22 November 2021
Hot off the press, International Law lecturer Amy Benjamin has resigned from Auckland University of Technology this week. I wrote about Amy back in August, at the beginning of our second national lockdown, when she started up her YouTube channel called “American Spirit” where she posted videos about COVID and lockdowns. Her opinions seemed somewhat fringe, and she talked about how the threat to people's mental health in lockdown was worse than that of COVID, that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID, and that the government had criminalised peaceful protest.
11 October 2021
Back to COVID seriousness now. It's been a frustrating week where we've seen the Delta variant now escape Auckland and head out to other parts of the country.
13 September 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
30 August 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
23 August 2021
Of all the people who spoke publicly about this week's arrest, Amy Benjamin, a senior lecturer of international law at AUT, was the most surprising to me.
23 August 2021
This one's a little light hearted, and not overly surprising - Kelvin Cruickshank, one of our most famous local psychics, appears to have failed to have been warned by the spirits about the impending lockdown. Kelvyn had booked a live event for Thursday in New Plymouth, in what turned out to be the second day of our national lockdown. David Chisholm, a member of our Facebook group, managed to take a great screenshot of the event being advertised under a large banner warning of event date changes due to our COVID lockdown.
23 August 2021
It feels like it was inevitable that some of the conspiracy theorists, or “freedom fighters” as they call themselves, would end up protesting our latest level 4 lockdown. I'm not surprised that their shared delusion that lockdown is just a ploy by the government to permanently remove our freedoms would cause them to risk the health of all of us. But it has been disappointing to see a few hundred people around the country gathering to protest at a time when we've all been told to stay at home to limit the spread of a deadly disease.
1 March 2021
As everybody no doubt knows we're back in lockdown again - level 3 for Auckland and level 2 for the rest of the country.
28 December 2020
In other news, Australian ex-celebrity chef Pete Evans has finally been kicked off Facebook for spreading conspiracy theories about Covid-19. He had previously been fined $25,000 for trying to sell a 'Bio Charger' device as a fake coronavirus cure via a livestream on the platform.
1 May 2020
Interview with Dr Jane Millichamp, Registered Psychologist and Professional Practice Fellow at the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago
1 May 2020
Lockdown made me think of what it would be like to travel to Mars. Stuck in familiar confines, the same people around every day. The same food. A slowly diminishing blue marble the only vibrant object in a black sky hung with tiny white stars.