I was messaged this week by someone who works near the new Scientology centre in Auckland. They told me that there are lots of Scientologists out on the streets at the moment, including outside the nearby hospital, trying to bring people into the church. The way they do this is quite disingenuous, normally starting with offering a free personality test - the Oxford Capacity Analysis test (nothing to do with Oxford University)
Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:
At first I thought this was a windup (my emphasis) – then I realised it was for real! (and happening in Auckland in September):
Picture's ratio of cheesecake to beefcake favours the former to such an extent it must be considered a man's magazine.
You know those little white areas you don't see at the bottom of newspaper columns, it would be nice if we could avoid them here too. Were it not for this message you would be looking at a blank (possibly shaded) space. In order that this catastrophe be avoided in future issues we make the following appeals:
A group called New Zealand Skeptics has called on newspapers and magazines in New Zealand to carry a disclaimer with their astrology columns.