At the prompting of Mark and Bronwyn during last week's podcast episode, I attended a church meeting last evening. This was an event called “Lean In: Christianity and Politics - Meet the Candidates”. This was held at the Windsor Park Baptist Church - only a few kilometres away from my home. The venue itself was pretty un-chuchlike, in that it was previously the Windsor Park Tavern.
I've recently been seeing mentions of NESARA and GESARA online, in conspiracy groups, and also on a badly painted sign at at least one local protest. So I did a little bit of reading to find out what it's all about. So, if you've seen these terms being used and, like me, have no idea what they mean, here's a quick description of their real world meaning and what the conspiracy theorists wrongly think they're all about.
On Monday night I visited parliament, where a group called Jesus for NZ had been invited by National MP Simon Bridges to hold a church service called the Power of One.
On Thursday evening last week I visited Parliament to pray for the future of our country. Now I'm not a Christian, so I'm pretty sure my prayers aren't going to make a difference, but it's interesting to see what influential Christians think about what is wrong with our country and how it should be fixed.
Netsurfer Science is a website every skeptic should bookmark. It provides a good lead-in to many science and skeptic-related sites and issues on the web. Here are a couple of recent items.
If you're a fan of oddities such as those showcased in Ripley's Believe It or Not, you'll love the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. This home of quackery features some amazing fraudulent gadgets. Learn, for example, about prostate cures like the light-bulbed prostate gland warmer or the frighteningly named recto rotor. These delights and more await you at http://www.mtn.org/quack/
1996 was an interesting year. Rush Limbaugh became the Republican nominee for President; Roseanne killed off her popular TV character; cures for baldness, arthritis, and AIDS were
President Bush was not re-elected. Madonna did not become a gospel singer, and a UFO base was not found in the Mexican desert. These were just a few of the many predictions that had been made for 1992 by famous "psychics", but were dead wrong, as chronicled by the Bay Area Skeptics.
In a memorable encounter, National
Shortly after our Wellington convention, Radio New Zealand presented a superb Insight documentary on NZCSICOP. This half-hour programme was broadcast on a Sunday morning on National Radio and rebroadcast the following evening. The producer was Colin Feslia, who will be remembered for having patiently taped the whole of our Wellington meeting. We have to admire the way he assembled the material into a coherent, interesting half hour of radio. It is an excellent introduction to the Skeptics.