27 February 2023
It's hard to believe it's the end of February already, and the official end to summer, at least on a calendar month basis. With all the rain and weather events we've had, it's hard to think that this summer has been a classic one. Still, it may well have finally made some of the more sluggish members of the population wake up to the reality of climate change. And what a reality it is, with the massive destruction that took place in Hawke's Bay and other areas. The cost of replacing infrastructure seems that it place a big burden on our economy for some time.
11 April 2022
We're currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we're aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It's been a lot of fun so far, and we've found a lot of fascinating stories about New Zealand that I'd never heard before, like:
13 September 2021
Saturday this weekend marked the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 in the US. Of course, because of time zones it was Wednesday 12th September here in New Zealand when it happened, just after midnight.
5 July 2021
An anti-vax paper was published recently in the open access Vaccines journal. “The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations - We Should Rethink the Policy”. The paper has now been retracted, though just getting it published is likely to fuel anti-vax misinformation.
15 March 2021
Rebecca Booth, from Fairlie in the South Island, recently found a seven leaf clover. The Stuff article about this find mentioned that this is not the first clover-related find Rebecca has had. Apparently earlier this year, in January, she found both four and five leaf clovers.
13 May 2018
Healing crystals have become very popular recently, with people buying many different crystals to either wear or place in their homes and help with physical and mental health issues, monetary problems and any other problem you could imagine. There are even water bottles with crystals in that are supposed to somehow "energise" the water you drink.
17 December 2017
Adding legitimacy to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the first citizenship has just taken place with a new citizen wearing a colander on his head. Bjorn Oback, from Germany, wore a colander in Hamilton recently.
1 February 1998
Annette Taylor spends an afternoon checking out the alternatives.
1 November 1989
And there was the perhaps inevitable clairvoyant, offering to point out the location of the gold for a share of the spoils (he eventually told Kelly that he was looking miles away tom the right place). Kelly had never placed his faith in clairvoyants and he was not likely to now, but he allowed himself to be convinced that this one, a young African man, should be allowed a trial. In the event, all they got out of it was a memorably hilarious day.