19 June 2023
A group of skeptical friends (Bronwyn Rideout, Mark Honeychurch and Tim Atkin) invited me to attend a political event, the “_Take Back Your Power Roadshow_”, last week. Freedom NZ, a new fringe political party that serves as an umbrella for five other parties, organised the event. The constituent parties are the New Nation Party, Vision New Zealand, the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party, Yes Aotearoa, and Rock the Vote. They have been travelling around New Zealand spreading their message, asking for votes and donations.
12 June 2023
We've ragged on “apostle” Brian Tamaki many times in the past, but this week has seen a new crusade emerge.
29 August 2022
On Tuesday, Freedoms and Rights Coalition members converged on Wellington for another protest about our “freedoms”, and of course I was there to see what was going on.
20 December 2021
A couple of weeks ago I attended an online sermon from Destiny Church with a few friends. The sermon started off fairly tame, with Brian joking about viewers eating popcorn - so I went and grabbed a bag of popcorn for us to eat while we watched. I figured it was the least a group of heathens could do.
8 November 2021
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.
15 March 2021
Following on from last week's stories about the Tamakis saying they won't be getting vaccinated, and Ken Ring saying he predicted our recent earthquake, there have been a couple of interesting developments.
21 August 2016
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.
1 November 2015
At first I thought this was a windup (my emphasis) – then I realised it was for real! (and happening in Auckland in September):
1 August 2015
One of my favourite podcasts is this seasonal offering from British skeptical activists and science communicators Brian Cox and Robin Ince. This is a BBC Radio 4 production – oooh get me! – but the podcast version is 10 minutes longer. As Robin says, “this show contains extra material which wasn't considered good enough for the radio.” In exactly that sort of way, Robin provides the banter and is the gleeful layman. Brian, on the other hand, brings it all back to reality, reining-in tangents and correcting any guest who dares oversimplify a bit of physics.
1 August 2008
The Skeptics have lost one of their founding members, with the death of Bernard Howard in Christchurch, aged 88. Active to the end, he collapsed suddenly while walking to the bus stop. As a regular attendant at Skeptics conferences, Darwin Day dinners and other events, and a frequent contributor to the NZ Skeptic, he will be sorely missed. As Denis Dutton said in the Christchurch Press, "Bernard had a probing mind and knew how to ask the right questions, especially the embarrassing ones. I have never encountered a man with such a rapier-sharp, yet gently delivered, wit. He is irreplaceable."
1 February 1999
by Gavin East, from Top of the Morning Book of Epitaphs, ed Brian Edwards, Tandem Press, Auckland, 1998.
1 May 1996
When Brian Edwards interviewed Uri Geller some years ago, Dr David Marks of Otago University used the printed transcript to demonstrate that Brian had been the victim of highly skilled "cold reading", rather than the witness to remarkable extra-sensory powers as he appeared to believe at the time.
1 May 1988
In his predictably naughty way, Brian Edwards did a bit of stirring when he was the after-dinner speaker at the annual conference of the New Zealand Skeptics Society during the weekend. Skeptics, he needled, should have at least something to believe in. Members counter-stirred. At their annual meeting the next day, they passed a resolution "endorsing the existence of Santa Claus, but still expressing doubts about the tooth fairy."