29 September 2025
I'm looking forward to the day that someone writes a reasoned critique of the New Zealand Skeptics that we can engage with. We receive quite a few emails from people challenging us, but so far there's been nothing we could get our teeth into - we mainly see bad faith arguments, people's personal bug-bears, and grievances based on misremembered events.
27 May 2024
Forgive me this short item, as it's been a pretty busy weekend. I had good intentions, but today my wife and I decided that we needed some more shelving space in our garage. I'd mentioned putting in another shelf below one that I had already installed some time ago, but she managed to convince me that it would be better to extend the Elfa wire rack system that we already have in our garage. What was intended to be a half hour job turned into a couple of visits to Mitre 10, and several hours of moving stuff around and installing everything. Still, we're very pleased with the result and we now have considerably more space to store various garage essentials.
20 December 2021
I'm sure most people know the story of the Tiger King, a documentary series which became required viewing last year around the world when many countries went into lockdown. The series followed Joe Exotic, a flamboyant character who ran a big cat attraction and ended up behind bars for some of his questionable life decisions.
1 May 1990
Warwick Don was elected at the AGM to succeed Prof. Tony Vignaux as Chairman of the New Zealand Skeptics. Mr Don, a senior lecturer in Zoology at the University of Otago, was a founding member of the society. However his experience as an advocate for science and the scientific approach goes back much further. My personal collection of clippings contains two articles he had published in Otago University's student newspaper in 1966 and 1967 responding to attempts to recast evolution in a religious mould. He is also a formidable debater against creationism—as was evident from the letters in The Nelson Evening Mail (27/5/87 to 30/7/87) in which he and Jim Ring presented the skeptical viewpoint. Mr Don's special concern at the moment is the draft Form I-V science syllabus—in particular its inclusion of non-scientific elements.