In September 2024 I wrote a short article, titled Saeed's Millions, describing an email exchange I had with a man named Saeed. He'd emailed me asking if our communication was private, and when I responded he followed up by offering me millions of dollars to give to charities, with 30% of the money going to me in exchange for doing the work.
In 1215 the Catholic Church's Fourth Council of the Lateran, which had been announced two years prior and so was very well attended, introduced many new rules. Many of these were focused on fighting corruption within the clergy, by limiting when and how clergy could charge fees for their work (e.g. no fees for reversing someone's excommunication, consecrating a bishop, or offering “superfluous services”), and banning certain practices like getting drunk and nepotism (specifically, priests handing their job down to their sons).
In Part 1, I hoped to have painted a picture of Dr. Bronner as an Ideas man above all else. Sure, he had the skills necessary to make a decent soap product but it was secondary to his message. His family came a distant third to that same message while operational requirements of running the whole Dr. Bronner's magic soap outfit came fourth.
Alex Jones has been sued by parents for his claims on his TV show that the Sandy Hook school massacre was faked by the government as a way to take away people's gun rights. These parents are suing because, as a result of Jones' rhetoric, they have spent years dealing with abuse up to and including death threats - and this is after they lost their children in a massacre that Jones has been telling people never happened.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has successfully launched!
Rex Warwood sadly died late last week. He was a long time reporter, and later editor, for the Franklin County News, and was apparently well liked. However in recent years he appears to have succumbed to conspiratorial thinking, and he became a vocal critic of vaccination against COVID, saying things online such as:
For those who use Facebook - you may have seen a video advert recently using Jacinda Ardern as a way to promote a cryptocurrency. Obviously this is fake - Jacinda does not want you to “invest” your money in any crypto currency, and it's very likely that there's not even a real crypto currency or crypto company - just a website that will get you to transfer your hard earned money to scammers. Even if there was a real cryptocurrency involved, you would likely lose most or all of the money you risked. I saw people talking about this scam on Facebook, but I have enough layers of ad blocking at home that it proved too hard to get Facebook to show me any adverts at all, so I don't have a copy of the video.
I'm hoping that the anti-GMO crowd don't sink the new GMO banana before it has a chance to be properly tested. The banana has had genes inserted that allow it to create alpha and beta carotenes, which allow our bodies to create vitamin A, which should help some of the quarter of a million children who die every year due to a lack of the vitamin.
Australian Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" has opened its newest attraction, the Ark Encounter, on Thursday.
This weekend's lottery Powerball jackpot was worth $40 million, with 3 winners. The NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB reported on Richard Lustig, a US man who has won several prizes and written a book explaining how to win the lottery.
A Bronx priest stole more than $1M from two NYC churches, and used the cash on a wild S&M romance with his beefy boyfriend
In recognition of the Apocalyptic theme of the upcoming Skeptics Conference, Vicki Hyde looks back in the vault to 2012 to see what doomsday predictions we managed to survive.
After a bloodless coup, the NZ Skeptic has a new editor. This doesn't mean much in practical terms; for many years I've been working closely with previous ed Annette Taylor. She will now take on the roles that I used to-subediting, proofing, making cups of tea, cooking dinner and the like. It won't be long before we can enlist the daughter into the production of this fine publication.
We've all seen the claims - Spirulina! Nature's Health Solution! The World's Healthiest Superfood! Soulfood!
Bob Brockie looks at the link between genius and eccentricity
Britain's The Skeptic magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Top-Ten survey of paranormal phenomena of the decade.
A jury which in August ordered the Christian Science church to pay $US5.2 million ($NZ9.6 million) in damages in the diabetes death of an 11-year-old boy followed this by adding a further $US9 million in punitive damages.
Most people have great difficulty in conceptualising low frequencies and low concentrations. Pesticide concentrations are reported in parts per million (ppm), parts per billion (ppb) and parts per trillion (ppt). One television personality accused an industrial spokesman of releasing effluent with "15 parts per trillion" (his emphasis, implying a very large, rather than a very small concentration).
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood > > Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
—in the New Scientist, 21 January 1988
SEELISBERG, Switzerland (Reuter). — Followers of Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have staged what they called Europe's first European yogic flying" competition, describing it as a demonstration of their leader's programme to end violence on earth.