It's less than two weeks until our conference in Christchurch, and we're busy sorting out the last few loose ends. We now have tickets available for our Saturday evening soiree, so if you're coming to the conference and want to chill out with other skeptics, the committee of the NZ Skeptics, the SGU and some of our other weekend speakers, make sure you grab your tickets soon! It's only $40 for an evening featuring entertainment, canapes, and cheap booze.
After a dry spell of a few months, since early February, I was finally visited a couple of weeks ago by some new missionaries. After briefly chatting with them and asking them to come back last week, I also received a Facebook IM from one of the local overseers - a retired man who has come to New Zealand from Utah as a missionary administrator, and who helps to look after the church and the young missionaries arriving here from around the world:
A few weeks ago, fellow Skeptics in the Pub member Tim and I went on a visit to an event run by a group in NZ called Thinking Matters. The event was an opportunity to meet and argue with an “atheist” - although in reality the atheist in question was Jonathan Noyes, a Christian from the US who used to be an atheist until his mid-20s. It was a really interesting evening, where the gimmick was that as soon as Jonathan put on his baseball cap he took on the persona of a slightly obnoxious but knowledgeable atheist. Apart from the occasional insult, using phrases like “ignorant goat herders” and “sky daddy”, he did a fairly good job of laying out some of the main reasons atheists have for not believing in God.
…if you're a student. Come on, you knew there was going to be a catch! But, if you are a student or know one who might be keen, please check out Lee Traynor's article below where he explains a little about his very generous offer of covering the ticket costs for up to 20 students coming to our conference. Lee's been to some of our conferences in the past, visited us at the Wellington Skeptics in the Pub, and also helped out with our still-to-be-finished-off (and the fault here lies entirely with me) plagiarism project.
This is the last week to pick up tickets for our conference in Christchurch at the end of July at a discounted price - from the 1st of June, the tickets will go up to their full price. So if you want to come and see the SGU, their entourage, and some engaging and informative local speakers, book now to avoid disappointment!
Sara, one of our ex-committee members, messaged me last week, sending me a picture of a product she found in a shop in Wellington and saying “saw this and thought of you”. The picture was of a product called Pu$$y Power, by a company named MOOYAM. It's hard to read the label in the image, but the bottle describes the contents as “a crystal infused yoni and vaginal wash”, that contains “Rose quartz for the energy of love. Herbal & flower powered. Chemical free.” Underneath that it states: “Repeat after me: “My pussy is powderful”” (which I assume is a typo rather than a pun, as this is a liquid and not a powder):
On the weekend Bronwyn and I, along with my 12 year old daughter, visited an open home to see a house that's currently on the market - a little subterfuge, acting like a happy family, all in the name of skepticism. However Bronwyn's asked that I don't talk about any of the details yet, so all you're getting for now is this teaser!
It's always good when we get feedback to this newsletter, and it doesn't even have to be positive! Unlike many groups, we're the kind of organisation that relishes constructive criticism and correction - and so this week's first three articles are great to have received. Firstly Mike Joy has taken the time to expand on the concerns he had about an area of climate change and fossil fuel dependence that he thought we haven't covered very well in the past. Patrick Medlicott has responded to Mike's concerns, agreeing with him that renewable energy sources aren't currently replacing fossil fuels - they're just being added on top of fossil fuel use. On a tangentially related topic, Tyler has written about Katrina's treatment of microplastics, arguing that although we don't yet know if microplastics are a problem, it may be prudent to treat them as if they are.
Last weekend I roped (no pun intended) my kids into a fun little project, making a mystery/conspiracy board as a decoration for our house. For the low cost of $22 for a cork board, $4 for a pack of 200 pins, $4 for a box of 400 sticky notes and $4 for red yarn (all from The Warehouse), along with a bunch of free community newspapers and promotional brochures, we spent a couple of hours putting together a great looking board:
Our first article in this week's newsletter is from Patrick, who has summarised a recent Nature article about potential underestimation of sea-level rise over the next 60 years. Patrick's article ends with a quote from Edison that, when I read it, seemed too good to be true. So, like any good skeptic, I jumped onto Google to see if there was any truth to the quote. It turns out that it's likely to be true, at least in broad strokes.