Shane Warne is currently appearing on Australia's version of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!. He announced on the show that he thinks aliens created the pyramids in Egypt, and that they also engineered humans:

Antonin Scalia, a conservative Supreme Court judge in the US, died this week at age 79. Scalia took some strange legal views in his time, such as this one on evolution:

Yet another sea monster has been found, this time in Swansea, NSW, Australia. Ethan Tipper posted the photo on Facebook, asking "What the f*** is this?".

Last year professor Paul Glasziou from Bond University in Australia headed up a team that wrote a systematic review of systematic reviews on homeopathy as part of a report for Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

There is a one second shaky video of a Yeti, along with a higher resolution picture.

David Icke was last in NZ in 2011. He'll talk in Auckland about his new book (surprise, surprise!), lizards, the illuminati and many other nonsense subjects.

The Whakatane council voted to remove fluoride from its water supply a couple of weeks ago, and reversed the decision this week.

A couple of stories about fast food that set off my skeptical alarm bells this week.

Hang bags of water around to keep flies away. Coins or bits of tin foil can be used inside the bags.

Someone has put Mr Trump forward for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Supporters said in the submission that Mr. Trump deserved the prize for:

I went to see Creation Ministries International speaker Jonathan Sarfati give a couple of talks in Wellington last week. Jonathan was brought up in New Zealand, and was once the national chess champion.

Matthew Mills believes that the Sandy Hook school massacre in the US didn't happen. Unfortunately he's taken his belief to an extreme, publicly harassing the sister of one of the victims, a school teacher called Victoria Soto. Victoria has been hailed as a hero for her efforts to protect the children under her care, and lost her life in the process. Matthew believes that Victoria never existed, and has been harassing her sister in an effort to get her to admit this.

"The prime origin and cause of cancerous tissue is the over-acidification of the tissues then the blood due to lifestyle and dietary choices. A cancerous tissue begins with our choices of what we eat, what we drink, what we think and how we live. Cancer is a liquid and this liquid is a toxic acidic waste product of metabolism or energy consumption."

(Although we all know that fast food is not generally a great nutritional choice, there's a lot of nonsense out there about how bad fast food is. The most pernicious is about how fast food doesn't rot, and people have shown this by keeping McDonalds burgers for years, with only minimal breakdown of the food. Of course, it's been shown that in the same conditions where McDonalds burgers don't rot, organic home-made burgers don't rot either)

Research is coming to light that antioxidants in food and drinks are not useful to aid health, and may actually be damaging to us.

Australian Anti-vaccination activist's 11 week old daughter hospitalised for whooping cough, which kills 1 in 200 children who pick up the infection.

Former accountant turned psychic took $250 thousand from an elderly couple in a rest home who had been friends with him for 30 years. The money was taken over a period of 12 years.

A Bronx priest stole more than $1M from two NYC churches, and used the cash on a wild S&M romance with his beefy boyfriend

An osteopath in Christchurch has been disciplined for treating a patient's toothache by touching her breast.

Up to 80 kids - 1 in 4 - at Brunswick North West Primary School in Melbourne have contracted chicken pox. The school is tolerant or even welcoming of parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids. Newsletters have reiterated this view:

Rod Parsley of the World Harvest church isn't relying on his healing abilities to treat his throat cancer but is seeking actual medical treatments.

The Wellington Astrology centre, a drop-in office in central Wellington, is struggling to make ends meet and has turned to Pledge Me to raise funds. It's been running since 2011, but now needs $3,000 to cover the next 3 months of bills.

There has been a major end of the world prediction about every 100 years or so from 66AD onwards. Then from 1500AD (16th Century) every 10 years, then by the 1970s pretty much every year.

In early October the NZ Skeptics submitted a response to the Pharmacy Council's consultation on a proposed change to their Code of Ethics. It had recently been pointed out to the Pharmacy Council (by the Society for Science Based Healthcare) that many pharmacies sell unproven health products, in breach of their current Code of Ethics. The Pharmacy Council's proposed solution is to alter their code to remove the part of the clause that is being breached.

Shepherd Bushiri has claimed in a video that he is walking on air.

The NHS are advertising for a spiritual healer.

MagneSleep lost an ASA complaint about a magnetic bracelet they sell, and they don't like me

Houses can sell for up to 20% less than market value, and twice as hard to sell, if they're thought to be haunted. I wonder how much less it can be when they're not haunted?

He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate's sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.

During the recent visit of Pope Francis to the United States, in every city he visited, (Washington DC, New York City and Philadelphia,) there were people at the fringes of the largest crowds wearing bright yellow shirts, often carrying large yellow signs, handing out literature proclaiming the end of the world for October 7, 2015 from eBible Fellowship, led by Chris McCann.

One in 13 men will develop prostate cancer before the age of 75.

The Pharmacy Council is trying to change part of its Code of Ethics: Here is the old code:

seasonal hydrated salts detected when above -23c, would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine

A silly article on Stuff recently talked about the benefits of a haka before playing rugby:

A crew member felt their trousers being tugged, the bottom of someone's seat was kicked, a chandelier prop worked intermittently, and a hat was knocked off

Stuff published an article last week about Tamaha McDonald, from Blenheim, who is currently living in Mexico. Tamaha's wife, Jennifer, suffers from a lung condition which means that she needs a double lung transplant. They are currently raising money to help with this.

A blood moon is a new name for a lunar eclipse, where the earth travels between the sun and the moon. The full moon turns red.

The Dalai Lama has spoken about his successor, and suggested that if it's a woman, they would have to be attractive.

Dane Wigington, lead researcher for GeoEngineering Watch says:

Matthew Dawson-Clarke, 24, from Auckland was in Peru and took part in a cleansing ceremony.

A Southern Cross survey suggested some 1.56m New Zealanders regularly took the products. About 750,000 had done so for at least five years.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, and then think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

There was a Republican candidate debate on Wednesday, and I thought it would be good to look at the wrong-headed thinking of some of the candidates regarding vaccines.

Most of the serious claims have already been removed, after I talked to them on the phone, but Resene still talk about crystal energy and other nonsense concepts.

Waisake Naholo's miracle healing

He is a nuclear physicist, whose PhD focussed on nuclear decay. He worked in electronics for the military for nearly 40 years, and argues that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

A bravo was awarded at last year's conference to Graeme Hill for his ongoing promotion of science and challenging of pseudoscience on Radio Live.

Martin Harris is a previous winner of Best Complementary Healthcare Campaign, in 2012:

This year the NZ Skeptics Annual General Meeting was held separately from the conference, on 7 September in Wellington. Among the business attended to was the election of a new chair-entity, Mark Honeychurch, replacing Gold who takes on the new role of Head Geek, responsible for technological support. The NZ Skeptic took the opportunity to ask Mark a few questions about himself, and his vision for skepticism in New Zealand.