Hi All

Welcome to the New Year. Hope you are all enjoying the break.
Just a quick reminder for the diary - Thursday 26th January 7pm Gin Trap Ahuriri - First Official Hawkes Bay Skeptics in the Pub. Feel free to invite people or forward me email addressing of people I should be inviting.
If you want to keep in touch through other media try
or Hawkes Bay Skeptics in the Pub
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HBSkeptics/

We are likely to discuss Fluoridation and Fire Walking amongst other things.
Look forward to seeing you there.

Best
Steve

It appears that the disgraced researcher, Andrew Wakefield, is at it again. This time he's suing the BMJ and Brian Deer in a Texas court. Why Texas? He's tried this before in the UK and failed. TheScientist magazine claim he said he'd be "vulnerable to being struck out as an abuse of process."

Perhaps there's a reason for that...

Tim Minchin gave me back the joy for the season...

Good to see this statement from Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker:

"GNS scientists have been telling us that there was a likelihood that we would have an aftershock of this magnitude," he said

"Thankfully there has been no loss of life or serious injury. This is not a miracle and today's events show that we have been right to be cautious. We have done so much work over the past 15 months to make our city safe."

The man has just shot up quite significantly in my estimation. Which is an oddly bittersweet thing to say as he is merely saying it how it is......

The end of the 5,125 year cycle of the Mayan Calender is approaching.

The idea that this heralds great change is a popular one among Conspiracy Theorists, New Agers and UFO believers, although what exactly this change will be is not certain.

Some claim it means the world will end, due to solar activity, or a planet crashing into the earth.

Some, that mankind will become more spiritually evolved.

Christopher Hitchens has just died.

The #RIPHitch and #hitch hashtags are going more than a little nuts right now, which is hardly surprising.

Hey all,

I'm about to disappear for a few months and was wondering if anyone would like to step up and assist with the moderation of this site while I'm gone.

There's not a lot to do given I have a don't delete anything policy.

We do get a few spammers a week though. When they appear I delete their account and all their content. The quickest way to spot this is to subscribe to all content and, when a dodgy one comes though, click through to the site, click the authors name, edit and delete. It's less than a minute in most cases.

So, any takers?

Our second meetup in scheduled for Saturday December 3rd, 2:30pm at The Bank on Victoria Street. We'll probably be sitting out the back.

For our second meetup we thought we'd try a loose theme, so we'll be peering into the misty realm of the future and the great beyond. Psychics and Clairvoyants of all shapes and sizes will be the topic of the day, please bring along any info or stories of personal experiences.

Hope to see you there!

I'm planning on voting for the Greens this year. There's a lot of their core policy that I back and I trust them more than any of the others. Most of my attention to them is due to @GarethMP who seems to be one of the few intelligent MPs out there that has a clue when it comes to technology and the nature of the internet. He was one of the few that campaigned against and voted against a law removed the "innocent until proven guilty" policy from the books. In case you weren't aware you are now automatically assumed to be guilty by the mere accusation of downloading pirated materials.

Is there an account that donations can be paid into? I dislike Paypal and will not be using it to make donations.