published). This presents a rare opportunity to provide input on legislation directly linked to our interests as a society, and we are unlikely to be involved in a legislative change of this magnitude encompassing therapeutic products again for quite some time.

Today I satisfied one of my pleasures - watching horror movies - and viewed M3GAN (obviously pronounced Megan) which opened late last week. I'd categorise the movie as science-fiction horror with a lot of camp and comedy (mostly intentional, but some unintentional), and social commentary thrown in.

You would have to have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks to not have heard about the case of the 4 month old baby at Starship Hospital needing heart surgery and, as part of that, donated blood products.

Last Monday (12th December) there was a tragic incident in Wieambilla, Queensland, leaving six people shot dead.

In the good news department, Billy Te Kahika and Vinny Eastwood, professional conspiracy theory grifters, who organised protests during the Covid lockdowns in August last year, have now been found guilty of intentionally failing to comply with the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act.

It's been a while since I've written about the former president of the US, Donald J Trump, but he's recently announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections, likely in an attempt to shield himself from potential legal consequences of investigations into his involvement with the January 6th insurrection, and the Mar-a-Lago classified and top-secret documents case (and likely many other crimes).

Last week we found out about a new short documentary that has been produced - Believing is Seeing.

Many skeptics will be familiar with the practice of some Christian fundamentalists to stand on street corners warning the public of their impending doom in hell should they fail to repent and believe in Jesus as they do. Usually, these are reserved for inner cities where they can target vulnerable young people (at least, that's what I've seen happen).

This past weekend I visited the Go Green Expo, which is a show with the general theme of “green” or being ecologically mindful. Such things are usually a magnet for companies promoting bogus products in addition to those with genuine solutions to becoming “greener”.

Happy Halloween! Today, as this newsletter goes out, it's officially the day of Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, though, as I write this, in my neighbourhood, children are expected at my door this evening (Sunday).

Our annual NZ Skeptics Conference, being held in Wellington on 25th - 27th November is just weeks away now.

This week the social media landscape changed. Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter, after a rather interesting historical timeline around the deal:

In depressing (but expected) news this week, it seems that it's highly unlikely we'll be able to constrain global warming to 1.5C, and that we're on a path of irreversible damage to the climate which may well lead to catastrophic failure of the climate and likely extinction of vast numbers of species including humanity. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I do worry for the future young people today.

We've covered Alex Jones many times in the past. Alex Jones is a fairly well-known far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist. Most skeptics will be aware of his InfoWars website, which promotes conspiracy theories and certified-real fake news.

I'm encouraged by news from the Center for Inquiry (CFI), a skeptical organisation in the US. They are suing the CVS and Walmart pharmacies for their placement of homeopathic products alongside real efficacious medical products.CFI refers to Homeopathy as “Fake Medicine”, which it surely is.

We've talked about the local body elections over the past couple of months, and now the results are in. Local freedom, anti-vax and conspiracy theory group Voices for Freedom tried to sway the elections by encouraging their members and supporters to stand but hide their affiliations.

The NZ Skeptics Conference 2022 is being held in Wellington on the weekend of 26th and 27th of November. We'd love to see you there, in person. We've got some great speakers lined up, and it will be great to see everybody again.

This past week has been replete with stories related to climate change. Firstly, there's Hurricane Ian which has wreaked havoc and destruction and loss of life in Florida most recently, but previously in Cuba and Puerto Rico. It's fairly obvious that extreme weather events are exacerbated by climate change, and that living near the coast is going to be an increasingly risky proposition for large numbers of people.

Hey, I know that there are some skeptics in Auckland. We're holding our first regular (monthly) Skeptics in the Pub this Tuesday night (4th October, 7pm) at Dice & Fork at Victoria Park Market. We'd love to see you there.

In my last newsletter I mentioned the local body elections which are currently underway. The elections have some candidates standing who are aligned with various “freedom” and anti-vax groups. The media has done a fairly good job of identifying at least some of the candidates representing dodgy positions.

One of our readers from the other side of the world, a Kiwi living in Ireland has told us about a Destiny Church in the UK.

So, as I've mentioned Mark, Bronwyn and I paid a visit to the Mormon Temple in Hamilton, or as it's more formally known, the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

One of our skeptical operatives informed us of a Voices for Freedom flyer that's been turning up in mailboxes across the country. This one concerns masking.

Finally this week, I received my local body elections pack. I have the opportunity to vote for candidates for the Mayor of Auckland, and members of the Auckland Council, for a local board, and also a liquor licensing trust (where I live in Auckland, we're a “dry” area - where we can only purchase alcohol from licensing-trust-run businesses).

Popping up on my various social media feeds over the past year or so have been ads for “THE Interview”. I'm going to take a look at this and the movement behind it.

This last week has been pretty astounding on the topic of conspiracy theorists.

Last week Stuff Circuit, part of the Stuff media organisation, released their Fire and Fury documentary.

And now that I've just written about Chantelle Baker, the latest news is that her page, where she shared a lot of her content, has been removed from Facebook for violating community standards. It's gone the same way as other prominent pages, such as Voices for Freedom. That will affect her ability to spread her message as Facebook is often a gateway to pulling people into these movements, though she's planning on moving to other platforms such as YouTube, and likely more niche platforms such as Rumble and Odysee.

So in a couple of months we're all going to have the opportunity of voting in the local body elections, for our city, district and regional councils. And in some areas, there are elections for local and community boards too.

Last week some of our media engaged in an attack on Dr Siouxsie Wiles. Siouxsie, with her iconic pink hair, has been a leading voice globally, but certainly here in NZ/Aotearoa for a sensible, science and evidence-based approach to handling the Covid pandemic. (And, of course, Siouxsie will be familiar to many NZ Skeptics, having MC'd and spoken at our conferences in the past.)

This past week has seen the alarming heat waves in Europe, with the UK seeing highest ever temperatures, exceeding 40C.