13 May 2024
We saw a few weird things come out of the Parliament protests, but one of the weirdest is the attempts to “save” Marsden Point. Some of the protestors, egged on by conspiracy agitators like Brad Flutey and Damien De Ment, travelled directly from the protest at parliament in Wellington when the police shut it down, all the way up to Marsden Point, half way between Auckland at the top of the North island and site of the country's only oil refinery, which was (and is) in the process of being decommissioned.
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!
31 October 2022
In depressing (but expected) news this week, it seems that it's highly unlikely we'll be able to constrain global warming to 1.5C, and that we're on a path of irreversible damage to the climate which may well lead to catastrophic failure of the climate and likely extinction of vast numbers of species including humanity. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I do worry for the future young people today.
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.
25 April 2022
Country of Origin: Pleasant Grove, Utah, United States
23 June 2021
US Senator Louie Gohmert, from Texas, has recently asked the country's Forestry Service if they can look into a thought he's had about how to combat climate change:
11 February 2018
An Australian woman, Shona Leigh, has publicly spoken about how she supposedly cured herself of cervical cancer with cannabis oil. This story seems to be popular in NZ because of the new Labour government's recent efforts to relax our laws on medicinal cannabis use.
17 December 2017
18 classes of health product are being de-funded by the NHS in the UK, including 7 that are blacklisted:
27 November 2016
There have been a few stories in the news recently about earthquakes that have left me feeling skeptical:
1 May 2014
Two psychic mediums have been credited with helping to find the body of a Stratford man who drowned in the Patea River last September (Taranaki Daily News, 1 April).
1 August 2012
A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer's doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science.
1 May 2006
Early in 2005 Professor Kaye Ibbertson, the relentless grand vizier of the Marion Davis Library and Museum, asked David Cole to offer the Medical Historical Society some comments about the history of unorthodox medicine. He was in the process of assembling several convincing excuses, when Ibbertson turned off his hearing aid and any excuses were set aside. This article is based on the talk which resulted.
1 May 2002
Snake Oil And Other Preoccupations, by John Diamond. Vintage, 2001, $29.95
1 February 1999
James Randi has demonstrated that a water diviner has a 94% chance of success in finding water for the simple reason that 94% of the land surface has fresh water immediately below its surface. The diviner is likely to fail miserably when he/she is asked to find a dry spot. The notion that water flows in rivers underground is only true for some exceptional places, usually associated with limestone deposits. Normally, water is trapped in microscopic pores and only moves a few centimetres to a few hundred meters per year. Similar misconceptions and statistics are seen in oil divining.
1 November 1997
Jim Ring continues his investigations into the Fijian paranormal scene.