Articles in the category "Editorial"

It was the Weirdest of Times

13 October 2025

We're living in strange times, with so much upheaval in the US that it's already having global repercussions.

I've just spent an enjoyable week on holiday in Taupō celebrating my 50th birthday. It's amazing to think that this massive lake is actually the caldera of a supervolcano that, for the last 30,000 years or so, has erupted on average around once every thousand years, and that it last erupted about 1,800 years ago. Staying in a property overlooking the lake certainly made me think a little about my own mortality, and my family's wellbeing. Given that, according to Wikipedia, the last eruption “devastated much of the North Island”, I guess it's more than just the local residents who will be affected when the volcano next erupts.

Oops, I forgot

15 September 2025

In the last newsletter, one of the articles that I said was included was a piece by Bronwyn, the third and final in her series about The Telepathy Tapes. Unfortunately I forgot to actually add the article to the newsletter! So, in this issue we have two articles about Facilitated Communication. The first of them is the second part of Janyce Boynton's article on whether FC has changed since the early days, and the second is Bronwyn's article.

Remember, Remember the 4th of September

1 September 2025

Just over a week ago we hosted two segments of the second annual Global Skeptics in the Pub Online - an event organised by Californian skeptics to coincide with their annual conference. It was a fun event again, with some really interesting perspectives, and it's always nice to hear what other skeptical groups are up to.

Conference Clarity

18 August 2025

In lieu of my usual blathering, this week we have an update from our chair, Bronwyn, about our plans for our conferences this year and next:

A Ray of Sunshine

4 August 2025

We received an email the other day from none other than (in)famous ex-Christchurch street preacher and evangelist Ray Comfort. Ray had found Bronwyn's article about him and emailed us, very briefly, to let her know that he liked the article:

Some very new news

21 July 2025

Thank you to everyone who filled in our recent survey about the possibility of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast hosts coming over to New Zealand next year, and whether this might have an effect on our conference plans for this year and next. We've been discussing your responses as a committee, and will be able to let everyone know fairly soon what our plans are.

Midwinter Musings

7 July 2025

I had a fun time this weekend with friends coming over to my house to celebrate Christmas. No, this email hasn't been delayed six months, or arrived from the future - it's July, not December. Like me, most of the friends that came over on the weekend are from the Northern hemisphere, and there's something that just feels right about having a second Christmas celebration every year when the weather's cold and miserable, just like it was in the “good old days”. We eat brussels sprouts and roast potatoes, drink mulled wine, and open presents - all while the TV plays YouTube videos with cheesy Christmas songs as the audio track and logs burning on an open fire as the video track. For one of our few Southern hemisphere guests, Aaron, not only is this mid-year “Midwinter Christmas” an alien idea, but he also never celebrated the usual December 25th Christmas when he was growing up. This is because he was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, and they famously avoid celebrating events like Christmas, Easter and birthdays. I met Aaron through the NZ Humanists a while after he'd “faded” from the organisation, and it's been great to be there to see him find his feet and move on with his life since then.

Live Long and Prosper

23 June 2025

After Bronwyn's article in the last newsletter about cryonics, Katrina and I have decided to get in on the action and write our own articles on related topics to accompany the second part of Bronwyn's series. It's been interesting to learn more about longevity and preservation - both the real science, and the pseudoscience. And thankfully there were a couple of fascinating documentaries I was able to watch to help me flesh out my article, so it wasn't all just reading for me.

We're still here!

9 June 2025

It's been interesting to see the world's richest man going toe to toe with the world's most powerful man. Nope, actually, interesting isn't the right word. I'm not sure what you call it when you can't tear your eyes away from two influential grown men acting like spoiled children. Maybe disappointing? Like when you tell your child you're disappointed in them. Anyway, Trump's still not pressed the big red nuclear button, and we're already nearly an eighth of the way through his presidency, so maybe we'll survive this yet.

Skeptic or Geese?

26 May 2025

In my efforts to wrestle with the push to include AI content in our newsletter, I've been chatting recently with our newest regular contributor, Patrick Medlicott, about why I prefer content that is written by humans. One new reason that popped into my head is that I know, from editing people's stories every fortnight, that each of our writers leaves their own distinct fingerprints on each and every article they write. Bronwyn, Katrina and Patrick each have their own tell-tale signs that they have written an article - certain repeated typos, punctuation choices, use (or lack of use) of commas, sentence length, repeatedly used words and phrases, etc. Each of these things has become very familiar to me, and through my editing I try to clean up each article without losing too much of these fingerprints.

I'd like to be... under the sea

12 May 2025

The world now has a new Pope. He's American, which seems to have pleased Donald Trump, but it seems that nobody's quite sure where he currently stands on the issue of treating gay people fairly. There have been some old comments that suggest that, a decade ago at least, Robert Francis Prevost (now known as Leo XIV) wasn't too keen on equality, but there's also hope that maybe the last pope, Francis, has softened Leo's heart in the last decade.

Papal Mor(t)ality

28 April 2025

As I'm sure you're all aware, although I'd question whether it really should be international news, the Catholic Pope has died. So we're all now going to be eagerly awaiting the white smoke that tells us the Catholic cardinals have chosen their new leader. I wish this wasn't news - a small group of senior (both old and high-ranking) people choosing which of them gets to be in charge of a pre-scientific organisation with supernatural beliefs doesn't seem to be something we should have to care about. But…

What's your Horsenality?

14 April 2025

In Wellington, we're hoping to take a trip to the Abundant Life church early next month. The church's pastor, Hamish Thomson, recently took over the running of the quarterly Prayers at Parliament meetings that myself and other skeptics have attended in the past, but this isn't why we'll be visiting. On May the 4th, in the evening, the church will be hosting guest speaker Mike Collins (no, not the astronaut who didn't land on the moon, this one's a speaker for Creation Ministries International (CMI)) giving a talk titled “How Evolution Hurts Science and People”. With a title like that, I think we'll be in for a real treat - a fairly major bending of the truth to fit a conservative religious narrative.

The Machines are Revolting

31 March 2025

After having written in the last issue about the committee's hesitance to let people submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter that include significant AI content, I wasn't totally surprised to receive an email from Peter Harrison, who we've had on our podcast before talking about AI. What did surprise me, though, was the formal tone of his letter - which at first I took to be a little passive-aggressive. However, this and the Americanized spelling still didn't tip me off as to the real author of the email:

210 - Wind Speed or IQ?

17 March 2025

An interesting point came up when preparing this week's newsletter. In Patrick's article about a couple of recent climate change papers, he's used AI (he doesn't specify which one) to summarise one of the papers for him. As soon as I saw this I had a knee-jerk reaction that writing an article for us in this way is probably not the way we want to go. I've been proud that we've managed to put together a lot of fascinating, entertaining content over the last few years, and the idea that we might offload some of that effort to an AI worries me.

Are These Better Work Stories?

3 March 2025

It's less than a week before my skeptical road trip to try to find the Kaimanawa wall, on the way up to Auckland to visit the new Mormon temple. We're looking forward to meeting up with people for brunch on Sunday, and we're also looking to see if there's anything weird and wonderful we can do on the Sunday afternoon or evening. Maybe a visit to see Brian Tamaki spout his vitriolic hatred would be fun?

A day late, but still skeptical

18 February 2025

Unfortunately Mailchimp failed me last night, and refused to let me login to their website to send out the newsletter. But we're back up and running now, bringing you skeptical news from New Zealand and beyond.

Anyone been to the Kaimanawa Wall?

3 February 2025

In just over a month's time, Bronwyn and I will be driving up to Auckland to visit New Zealand's second Mormon temple. We're also going to try to visit the Kaimanawa wall on the way, so if anyone's been there and has any advice about driving the gravel road to the nearby camp site, I would love to hear from you. While in Auckland we'll try to organise a Skeptics' get together - maybe brunch somewhere on Sunday the 9th. So, if you're in Auckland, we'd love for you to join us for a chilled out chat.

New Year, New Nonsense

21 January 2025

It's been a productive break for our newsletter contributors, and therefore we have another record-breaking newsletter this week, with a great set of articles for you to read. Firstly one of our members, Patrick, has put his hand up and offered to write us a series of articles on climate change - as he says, it's a serious issue that we can't afford to be complacent about, let alone try to deny its very existence - as some people do (sadly even some in our skeptical community).

Aliens Special

6 January 2025

Happy New Year! We had so many articles come in for our Alien special that I had to split them up into two separate newsletter issues, and even then this issue is probably our longest newsletter yet. We'll be back to our normal programming in a couple of weeks, hopefully looking at the Honey browser extension scam, the phenomena of vocal fry and indie voice/cursive singing in modern music, the potential resurgence of an unusual group I covered last year, a review of the recent movie Heretic, and more.

Alien Special

23 December 2024

Maybe it's the day drinking, uni students on summer break, or NZ tourism has gone intergalactic, but it seems that December is prime UFO time for New Zealand. So, for the next couple of issues of the newsletter, we're going to focus on otherworldly things, starting with three December UFO events:

Cats and other Cryptids

9 December 2024

Okay, so maybe cats aren't cryptids, but we own two of them and sometimes I wish they were mythical beings rather than very real little monsters who regularly tear holes in my furniture.

Rationality and Skepticism, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

25 November 2024

Last weekend we held our annual conference in Auckland - this time co-organised with the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH). We started off the weekend on Friday evening at Rationalist House, the NZARH's building on Symonds street. The first event was a Skeptical quiz, hosted by me, as usual featuring some pretty tough questions:

Going Green around the Gills

11 November 2024

Is Going Green like Breaking Bad, where you take a wrong turn in your life and start making dubious life choices? Because the owners of the Go Green Expo, held at different locations around the country each year, seem to have made a really bad life choice when they decided to let alt-med nonsense into their Expo right from its inception.

Thoroughly DeCulted

29 October 2024

Last weekend I travelled down to Christchurch for the DeCult conference, and it was fascinating to hear so many personal stories about the many ways in which cults coerce and mistreat people, as well as some of the ideas people have about how we may be able to minimise the damage that cults are able to do. There were lots of brave people who, having gone through hell while members of these groups, still had the energy to stand up to them and fight once they realised the wrongs that had been done. I was able to say hello to quite a few survivors of different cults who I've met over my years as a skeptic in New Zealand, and also some of our NZ Skeptics members who had made the trip to the conference. And our chair, Bronwyn, gave a great talk about ISTA and Highden that I was able to hear. Although I was volunteering to help at the conference, and had been rostered to work in a different room while Bronwyn was speaking, I managed to organise someone to cover me and my daughter so that we could sit in and hear her telling everyone about just some of the weirdness around Highden and Bruce Lyon.

No Rest for the Wicked

14 October 2024

It's going to be a busy end to this year, with two conferences coming up and a few other goings on that we're looking forward to here in Wellington. As well as the Decult and NZ Skeptics/NZARH Conferences, Bronwyn and I have a couple of smaller events on the horizon. Firstly, we're booked to go on a ghost hunt at the end of this month, and then we're also hoping to finally get to hear a talk on UFOs from Share International. We've tried twice so far, and had events cancelled on us, so hopefully the third time's a charm. Expect to hear more from us on these events in this newsletter, and maybe also an alien special issue coming soon.

Be the Early Bird

30 September 2024

Today is the last day to get early bird tickets for our annual NZ Skeptics Conference, this year in partnership with the NZARH, in Auckland from the 15th to the 17th of November. If you're keen to come and listen to some fascinating talks about skepticism, covering a diverse array of topics (and with something of a focus on religion, given this year's partnering with the Rationalists), make sure you get your tickets today to save a little money. The regular authors of this newsletter will be there, as we'll be recording a live episode of our Yeah… Nah! Podcast at the event. If you're able to make it, be sure to come over and say hi to us as it's always good to chat with people and make new connections at these events.

The Dawning of the Age of Equuleus

16 September 2024

A couple of weeks ago I talked with a journalist about psychics, as she was looking into a story that Kelvin Cruickshank appeared to have muscled his way into. As well as giving her some information about how psychics work, and a little about Kelvin, I had also suggested to her that she should visit a psychic to get an idea of how they operate. A day later she let me know that she was planning to visit a psychic fair that weekend, and I suggested that I could meet her there to brief her on what to expect. So, on Saturday morning two weekends ago, Bronwyn and I headed to Upper Hutt and met with Virginia.

Goodbye, Craig!

2 September 2024

We've had a bit of a changing of the guard over the last couple of weeks - Craig Shearer has decided to step back from his major responsibilities with the NZ Skeptics, as he plans to focus more on some of his other hobbies and endeavours. Craig will no longer be writing regular articles for us or hosting and editing our podcast, although he has said that he'll write something for us if and when he feels sufficiently impassioned by something annoyingly unskeptical, and he's planning to remain on the committee.

Calling all Māori Atheists

19 August 2024

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to attend a talk given by Sara Rahmani to the NZ Humanists in Wellington. At the talk she summarised her findings from a set of interviews she's conducted with Māori who have been happy to talk with her about their spiritual journeys with her. Although most of these journeys have been from belief to non-belief, taking a variety of different paths to get there, she has also interviewed a few people who still hold religious or spiritual beliefs.

The only good Cult is a DeCult

5 August 2024

Anke Richter, who we've talked to on our podcast in the past, has promised to write an article for our newsletter soon. In the meantime she'd like us to let you all know that, if you're in Christchurch, there are a couple of interesting events coming up.

Global Skeptics in Cyberspace

22 July 2024

From 7pm on Friday night we opened the first ever 24 hour Global Skeptics in the Pub, an online event in the run-up to the SkeptiCal conference, hosted online by skeptics in Northern California. The event coincided with our usual four-weekly Skeptics in Cyberspace meeting, so it lined up nicely.

Les Oeufs Pochés

8 July 2024

We're currently looking at streamlining this newsletter, and one promising option we're looking at is to move its creation to Wordpress, our current website CMS (Content Management System). The only obvious difference this would make to you would be that our newsletter emails would no longer contain the full text of our articles - instead there would be an excerpt, along with a link to the full article online. I'd love to hear from anyone for whom that would be an issue, where it might make it harder for you to access our newsletter (just email me at newsletter@skeptics.nz). Ideally I may be able to figure out a way to include the full text of our articles still, but so far a workable solution has eluded me.

Dubious claims and “facts”

24 June 2024

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Save Marsden Point Refinery efforts, spearheaded by conspiracy theorists who are trying to convince Channel Infrastructure, by hook or by crook, to stop the decommissioning of the refinery and restore it, while also converting it to be able to process our own crude oil. The main driver behind this effort, Karl Barkley, suffered a mishap recently when his van (which is covered in billboards for The Cause) was towed away from a loading zone by Hamilton Towing Services.

Spiritual Shenanigans

10 June 2024

I would like to start this issue of the newsletter with an apology. In the last newsletter in my brief editorial I mistakenly attributed the proposed Bathroom Bill to David Seymour's political party, ACT, but of course it's been proposed by another coalition partner, Winston Peter's New Zealand First party. Thank you to the readers who were quick to point out my mistake!

The Short and Long of It

27 May 2024

I'm going to keep my intro short this week, because our articles are pretty long and I don't want to bore you all before you even get to the first one - which is an article from someone we've not heard from before, Darren Bird. Darren's written about ACT's new proposed bill attempting to legislate the use of bathrooms - and if you think it sounds suspicious, you'd be right. After Darren we have a piece from Craig, who has looked at someone who's fascinated me for a little while now, Don Murray; I've spent some time clicking through his website over the last few months, and still can't get to grips with him and what he thinks his special powers are. Thankfully Craig's done a nice job of summarising some of his nonsense.

Aurora Skepticalis

13 May 2024

This weekend those of us who weren't screwed over by cloudy evenings were treated to a rare view of the Aurora Australis. As skeptics, though, you won't be surprised to hear that there's no lack of scaremongering when it comes to the aurora. Take, for instance, this iPhone app that promises that you can “Protect your Life” from solar storms:

Ghosts in the Machine

29 April 2024

As we've just had two weeks of school holidays, I've just spent a week in Australia. Sadly during that time a new set of Mormon missionaries were unable to visit me at home to try to convert me. But, don't despair, they've already messaged me again and we've arranged to meet on Saturday. At this point I'm not sure if they seriously think they have a chance to win me over, or if I'm just a sport for them - but I enjoy the conversations, so I'll continue to let them visit me at home and take a couple of hours of my time.

Don't worry, this newsletter isn't going off air

15 April 2024

I was planning to attend a Safe ICT event in Wellington last weekend, where I was going to be warned about the dangers of WiFi mutating my mitochondria. I've written about Safe ICT before, after I spent a while talking to them at the Go Green expo in Wellington. They're an advocacy group who appear to have irrational fears about technology, and prefer to side with individual fringe scientists who write flawed scientific papers, rather than choosing the side that has the weight of scientific evidence behind it. A large part of what they seem to push for is turning off any wireless protocols where possible, and buying expensive ethernet to USB adapters that allow you to run a wired connection from your home router to your mobile phone. Wait until they find out about everything else around them that happens to generate electromagnetic fields! Anyway, a prior event ran for longer than expected, and I missed the event, but next time they run something local I'll be sure to attend.

Happy Skeptical Easter

2 April 2024

I hope everyone's had a good long weekend, and was able to spend it doing the things they love. I was able to spend a day hanging out with friends, put some finishing touches to a fake tourism plaque I've been making for a prank in Wellington, and spent some time sorting and photographing my vintage necktie collection. As part of doing this I learned more than I ever needed to know about the history of tie manufacturers in New Zealand, including Parisian, John Webster, Klipper, Sander and Eskay.

Citizen Science Done Badly

18 March 2024

Apologies for this week's newsletter being a little late - I was planning to finish it off last night, but I was hit by some weird medical issue where I had a horrible headache and ended up sleeping from 5pm to get rid of it.

Nonsense knows no borders

4 March 2024

Another fortnight, another newsletter. Thanks to everyone who's been ensuring that I have good skeptical content to publish. And, dear reader, if you think you have a skeptical story in you that you want to tell, I would love to hear from you. If you're not sure if you're able to write a compelling story, don't worry - I'm more than happy to help you craft something that will pass muster. And if you're concerned that you'll be too verbose, I'm happy to cut down your story to a more manageable size - or, more likely, serialise it and publish it in multiple issues. And, remember, if you write us an article and you're happy joining us on the NZ Skeptics' podcast, Yeah… Nah!, we'd love to talk with you there as well. Just reply to this email to get in contact with me, or email news@skeptics.nz, if you think you might have something that is worth sharing.

Cranks and Con-artists

19 February 2024

Our ongoing plagiarism project is going well - thanks to the people who reached out and offered to help with running the text we have through TurnItIn. We're now receiving reports from two different academics who are putting the documents through two different plagiarism detectors. Our evidence, and the website we're building to showcase it, is coming together well. It's been a lot of work so far, but there's a lot still to do, so we'll keep working until we've built the most thorough case we're able to put together - we really want to make sure we do this well, as it involves serious accusations.

Watch this Space

5 February 2024

After many months of radio silence, the odd Global Flourishing group that I wrote about last year briefly stirred before going quiet again. Rest assured, if anything comes of this, I'll be watching it closely and writing about it. Here are the messages that appeared on the group's Discord channel last week:

You can't beat good on a Wellington Day

23 January 2024

It was Wellington Day yesterday, so this newsletter is a day later than usual. It's been a very warm weekend here in Wellington, but I've spent most of the weekend inside, with the air conditioning on, working on our plagiarism project (no, we're not planning to plagiarise from elsewhere to fill our newsletter!). Between Dan Ryan and myself, we have enough coding skills to be able to write software tools that are making our job of detecting and displaying cases of plagiarism much quicker - so I've been spending the weekend writing software.

The Year Ahead

8 January 2024

Happy New Year, and welcome to our first newsletter of 2024. I've had a nice couple of weeks off work so far, and weirdly I've spent a few days this week staying at a religious retreat in the middle of nowhere! (For context, it was the best deal I could find on Airbnb, and I only found out the details of what the place was used for after I'd booked to stay there).

Merry Christ/Newtonmas

25 December 2023

Although we've reduced our newsletter output to biweekly, that doesn't stop us from releasing an issue on Christmas day! Wherever you are, and whatever, if anything, you're celebrating, I hope you have an awesome day.

Twisting the truth

11 December 2023

It's weird not having had a newsletter out last week. Hopefully you didn't miss us too much! As our sole editor I'll be keeping to a biweekly schedule for now - although if we get more content coming our way from readers and committee members, who knows, I may be able to return to producing the newsletter on a weekly basis. For now, you can expect to read something from myself, Bronwyn and Craig every fortnight, and then we'll be recording our podcast in the days following the newsletter's release, and chatting about either our articles or something else that tickles our fancy. If you feel moved to write an article for us, just send your article to news@skeptics.nz and we'll let you know if we plan to publish it, which is very likely to be the case as we love reading all your thoughts on skeptical topics, and I'm sure our audience does too. And, once your article's been published, we'll probably want you to join us on the podcast to talk about it as well - but only if you're comfortable with doing that.

Another Year, Another Conference

27 November 2023

Apologies for the slightly late delivery of this issue of our newsletter - I'm currently tapping away on my keyboard on the ferry at Picton, waiting to start the final leg of our journey back home to Wellington from the conference.

The conference is night, streaming docs and twin flames, Dunedin Skeptical History

20 November 2023

This past couple of weeks has been pretty busy for me. We're now very close to our NZ Skeptics Conference in Dunedin this coming weekend - 24th - 26th November. It's going to be an amazing weekend of talks and entertainment and fun.

Live Long and Prosper

13 November 2023

In the last two weeks, since my last newsletter, I've been re-visited by Mormon sisters - who stayed to talk with me for an epic three hours, and have promised to come back again with more congregation members. I've also managed to catch COVID for a second time. Thankfully the second time round, although just as painful for the first few days, doesn't seem to have had the long-lasting after-effects (tiredness, lack of taste) that it did the first time.

Ārepa brain drink, EMF protection, and a crypto critic book

6 November 2023

This week I'm taking a look at the recent controversy surrounding Ārepa - the brain drink product that's been pulled up by the Ministry of Primary Industries for making unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits of its product.

Spooky Special

30 October 2023

I'm happy to let everyone know that the result of the recent Jehovah's Witness court case has been released. This was the High Court case I visited on my lunch break a couple of weeks ago, where the JWs were trying to argue that they shouldn't be investigated as part of the government's current Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry. Thankfully the church has lost its case, and its argument that it doesn't “care” for its members was not enough to allow them to escape scrutiny. The Commission put out a short press statement after the decision was made public:

Democracy, M.O.A.R, Loopy emails and BS wellness products, and fake doctors.

24 October 2023

I hope you had an enjoyable Labour Weekend for those able to take some time off.

The More Things Change

16 October 2023

I popped into the High Court last week to sit in on a court case where the Jehovah's Witnesses are attempting to argue that they should be exempt from the current Royal Commission enquiry in Abuse in Care. Sara Passmore and I (we're both NZ Skeptics committee members) visited for an hour, and we seem to have accidentally sat on the “wrong” side of the courtroom. Having sat down, we looked around and realised that our side of the room was mostly men in suits (including, I think, Alfred Ngaro - more on him in the article below), whereas the other side of the room was mainly women, including one with bright pink hair.

Gender and vaccines, a work from home scam, and more skeptical history

9 October 2023

This week my contribution is relatively small. Today, as I write this, is my 15th wedding anniversary, so my lovely wife and I are doing some celebrating today. But, I've put together an item covering some email conversations I've been having of the last week or two with somebody who's coming from the other side of things, evidence-wise, and has some quite interesting beliefs.

Tim, Tim and BronTim?

2 October 2023

I was going to publish an article this week about another of my scam adventures - this time, a “job” I accepted where I was supposedly testing mobile apps and getting paid lots of money to do it. But, with contributions from occasional contributor Tim Atkin, new contributor Tim Price (who is a work colleague of mine, and a new member of our Society), and Bronwyn, I don't dare make this week's issue any longer than it already is! Rest assured, though, that you'll be able to read about my scam soon (as well as another scam I took part in last week, where I was promised a payment of $100,000, and all I needed to do was pay them $1,000 first), and you can probably hear about it on our podcast as well.

Near Death Experiences, ISTA, Minnows in the election, and more...

25 September 2023

This week I listened to a segment on Radio New Zealand about Near Death Experiences. It was an interesting listen, but ultimately a one-sided presentation of a Massey University assistant professor's research. I take a look at NDEs and how the research was presented.

Number 5 is Alive

18 September 2023

For the last few months, we've been asking if anyone has a copy of our missing NZ Skeptics Journal issues, and with the help of long-time member John Welch we were able to fill most of our gaps, with the exception of issue 5. Since then we've been wondering if maybe issue 5 didn't exist, that maybe the elusive number 5 was skipped as a joke to wind up future archivists - an urban legend, the mysterious issue that nobody could find.

Psychic spat, I went to (a) church, Therapeutic Products Act

11 September 2023

I've got a broad collection of items this week. I start off looking at the recent spat between a couple of prominent alleged psychic mediums and their tours around New Zealand.

Exponential Growth

4 September 2023

For this week's newsletter, I bumped into a news story about Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist who seems to be making a career out of making unfounded claims of having discovered aliens. On the back of the recent David Grusch shenanigans in the US, it's not surprising that the public are hungry for alien stories, and Avi has a great one for them to feast on - it's just sad that it's likely going to end up being found to be nothing more than sloppy science and wild conjecture.

FLOATERs, crazy uncles, climate change misinformation, and more...

28 August 2023

This week I'm concentrating on climate change misinformation through a bunch of slightly connected items.

Secrets and Lies

21 August 2023

Over the last week or so I've been approached online by two scammers and, I guess because of the amount of free time I have now that I'm not attending Eastern Lightning fellowship meetings, I decided to play ball with both of them and see where the scam leads. Neither has reached the point yet where I've been asked to give them my money, but in both cases it didn't take long to see where the con would eventually come. Once we get to that point, which is likely to be in the next day or two for both, I will have a couple of fun articles to write - I've already been meticulously copy/pasting all of my chat sessions with the scammers in documents, so that I have a record of everything that goes on. As a taster, here's a fun preview of one of the incidental conversations I had with a “Customer Care” representative for a company I'm now apparently working for:

RCR economic reality, Sam Bailey, whacky election candidates, and Glo Flo part 3

14 August 2023

It's been a very busy week for me, with various things happening, including recording the latest episode of our Yeah… Nah! podcast in which we interviewed Dr Siouxsie Wiles and Gwen Isaac about the Ms. Information documentary we've recently covered. It's well worth a listen (in my humble opinion).

Miss Conduct

7 August 2023

Speaking of misinformation, myself and some other skeptics in Wellington went to watch Ms. Information last night, as part of the NZ International Film Festival. As Craig said last week, Ms. Information is a documentary about Siouxsie Wiles, created by Gwen Isaac and her crew who followed Siouxsie on and off for around two years, starting at the beginning of the pandemic. The documentary focused less on the content of the misinformation that Siouxsie and others tackled during the early days of the pandemic, and more on the abuse that was hurled at her - up to and including quite a few death threats. Not only has Siouxsie been a long-time skeptic, speaking at several of our conferences and helping to run the Auckland Skeptics in the Pub group for many years, but her husband Steven, also featured in the documentary, was a committee member of the Skeptics for several years.

Ms. Information, LK-99, Thermography, Kambo and Two-by-Twos

31 July 2023

One of our regular readers (Hi Ray... and Paul) has requested we put a date on our newsletters, so you'll be receiving this on 31st July, 2023.

Going Undercover is Fun!

24 July 2023

Last Monday night I attended a local talk given by National Party leader Chris Luxon, along with Tim and Alexander, who have written articles for this week's newsletter. This meeting wasn't the main attraction, it was just a prelude to the big event of the week on Tuesday.

Back in the saddle, will AI take our jobs?, Aspartame cancer risk and more...

17 July 2023

As some regular readers will have noticed, I've not been writing the newsletter over the past few weeks. Mark, Bronwyn, Katrina, and others have stood in for me, writing a great set of articles.

I'm running out of cults to join

10 July 2023

We have some fun articles coming up in the next few weeks. Firstly, my time in the Church of Almighty God (Eastern Lightning) has come to an end, and not through my choosing. I'll be writing one final article about the group, as well as publishing a piece from Wellington Skeptics in the Pub member Tim Atkin about how the church managed to spread so widely under strict communist rule in China. Dan Ryan talked with me the other day about some spammy Facebook ads he's been getting recently for a hair analysis service, and as we looked into it at our regular Skeptical Activism meeting, we realised that not only could we have a little fun with this (I have a friend who works for Auckland Zoo who's on board for some interesting testing), but also digging deeper we realised some interesting information about the people running the scam. More on that soon, hopefully!

Our Very Own Musical Skeptacular

3 July 2023

There's a trend among some of the longer-running US TV shows of, after a few seasons, releasing a musical special. I guess once a show's creators know they're on safe ground, and that their show isn't going to be cancelled in the near future, they can take the risk of making a themed episode - and music seems to be a common theme. Shows that have had their cast break out into song for an episode include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Psych and Scrubs. And, although I'm not a fan of musicals, this issue of our newsletter will be focusing on music and audio.

19 Prayers and Counting

26 June 2023

Something that has become a bit of a tradition for Mark Honeychurch and myself is attending the quarterly Prayers@Parliament event, where we join MPs and Christian leaders inside parliament to pray for our nation. We figured that last week's session would be an extra special one, as it would be the last one before the election and, having attended the Freedoms NZ roadshow, we were expecting some doozy prayer requests.

Nonsense: In the air, in our brains, in politics and down in Christchurch

19 June 2023

Craig is away in the US for the next four weeks, so I'm going to try to hold the fort until he gets back. Thankfully I have articles from some of our reliable contributors this week, and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to convince one or more of them to take over for an issue or two in the coming weeks.

Justice?, Controversy, The Warehouse and more...

12 June 2023

This is going to be my last newsletter for a little while.

Thank Almighty God Above

6 June 2023

This weekend I think I may have finally managed to reach the end goal of my time in the Eastern Lightning (Church of Almighty God) group in New Zealand. Having been asking for months now if I could get my hands on one of the many books that the church prints, I finally have a copy.

Conference in November, Bye Buttar, Can't believe my eyes and more...

29 May 2023

This week I'm announcing our upcoming conference in Dunedin in November. I indulge in some schadenfreude about the demise of a disinformation promotor, and take a look at generative AI for images. Also, Al Blenney blesses us with another item, this time looking at a kiwi blogger who seems right into various QAnon conspiracy theories.

Does anyone like Scrapbooking?

22 May 2023

This week I've looked at what might be behind a funny story about combat-ready mermaids, and found out that it's not the answer I thought I was going to find. I also did a silly thing, and joined a Multi Level Marketing scheme - but don't worry, it's all above board. Just email me if you'd like to join my downline or buy some of my scrapbooking products, and I can give you my affiliate link.

Car recall, Street Epistemology, Mercury in retrograde and more

15 May 2023

I've taken a break from the newsletter for the past couple of weeks, having been away on holiday in Australia. The newsletter has been competently handled by Mark, Bronwyn, and Katrina.

Scam on the New Zealand horizon, a confession, an avatar, and priceless real estate

8 May 2023

If you have a social media account, you may have found your feed clogged with advertisements for the new ecommerce platform TEMU. The company launched in NZ in March but has only ramped up its promotions in the past week. In particular they use influencers to encourage potential customers to send their friends and family referral links. In return, the referrers are able to earn tokens, chances to enter draws, and play casino games in order to win cash. If that wasn't worrisome enough, the company has already been subject to comparisons to the low-quality products of other ecommerce platforms like WISH and SHEIN. I'm currently on a dogged quest to find out all I can about this company and, while it isn't a pyramid scheme or MLM, its operations are reminiscent of other businesses I've written about. Keep your eye open for an article on TEMU in the near future.

Quitting Junk, Keto, Bad Bitcoin Tips and the Keepers of Mysteries

1 May 2023

Well, hello there! Craig isn't looking and Mark is busy writing, so I thought I would slip in here and write the editorial for this week.

You get a cult... you get a cult... everybody gets a cult

24 April 2023

The NZ Skeptics held an SGM (Special General Meeting) on the weekend to go over our proposed new constitution and vote on its adoption. We're doing this because there's an upcoming change in the law that will require Societies' constitutions to be aligned with the new law's requirements. Thankfully we have an active committee, and several members were willing to give up several hours in their weekends to go through the new constitution recommended by Companies Office (who administer Societies) and integrate the key parts of our old constitution with the new one. We also injected a few skeptically-themed easter eggs into our new constitution, so that it's not an entirely boring read. Thanks to everyone who turned up to our SGM and voted to accept our new constitution, and to those who suggested changes.

$100K challenge update, Gummies, and Billboards

17 April 2023

This week I've an update on the NZ Skeptics $100K challenge, and take a look at a scam product I've seen advertised via an app I use.

Everyone's lying to us

11 April 2023

In this week's newsletter I've taken a deep dive into a spam email trying to flog me snake oil, and found a funny coincidence at the end of the rainbow. I've also written about some of the more sneaky tactics I've seen the church of the Eastern Lightning use to try to attract new members, and keep them in the church. And finally Bronwyn has returned to Multi Level Marketing schemes (MLMs), detailing Prüvit and their health food products - I'm very tempted to make a joke about the food pyramid!

$100K to give away, EV fires, NESRA, and Ray Comfort

3 April 2023

I've had a wee break off writing the newsletter for the past couple of weeks, as Brownyn and Mark have contributed lots of content, but it's my turn again this week - thankfully with some great contributions from the aforementioned Bronwyn - with a continuation of her look at the life of Christian Evangelist Ray Comfort, and also previous contributor Alistair Blenney, who takes a look at NESARA.

Science > God

27 March 2023

In this week's newsletter, I've published the text from a couple of oral submissions the NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) recently presented to MPs. One interesting part of this was a question asked of SBH, which allowed Daniel Ryan to detail some of the harms that Natural Health Products have caused in New Zealand. I've included Dan's email, and the short but promising response he received. I've also written about my time after graduation from the Eastern Lightning online fellowship meetings and my entry into the Level 3 group, as well as my brief foray into its leadership.

Once more unto the Breach

20 March 2023

I've been thrown into the editorial breach this weekend due to being the contributor who made the most…well…contributions. Fortunately, it is a job that for me has all the glory and none of the work, as the only thing that is required from me is to write up this introduction.

Masks, Reality Check?, Electric University, Jessa Duggar

13 March 2023

This week's been a busy one for me, with Skeptics in the Pub in Auckland on Tuesday night, recording and editing our podcast on Wednesday night, and various other activities.

Is this the longest issue yet?

6 March 2023

It's a bumper issue today, but I make no apologies for bringing you a ridiculously long email! If you're using a web based client like GMail, you may need to click the “View entire message” link or similar to read the whole newsletter this week, or click the “Read this in your browser” button at the top of the email to open the newsletter as a web page in your browser.

Farewell Robert, Liz Gunn arrested?, Census religion question

27 February 2023

It's hard to believe it's the end of February already, and the official end to summer, at least on a calendar month basis. With all the rain and weather events we've had, it's hard to think that this summer has been a classic one. Still, it may well have finally made some of the more sluggish members of the population wake up to the reality of climate change. And what a reality it is, with the massive destruction that took place in Hawke's Bay and other areas. The cost of replacing infrastructure seems that it place a big burden on our economy for some time.

<Insert call to action here>

20 February 2023

This week's newsletter starts off (relatively) lightly, with an article from Katrina about p-hacking. Katrina's been writing some great articles for us recently, and it was a pleasure to have her on our podcast a couple of weeks ago. We're hoping to have her join us again to talk about her new article this week, and if you're both a listener and a reader you can get a sneak preview of what she'll be talking about.

Lincoln Russ preaches, We get mail, and Happy Darwin Day (belated)

13 February 2023

As I write this on Sunday morning in Auckland, we're beginning to see the start of bad weather from Cyclone Gabrielle, which is expected to cause high winds and extreme rain in the upper North Island.

Truly I am Blessed

7 February 2023

This week's newsletter will feature no articles from me - and this makes me very happy. Why have I not written anything, you may ask, and why am I happy about it. Well, because I'm blessed - and not just once, but twice. Let me explain…

Flooding, Saying goodbye, Religious spam and more...

30 January 2023

I've got a bumper crop of articles this week, from several contributors. Holly Blackler tells us about her efforts to secularise Wellington city. Katrina Borthwick writes about the Herbalist Charter, and regular contributor Bronwyn Rideout continues her series on the Science of Identify Foundation.

Out with the old, in with the new

24 January 2023

I guess the biggest news this week is that our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is resigning, and that she will be replaced by Minister Chris Hipkins. However, I'm not sure there's much of skeptical interest that I can say about this news. I think Ardern did a good job steering us through tough times, and obviously I'm dismayed about the vitriol she's had hurled at her from the conspiracy cheap seats. I don't know too much about Hipkins, but again he seems competent, and he's been working to remove Religious Instruction from schools - which I see as a positive step for an increasingly irreligious and secular country like ours.

Therapeutic Products Bill, M3GAN and Bad science, Ānanda Mārga cult

16 January 2023

This is my first newsletter for the year. I had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year and had some nice time off from work.

Happy New Year!

9 January 2023

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and that if you had a break that it was an enjoyable one. I was lucky enough to be greeted by the following passive aggressive email on Christmas Eve by a Catholic man who emails me occasionally to challenge my lack of belief in the Christian god:

Goodbye 2022 - baby blood, BTK & Vinny, Trump cards, Anti-abortion origins

19 December 2022

This week I've got a few topics to cover - there's been quite a lot happening recently! And, I've also got a guest article from Al Blenney about the origins of the anti-abortion movement.

T-Cells, AA Cells, Leaf Cells

12 December 2022

In this week's newsletter I look at a video I watched recently on Facebook, promising a life hack for getting more bang for your buck when it comes to disposable batteries. Although, from what I can tell, the only bang you're likely to get with this hack is exploding batteries.

Greetings All

5 December 2022

It has been a while since I edited a newsletter, and what better time than near the end of the year to take on the mantle again.

Successful conference, skeptics bouquets and brickbats, and the Franklin Graham experience!

28 November 2022

This newsletter will be a bit short (well, only two articles, but the second one is quite a long read!). As I write this, we've just finished our annual conference in Wellington, so it's been super busy. We had a good turnout of skeptics from around the country, and a great set of informative and entertaining talks throughout the weekend.

Don't forget to buy your conference ticket!

21 November 2022

Our annual conference starts on Friday, and for those of you who plan to come but haven't bought a ticket yet, you'd better be quick. I spent yesterday afternoon with Bronwyn and Daniel, running through a sound check at the venue, testing that the technology works as expected, finalising our catering and trying out our Friday night "entertainment” (we also had enough time to grab a quick beer at the Welsh Dragon bar, our venue for Friday evening's event).

Believing is seeing, Christian Zealots, Going Green, and exposing scientific fraud

14 November 2022

We're now under two weeks away from our annual conference, being held in Wellington (25th - 27th November) - our first in-person meeting since the pandemic. We've got an exciting lineup of speakers, but the best part will be meeting up with fellow skeptics again and being able to share thoughts in person. I'm looking forward to it - you can find out more on the conference website. I hope to see you there.

Excuse me, sir…

7 November 2022

Yesterday I visited the Go Green Expo, along with Bronwyn, and Daniel and Lisa Ryan. Every year I go, and every year I despair at the almost total lack of environmentally friendly products and services on display. In its place there are alternative therapies and lots and lots of “health” foods promising they'll cure you of your ills.

Happy Halloween!

31 October 2022

This week I take a look at Halloween - today!, talk about Elon Musk's Twitter purchase, the Just Stop Oil campaign, and Bronwyn gives us an update about Highden Estate and ISTA.

Just Say No to NNN

25 October 2022

November is fast approaching, which means that our annual conference is not far away - just 5 weeks to go! We're currently gathering the bios and talk abstracts of our speakers for this year, so check out the website if you're tempted to join us for the weekend. Early bird prices finish at the end of October, so book soon if you want to save a few dollars!

Will you be there?

17 October 2022

In just over a month we're having the gathering of the year - this year's in-person skeptics conference - our first since 2019.

Elections, Court Decision and Soap

10 October 2022

With local council elections closing this week, there was concern that Voices for Freedom's efforts to have their members run for office without disclosing their affiliation would result in councils being stuffed with conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. Thankfully that appears to not be the case, as a Stuff article claims that fewer than a dozen VfF aligned candidates were voted in.

My busy week

3 October 2022

This week's newsletter is going to be a little different from normal - more of a stream of consciousness than a deep dive into particular topics. I hope you don't mind. This past couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me, mostly on personal stuff, but I'll attempt to relate the highlights, particularly where they intersect with skepticism.

A Mixed Bag of Interesting Articles

27 September 2022

As Craig talked about last week, we had a really good time meeting up in Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple, and also enjoyed meeting fellow skeptics at the first Auckland Skeptics in the Pub meeting in a while. Speaking of which, the plan is to keep these meetings going - if you're in Auckland, and wanting to chat with like-minded skeptics, please consider going along to one of these meetings. I'm sure Craig will make you feel very welcome. And, if you can't make our in person meetings, there's always Skeptics in Cyberspace!

A skepical weekend

19 September 2022

This past weekend has been a pretty skeptically-active weekend for me.

Road Trip!

12 September 2022

This Friday, Bronwyn and I will be setting off on a road trip to Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple there, as it's recently been renovated and is currently open to visitors for the first time in 64 years. I'm really looking forward to getting to see the lavish interior before it's “dedicated” and becomes inaccessible to us heathens again. Given that we'll be near Auckland, Craig has organised a Skeptics in the Pub event for this Friday night. Details are below, and we'd love to see you there!

The Human Condition, CT roundup, Tupperware and Tree planting.

5 September 2022

This week I'm taking a look at a cult-like organisation in Australia that's advertising itself on social media - The World Transformation Movement, or Human Condition. I'm left a little confused about how it's all meant to work.

The Winds of Change?

29 August 2022

It's been an action-packed week this week, with lots of interesting things happening in conspiracy circles, both here and overseas. And a lot of it seems to be in the right direction, with prominent anti-vaxxers and conspiracy mongers like Robert Kennedy Jr and Chantelle Baker having their social media accounts removed, the parliament protest something of a fizzle, the operators of Counterspin being arrested, and Billy TK and Vinny Eastwood having their day in court.

I'm back...

22 August 2022

Hello, it's Craig here - so, I'm back writing newsletters, after taking a three week break.

Misfire and Fury?

15 August 2022

It's me again, Mark, for a third week running - as Craig is unavailable to do the newsletter again. This time it's COVID, and I can't blame him at all for not wanting to write a newsletter while getting over it.

Nonsense to the left of me, nonsense to the right

8 August 2022

There's usually no lack of content for our newsletter, and this week is no exception - which is great, as I'm on the newsletter for a second week in a row while Craig's unavailable. The Alex Jones court case has made the news this week, and it's good to see the mainstream media focusing on this particular charlatan. When I started reading up on the court proceedings, every article I read seemed to have some new tidbit of information, and it can be a little depressing hearing just how awful Alex Jones is, and how much money he can make in a day. As I say in my article on him below, he's one man I'd love to see in jail, but sadly I'm not sure that'll ever happen.

People say nothing is impossible

1 August 2022

Several years ago at a Skeptics in the Pub meeting, maybe back in 2014 or 2015, we got onto the topic of the popularity of baby names. At the time, someone predicted that there were likely to be sudden increases in usage for names that had become well known through popular media, especially names that are either rarely used or fictional. Their examples to illustrate the idea were Luke and Leia, from Star Wars, with the prediction that these names would spike at some point after 1977, the release year of the first Star Wars movie.

Media attack, climate, misinformation from inside the building, MPX, IQ tests and Mensa

25 July 2022

This week I take a look at a media attack on our friend Dr Siouxsie Wiles, and talk about the European heat wave and climate change.

A little help from my friends

18 July 2022

I have a good friend who often helps me out by sending me articles that might be of interest to Skeptics - and they sometimes come in handy both for this newsletter, and for my regular weekend radio chats with Graeme Hill on Today FM. He's is one of quite a few skeptically minded friends I have who have no interest in the organised skeptical movement in New Zealand - he just lives his life being wary of the nonsense that surrounds us.

Introduction

11 July 2022

This week I cover the sad news that a local psychic challenge has ended, but with some hope for the future. And last week, the Georgia Guidestones ended their existence after one of them was destroyed by explosives. Thanks to Mark Honeychurch for additional contributions for these items.

Bones, URLs and other dubious links

4 July 2022

Just over a week ago Bronwyn and I, along with another couple of skeptics, visited parliament for the quarterly Prayers at Parliament event - the fourth now that I've attended. I swear that these events are becoming more partisan over time. Despite the organisers' claims that the meetings are cross-party, it seems that not only are the MPs who attend mostly National MPs (at this event it was just Simeon Brown), but the topics we're being asked to pray about are more overtly political, and there's a strong sense of what you should be praying for for each topic - unsurprisingly it aligns pretty well with the National party platform.

Introduction

27 June 2022

This week I've got an eclectic mix of topics. I cover Matariki weekend, the awful Roe v. Wade US supreme court decision and the implications here, and look at my carbon footprint.

The Easiest Person to Fool

20 June 2022

I once met Katherine Smith, the Editor of the New Zealand Journal of Natural Medicine (not a magazine I'd recommend reading - it'll make you angry!). We had an enjoyable chat, and as we were at a wellness and spiritual festival, WellFest, she had no idea I was a skeptic. She showed me her folder of photos and cuttings about the “synchronicity” she'd experienced in her life - a series of spirals, stretching from a spiral painting she made as a young child, through to photos she'd taken in the '80s with faint spirals in the background, and a recent picture of a weird glowing spiral in the sky she'd cut out from a newspaper. I told her that I recognised the sky spiral, that it was a picture from Norway of a Russian rocket booster. Of course she was having none of it - the spiral in the sky was a sign for her, part of a message the universe was sending her through a series of events too unlikely to be coincidence. And of course she wasn't interested in reading into this phenomenon any further - she'd decided what it was, and what it meant to her, and that was enough.

Introduction

13 June 2022

Way back when we first started writing the weekly newsletter, one of our earliest topics was the QAnon movement, and the shocking events of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol in the US. This week, the committee investigating those events held its first public hearings on prime-time TV. I spent a little of my Friday afternoon with the live stream of it playing while I worked. There were some shocking revelations, though I'm guessing that many people already suspected a lot of what was revealed.

Sometimes these titles are the hardest thing to write

7 June 2022

I apologise for my lack of inspiration in the title, but at least we have some interesting articles for you:

Guns, viruses, TPM and Femtech

30 May 2022

Hello skeptics, this week I've a few topics to cover - from the horrendous massacre in Texas, to some thoughts on a public lecture, and some reflections on the mis- and dis-information study done by Te Pūna Matatini.

Everyone is out to scam you

23 May 2022

Just over a year ago I wrote a newsletter issue titled “_Beware of Scientologists Bearing Gifts_”, where I talked about an interesting ruse in Auckland. Someone from the Auckland Scientology office had been creating lots of fake MeetUp groups as a way to trick people into visiting their building - with event names such as “Success through Communication”, “How to get RID of STRESS!”, “English Study Group”, “Rubik's Cube Master Class” and “FREE movie night Auckland”.

SIDS breakthrough? Cryptocrash, Wind control, and an event in skeptical history

16 May 2022

This week we're covering a few different topics. I look at some potential good news in relation to SIDS and look back at claims made about it in the past. We've got some bizarre claims of paranormal ability related to wind control (don't think I've ever come across that one before), and I look at the recent crash in cryptocurrency markets.

I wish Remote Rife Therapy really did work

9 May 2022

For those of you who listen to our fortnightly NZ Skeptics podcast, Yeah… Nah! (which is based on this newsletter), you'll be aware that I tested positive for COVID recently. It's been a week now since my first day of symptoms, and I'm feeling a lot better than I did a week ago. Craig was kind enough to cover for me on the radio talking with Graeme Hill last week, but thankfully I was feeling good enough to get back in the saddle yesterday afternoon. For those of you who listen to the radio, I highly recommend listening to Graeme's “Hill's Weekend” show on Sunday afternoons - Graeme always manages to line up a set of fascinating people to talk to, and I'm always grateful to be able to talk with him about skepticism and some of the nonsense we find out there in the world.

BSA decision, Sovereign Citizen Sheriffs, and Arbonne MLM

2 May 2022

This week we take a look at the Broadcasting Standards Authority decision about a complaint from NZDSOS against Seven Sharp. We look at the Sovereign Citizen "Sheriffs" disruption of an ANZAC service, and Bronwyn continues her series delving into MLMs - this week looking at Arbonne.

A well-rounded diet

25 April 2022

This week's newsletter feels nicely well-rounded, like we've managed to cover several of the core areas that skeptics are interested in. I start with a topical story about a new psychogenic illness that appears to be affecting teens around the world, including here in New Zealand. Bronwyn then delves into the background of one of my most hated MLMs, dōTERRA. (I've talked to company reps for dōTERRA at several events over the years, and each time I've been told some of the most outrageous claims about the medical benefits of their essential oils. I even left one event smelling like a breath mint, after telling someone I had a headache and being treated with a liberal amount of concentrated peppermint oil smeared onto my forehead.) I was contacted on the weekend about a new scam I'd not heard of before, that appears to be an evolution of the classic Nigerian 419 scams, so you get to hear all about that. And finally I talk about a new branch of Satanism - and this one seems to believe in pretty much any nonsense you can think of, as well as being horribly anti-Semitic.

Arise, Mātauranga Māori, NFT crash and more

18 April 2022

I hope you're enjoying a few days off at Easter weekend, maybe enjoying some Hot Cross Buns dripping with butter, and some chocolate eggs.

Oh god, not another Convoy

11 April 2022

Today's newsletter includes a fun evening myself and some other skeptics spent meditating, a rant about my junk email, and the daft convoy that's on its way to Marsden Point. I take a deep dive into Arise church, looking at their preaching of horrible prosperity gospel nonsense, and the horrific way they treat their interns. Also Bronwyn Rideout has written about a UK charity promoting the discredited CEASE therapy for “treating” autistic people, and finally I ask you all for help with finding skeptical dates in New Zealand history.

End game is politics, Website hacking, War in Ukraine

4 April 2022

This week I delve into fringe groups becoming politically involved (as I expected they would do so). I look into website hacking for good, and also feature some pieces from guest authors on the Russian/Ukraine war and Putin's motivations.

BITE, NESARA, MLM - an acronym special

28 March 2022

This week's newsletter seems to have ended up being mostly about acronyms. I've written about how to determine what is and isn't a cult, using the BITE model, drawing from a recent visit I received from a pair of Sister Missionaries. I also try to get to the nugget of truth at the centre of the NESARA conspiracy. Bronwyn takes a look at one of my favourite skeptical topics, MLMs - the scam I love to hate. She's even promising to write more about some of the MLMs we see in New Zealand, which I'm really looking forward to. Finally Bronwyn wonders whether Finland exists.

Deepfakes, HPCA, and can we sell you a plot in Scotland?

21 March 2022

Welcome to the NZ Skeptics Newsletter.

We are not Alone

14 March 2022

It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the number of skeptics in society is likely to exceed the number of Skeptics in our Society by several orders of magnitude. I was reminded of this recently after seeing a couple of interactions on social media, one where a friend tackled misinformation, and another where it was the friend that was spreading misinformation. In both interactions, the misinformation was quickly and easily debunked, with references given to sources. The first one was about Ukraine's president Zelenskyy being a Nazi, as “proven” by a picture of him holding up a football (I'm from England, so for all you kiwis I mean soccer here) shirt with his name and a swastika on it. The second is about the recent parliament protest, with an image of a child who had supposedly been pepper sprayed by the Police.

Protest finale, Investigative journalism? RIP Shane Warne and more.

7 March 2022

We have a bumper issue of the newsletter this week, with contributions from quite a few people. And what a week it's been! The main event of the week, here in our country, has been the end of the protest at Parliament in Wellington. It came to a fairly quick end once the police moved in. In a previous newsletter, I'd expressed concern at how much leeway the police were giving protestors. I think, with the actions of last week, it was becoming clear that the protestors needed to be moved on.

Bronwyn Takes Over

28 February 2022

Welcome to the Skeptics Newsletter!