Despite much criticism of both the original broadcasts and the recent reruns, it appears that TVNZ are recording a new episode of Sensing Murder. The episode focuses on a murder in Napier in 2008.

The Effective Altruism movement is becoming popular in New Zealand. The basic idea is that logic and critical thinking can be applied to charity giving, and that charities range from being great at helping people to being as good as useless, or even detrimental.

Chris Johnson created a coffee table book a few years ago, quoting atheists talking about their life without god. The book was titled A Better Life, and the strap line explains exactly what the book is about - "100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy & Meaning in a World Without God".

Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:

Stuff have reprinted another article from Juice Daily, which claims that garlic, pineapple, a salt water gargle and chicken soup can help with allergies. Of course, this is all unproven tosh and certainly not good medical advice. Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat does a good job of deconstructing the article, going through all the links in the article and checking out the evidence for the claims. Unsurprisingly, the given evidence is very thin:

As part of the US presidential election circus, and given that both candidates are two of the oldest candidates ever, health records have become a part of the debate.

The NZ Herald reports that "a leading scientist" (Dr Poikolainen) has said a bottle of wine a day would do no harm to your health, and that drinking more than the current recommended daily amount of alcohol is more beneficial than not drinking at all. Dr Poikolainen has also written a book on the subject - "Perfect Drinking and its Enemies":

A woman has made the news today because she has been denied treatment for a medical condition, symphysis pubis dysfunction, related to her pregnancy. Southern Cross Insurance have said that the reason for not paying for treatment is that pregnant women in New Zealand are eligible for free healthcare, and so their policies don't cover pregnancy.

Julia Rucklidge from Canterbury University has suggested that processed food may be a cause of a mental illness epidemic.

The Society for Science Based Healthcare has recently submitted complaints about articles in two newspapers.

Brian Cox argued with Australian senator Malcolm Roberts on TV show Q&A about climate change, accusing NASA and other organisations of "corrupting" temperature data.

After a recent second campylobacter issue in Havelock North, it turns out that the Hastings water supply is not treated with chlorine to kill bacteria.

I totally agree that people should not be allowed to talk about treating health conditions if they have not received approval, and hopefully the upcoming Natural Health Products bill will be a step in the right direction in New Zealand for ensuring claims can't be made without good evidence.

Superfoods are foods that are touted as having high levels of one or more nutrients, with claims made that these nutrients can heal the body. These superfoods, such as kale, goji berries and chia seeds, are often sold at very high prices.

There were several witch doctors in Auckland last year, and they eventually left the country after efforts were made to clamp down on them, including some successful ASA complaints.

Here are my bullet points and photos from David Icke's recent 12 hour talk given in Auckland:

A leaflet has been shared in several british towns purporting to be from an unknown Muslim organisation, "For Public Purity", asking for locals to refrain from taking their dogs out in public as it is an affront to Islam. However, Muslim groups deny that there is any effort on their part to ban dogs and that the leaflets are likely a hoax designed to foment unrest in England.

A couple of weeks ago Rachel Hoover from Illinois was allowed to use a photo with her wearing a colander for her driver's license, as it is the usual headgear for pastafarians. This week she has been asked by the Secretary of State, John Kerry, to submit a new driver's license photo without the colander.

FYI is a great website for making Official Information Act requests. You can submit a request to a government department through the site and all correspondence is made public on the site.

Somebody asked Sandra Clair from Artemis, who writes for the Herald and sells natural remedies:

Pokemon Go is a new game where people have to use their phones and walk around their neighbourhood catching Pokemon (little animals) and visiting pokestops. Many churches are pokestops, as places of worship have been registered.

Australian Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" has opened its newest attraction, the Ark Encounter, on Thursday.

Yet another infomercial style article has been published on the NZ Herald, this time talking about the benefits of bee venom. Abeeco are a major seller of bee products in New Zealand, and they have several successful ASA complaints against them. Abeeco talks in the article about their products, but all they are able to produce in support of them is anecdotes - no proper data. The article even has an 0800 number at the bottom, and although it just says to call the number for "more information", nowhere does it state that the number is Abeeco's sales line!

This weekend's lottery Powerball jackpot was worth $40 million, with 3 winners. The NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB reported on Richard Lustig, a US man who has won several prizes and written a book explaining how to win the lottery.

I was asked for my thoughts about the most recent Sensing Murder re-run last week, and an article was published on Monday talking about the program. I talked with journalist Carly Gooch about how there are only around 60 unsolved murders from the last 100 years, and that it wouldn't take much for a "psychic" to memorise some of the details of each of these cases. I also managed to find an article online from 5 years before the program was filmed which detailed most or all of the facts that the psychics were able to produce.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/81470129/Christchurch-City-Council-to-reduce-use-of-potentially-dangerous-weedkiller

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/29/more-than-100-nobel-laureates-take-on-greenpeace-over-gmo-stance/

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/health/judge-to-sentence-parents-whose-little-boy-died-of-bacterial-meningitis-384237241.html

A recent article on Ken Ring's Predict Weather website, presumably written by Ken, has told people not to trust anything they read in the media. In a particularly conspiratorial tone, the article says that you should not trust politicians and you should consider not taking a cancer treatment that the medical profession recommends to you.

A petition on change.org has been signed by 1,000 vets asking for the UK to blacklist homeopathy as a treatment that vets can prescribe for animals. Over 2,500 people have signed it in all.

Tony Robbins is a very popular motivational speaker, and charges US$1,000 or more for a high energy day of talks. Events have names such as "Date with Destiny", "Life and Wealth Mastery" and "Unleash the Power Within". Tony's website has testimonials from famous celebrities, such as Hugh Jackman, Bill Clinton and Serena Williams. Video of Tony Robbins events look a lot like evangelical christian sunday services - lots of music, jumping around and highly emotional sermons.

A dermatologist at a recent anti-ageing conference has said that regularly exposing the face to the light and electromagnetic radiation from smartphones can speed up ageing and wrinkles. Doctors even claim they can tell which hand a person holds their phone in just by looking at which side of the face is most damaged.

Stuff published an advertorial article last week claiming that colloidal silver - small particles of silver in a cream or spray - could treat a variety of medical conditions. The article was written by a sales representative from Skybright Natural Health, a company which sells colloidal silver products. She said:

Tom DeLonge, the guitarist of a rock band in the US which was popular in the early 2000s has denied rumours that he's quit the band to focus on research into UFOs and aliens.

Consumer NZ used secret shoppers to visit 46 NZ beauty clinics with a raised skin spot. The issue was such that the undercover person should have been referred to a GP, but 7 of the 46 clinics said that they were able to treat the problem themselves, with lasers, electrocution, needling or cutting.

The Bilderberg Group met last week, and there were protests by the usual conspiracy crowd.

Chris Hyde from the Timaru Herald received a response to an OIA request to CYF this week. There was a recent case where a man was convicted for child abuse of CYF kids in Timaru, and he was used by CYF as an EFT practitioner.

A young woman died this week, while she was trying to raise $70k to fund and alternative cancer treatment at the Brio Clinic in Thailand. Amanda Ferreira also died last month from cancer. She had been to the Brio clinic once, and had been raising money to have further treatment there. Common treatments are heat therapy, ultrasound and pH transformation (probably alkaline).

There have been multiple sightings of UFOs in Christchurch this week, prompted by footage recorded by Oisin Lavelle. The footage shows a coloured blob moving erratically.

Bobby brown has spoken out about having sex with a ghost!

There is now a second panel that has been convened to review Christchurch Council's "Tonkin Taylor" coastal erosion report. The panel has been instructed to:

Maureen is the newest member of parliament, a National Party MP who seems to have a few pseudoscientific beliefs.

Chris Savage, an ex police officer from Australia, has a long history of being outright dangerous. He's anti-vaccine, and claims to be able to treat autism and cancer with magnesium (chloride) and DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) infusions. He's currently in New Zealand, and has been treating people while claiming he's a doctor.

The most plausible benefits probably occur from the mixture fermenting, producing heat. It's pretty unlikely that anything else in the spa is helping your body.

An image of dozens of dead kiwis was recently used by an anti 1080 Facebook activist group, New Zealand's Not Clean Green, to show that the poison is harming local wildlife.

Valerie Todd, an osteopath, has been found guilty by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal of performing acupuncture on three patients in Nelson in 2014 without the required qualifications, and will likely be fined $1,500 and a portion of the trial costs.

Family first have confused correlation and causation in a recent report, and stated that unmarried couples are a major cause of child poverty.

Rush Limbaugh, US radio talk show host, has used a conversation about Harambe the gorilla to argue that evolution does not work.

Family First may be de-registered as a charity soon. They have been sent a notice of de-registration from Charities Services, but plan to fight it in court. They have previously defended against an attempt to be de-registered last year.

Mark Hanna and I wrote a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal about research we had completed showing that the majority of chiropractors break the Chiropractic Board policy on advertising. The policy states: