Regular readers of our newsletter will have seen the “adverts” for our official podcast - Yeah... Nah!, which we record on a fortnightly basis. Mark, Bronwyn and I discuss recent skeptical topics, usually in a sort-of pub chat format. We enjoy recording it, and we hope that listeners enjoy hearing it.

Just a friendly reminder that the Covid pandemic is not over. We continue to see cases and an alarmingly high daily death rate, which had an all time high of 32 people dying one day last week.

I regret to inform you that the psychics have won. They've clearly demonstrated their abilities and the $100,000 challenge at Puzzling World in Wanaka is now over.

If you've been around skeptical circles for a while, you'll have no doubt heard of the Georgia Guidestones - a granite monument that was constructed back in 1980 in a rural area in the US state of Georgia.

I got into a conversation with some people on Twitter over this past weekend, after commenting on an article about people overdosing on vitamin D.

In my last newsletter, I put a call out for people to help with a project investigating pharmacies and the pseudoscientific products they had on their shelves. We got a good response, with several people coming on board to help with the project.

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.

We've covered the Peter Ellis case before, and indeed, it was a particular focus of NZ Skeptics activity in the 1990s.

I continue to monitor the emails sent out by the Voices for Freedom crowd. My reaction is usually a combination of disbelief and despair. My impression is that they're struggling to remain relevant. Now that the vaccine mandates have disappeared, they seem to be concentrating on all manner of whacky stances.

Louise Wallace is a reality TV actor, most recently having appeared on The Real Housewives of Auckland - a show I've not seen, but the title of which puts me off immediately. She's also previously appeared on various current affairs shows, and also worked as host of The Weakest Link, a TV quiz show from the early 2000s..

It cannot have escaped anybody's notice that this week there was yet another mass shooting at a school in the USA - this time in Uvalde, Texas.

Over the past few months, I've been contacted a few times by one of our members sending information about Covid from the popular podcast TWiV - This Week in Virology. The podcast is hosted by Dr Vincent Racaniello with a number of co-hosts. Dr Racaniello has spent 40 years in virus research at Columbia University.

I'd like to draw attention to the work done by Te Pūna Matatini. They have released an initial report on mis- and dis-information in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I was interested to read an article about the unexpected death of babies. This used to be called Cot Death, but is now referred to as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). There's also a broader term Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) - which encompasses SIDS but also includes sleeping accidents.

Now for a bit of an amusing item.

Late last week saw some carnage in crypto markets - dubbed the crypto crash. We've covered cryptocurrencies and their associated technologies, such as NFTs many times.

Late last year Dr Nikki Turner appeared on TVNZ's Seven Sharp current affairs program to talk about the number of people who would be expected to have medical problems from being given the Pfizer COVID vaccine.

Recently there's been a flurry of activity from a group in New Zealand who believe that they are Sovereign Citizens - that they have disconnected themselves legally from the laws of our country. Sovereign Citizens believe that the government is an illegitimate corporation with which they have no contract - that they can therefore exempt themselves from our country's laws, and pick and choose which laws they want to obey, which they describe as common law.

It would be hard to miss that there has been some controversy in the science community in Aotearoa/New Zealand around the role of Mātauranga Māori (translated as Māori knowledge) in the school curricula.

As I write this on the Sunday of Easter weekend, it was announced on Saturday evening that John Cameron, lead pastor at Arise church, had resigned his position on the board, though remains as an employee of the organisation. Additionally, his brother Brent had also resigned from the board. This was announced through a statement on their website.

I might well be stealing Mark's thunder here, as he has written extensively on NFTs in the past.

I've previously revealed that I keep an eye on Voices for Freedom by subscribing to their email newsletter, where they send out communications to their flock. I don't pretend that they're not aware they have “moles” who subscribe - and so it's likely that their newsletter only contains the most sanitised versions of their thoughts. I don't have the personal free time or inclination to subscribe to their Telegram channels to see what's really being discussed behind the scenes.

As a professional software developer, I'm aware of various ways in which websites can be hacked - and it's a constant battle keeping up with the latest knowledge and techniques to ensure safety.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, propaganda raises its head. Propaganda has always been a tool of war (and peace) but we're seeing escalation to new levels.

Last Wednesday, the “anti-mandate” protest at the Parliament Grounds in Wellington, which had lasted for 23 days, came to an end. It was not an end that the protestors wanted, but was forced on them by police action.

Speaking of Voices for Freedom, last weekend investigative journalist Melanie Reid from Newsroom did a video piece on the protest - Visit to Freedom Village - which featured the Voices for Freedom leaders in a very positive light.

Just what are freedoms that the protest groups are saying are being trampled on and restricted? Two senior lecturers in Psychology at the University of Canterbury wrote a good piece on The Conversation, defining what is meant by freedom - the concepts of negative and positive liberty.

I've written about Liz Gunn before. She used to be a respected broadcaster on TVNZ's One News, but has now gone well down the rabbit hole. Last year she claimed that an earthquake was Mother Nature's response to Jacinda Adern's Covid-19 response . She announced her FreeNZ movement, which appears to have political aspirations.

We don't often cover sports stories in our newsletter, and I'm certainly not one for writing them, but yesterday we heard the news of the untimely death of Shane Warne, the Australian Cricketer. Warne was only 52 and died of a heart attack.

And now for something completely different…

Sue Grey and Dr Matt Shelton have made some astounding claims about contamination of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. The specific claims are that there are undeclared nanoparticles in the vaccine.

I've written in the past about NFTs - Non-Fungible Tokens, as they're called, and Mark has written about cryptocurrencies and the scams that surround them.

Another person I've written about in the past is Dr Sam Bailey. To refresh your memory, she's a doctor, previously practising as a GP, based in Christchurch. She appeared on a TVNZ medical show - The Check Up.

In another topic I've written about before, a Voices for Freedom spinoff group The 'Hood NZ were taking a case to the High Court to attempt to stop the rollout of the COVID vaccine, specifically for 5 - 11 year olds.

…It Just Tells Dirty Great Big Fat Whoppers!

As you read this you'll know that the country is now back into the red traffic light setting. The Omicron variant of COVID is now out in the community and, given its transmissibility, expected to spread widely and quickly. In the press conference yesterday it was acknowledged that there is likely undetected transmission of Omicron in the community. Omicron has likely been transmitted by flights around the country (a flight attendant was infected with Omicron) and people also have attended a wedding and visited various venues.

A week seems like a very long time at the moment! But just over a week ago, the island nation of Tonga experienced a huge volcanic eruption and resulting tsunami. The effect of the tsunami was made worse by the fact that the islands are low-lying so seeking high ground is all but impossible.

If you spend any time on social media you'll have no doubt seen fairly enigmatic posts with a grid of yellow and green squares in various combinations. This is Wordle - a daily word guessing game that has taken the world by storm (or at least, that seems to be what I've been seeing!)

Amidst a global pandemic it's sometimes easy to miss science news. But this one really piqued my interest.

So, back to COVID vaccines. This past week has seen a huge amount of activity in anti-vax circles.

If you're a Netflix subscriber, you'll be able to watch a movie that's been the topic of some discussion in science circles. That is Don't Look Up - a satirical look at science communication. The movie's been out for a little while now, so I feel justified in discussing the plot - so SPOILER ALERT!

Over the past week or so we've seen headlines separately related to the magnitude of the holiday road toll, and high number of summer drownings.

In my last newsletter I wrote about the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Post launch there were many operations that it had to go through to be successfully deployed, the most major of which included its unfolding.

This week it's been reported that University of Auckland scientists Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles and Professor Sean Hendy have taken a case to the Employment Relations Authority. They're claiming that their employer - the university - hasn't done enough to protect them from attack by people upset with their science communication and public comment on COVID-related issues. They describe their attackers as “a small but venomous sector of the public”.

If you're a member of NZ Skeptics you should receive a reminder to renew your subs soon. If you're not currently a member, you can join us for a very reasonable cost.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has successfully launched!

I think we have cause to celebrate. Despite not knowing what 2022 will bring, Aotearoa/New Zealand has a pretty high rate of vaccination - with over 91% of the eligible population having received two doses, though with Maori still under 80%.