Craig Shearer

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.

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.

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.

And now for something completely different…

…It Just Tells Dirty Great Big Fat Whoppers!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!)

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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!

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%.

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

We love getting feedback on the newsletter, and hearing others' perspectives. And, we think that others would like this too.

NZ Skeptics occasionally received email asking about skeptical topics:

It has emerged that there's a man who's been showing up to receive the COVID vaccine on behalf of other people (for which he's being paid), having up to 10 vaccinations in a single day.

No doubt this week you will have seen the “sting” executed by Paddy Gower from Newshub.

Our recent Skepticon saw Richard Saunders, from the Australian Skeptics, present the results of The Great Australian Psychic Prediction Project.

NZ Skeptics has its Annual General Meeting on Sunday 12th December. We'll be holding this online, and we'd encourage any interested members to come along.

If you've been reading the newsletter for any time you'll be aware of the joint conference we ran with the Australian Skeptics last weekend. I hope you had a chance to attend and to view the talks. If not, you can still purchase a ticket.

For those readers who are members of NZ Skeptics (as off 1st April 2021 - that was our cut-off date), you will have, by now, (hopefully) received your Skeptic Card in the mail, along with a couple of stickers.

It's been revealed this week that you can wash disposable masks, and reuse them. The current advice from the Ministry of Health is that disposable masks should be used once then thrown away.

Back on YouTube channels again - you may have heard of the YouTube channel Veritasium. This one is a generally good science channel which has nearly 11 million subscribers.

Dr Sam Bailey has been in the news this week, which involved in a court case petitioning the High Court to stop the New Zealand Medical Council from investigating her.

As I write this there's news breaking about a new variant of concern of the COVID virus, now named as Omicron.

Craig Shearer announced the winners of our annual awards at the beginning of the second day of our conference, and it was accompanied by the following press release:

Last week Mark published an item from Stuart Landsborough, from Wanaka's Puzzling World about his recent epiphany about how we can deal with climate change. I found Stuart's item contained some great points, and it resonated with me. I'm worried about whether we'll be able to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen articles about Dominic Bowden on a new podcast about “wellbeing” called WellBeings. Dominic Bowden is a bit of a celebrity - having appeared on The Bachelor NZ amongst other shows.

It continues to amaze me the lengths science deniers and anti-vaxxers will go to to try to convince people of vaccine harm. This week, Daniel published some pictures from an anti-vax group on our Facebook page, purporting to show extreme bruising after the COVID vaccine. You can take a look at Daniel's post here but here's a taste of the claimed bruising

This coming week has the threat of action against the government with yet another protest organised by Destiny Church and its leaders Brian (variously adorned with the title of Bishop, or Apostle) and Hannah Tamaki.

In my last newsletter from two weeks ago, I wrote about the vaccine exemptions that anti-vaxxers wanted to use. They intended to use the wording of section 7A of the COVID response act to exempt themselves from the requirements to be vaccinated for work in professions where the vaccination has been mandated - teaching, healthcare, etc.

Our fantastic online conference - Skepticon 2021 - in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics is fast approaching.

If you're a regular reader of our weekly newsletter you'll know by now that we're running a conference in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics. Because of COVID-19 restrictions we made the decision to run it entirely online.

Our Prime Minister has quite a reputation around the world, but did you know she's also able to cause earthquakes?

A recent article on the Ars Technica site details the story of a so-called ethical hacker who was employed by a company to build a pro-Trump fake news empire. (Note, this is the real fake news, as in news that isn't true - compared to the “fake news” that Trump infamously categorised unfavourable coverage of him as.)

I'll preface this by saying that this is a topic I'm certainly not qualified to talk about.

Last week Sue Grey (lawyer) was back at the High Court challenging a “no jab, no job” order on behalf of aviation security workers who lost their jobs at the end of September for refusing the vaccine.

This week has seen the introduction of the Traffic Light System to replace the COVID lockdown levels currently in place. This will take effect once all of the country's DHB's achieve a 90% fully vaccinated rate for their populations.

Back to COVID seriousness now. It's been a frustrating week where we've seen the Delta variant now escape Auckland and head out to other parts of the country.

In the last newsletter I wrote, I discussed an open letter, penned by Mary Hobbs. Since publishing one of our contacts wrote to supply some more details. It appears that Mary and her husband are Scientologists, and deeply involved in that organisation, even making regular trips to Sydney to clear out a few Thetans, or whatever it is that they do. They even hosted Tom Cruise some time ago on a visit to NZ.

This past week has seen an appeal of the Peter Ellis child sex abuse case being heard in the Supreme Court.

We've been promoting the up-coming conference in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics for a few months now.