Only a week after my discovery of a disgustingly thorough example of the Broken Windows Fallacy, another example pops up, this time from the Herald’s Business Editor, Liam Dann. Disaster forces Govt to spend up The earthquake in Christchurch is a disaster … But one upside … is that nature has unleashed the biggest job [...]

Catastrophes, Education, New Zealand, Quotable, Skepticism | 10 Comments »

David Bain was the sole survivor when 5 members of his immediate family were shot and killed in their Dunedin home in 1994. Suspicion at first fell on his father Robin, but four days later the police ruled out the murder/suicide theory and arrested 22-year-old David. Key pieces of evidence were David’s bloody fingerprints on [...]

New Zealand, Police, Skepticism | 73 Comments »

Although there was nary a joke played on me today, I noticed that as the clock ticked over in America, several very interesting stories became apparent. Here are a few of my favourites from this evening: ThinkGeek had the Vilcus Plug Dactyloadapter, which promises to “quickly and easily test the working condition of any wall [...]

Linkage, New Zealand, Skepticism, Technology | No Comments »

In this climate change post, I’ll briefly outline why blaming solar variation for recent warming is incorrect, interpret the Vostok Ice Cores, and then tell you the political part of my position. That big nuclear furnace in the sky is the ultimate source of all energy on Earth, so it would make sense if recent [...]

Climate, Science, Skepticism | 6 Comments »

Pursuant to a small controversy that erupted at Not PC over some comments of mine, and after some discussion over a beer with a new Libz member about global warming, I made a write-up of the evidence for three of the basic tenets of climate change: The global average surface temperature of the Earth is [...]

Climate, Science, Skepticism | 2 Comments »

Ok, it’s storytime kids. One day, a pamphlet turns up in your mailbox. The pamphlet starts by telling you about a study showing that tap water is highly acidic and nigh-undrinkable. In fact, you shouldn’t drink any tap water. Instead you should buy bottles of water from a particular company – the one who sent [...]

Parables, Religion, Science, Skepticism | 1 Comment »

Sometime it really irks me when I see those “this is SO COOL” lists. They’re usually forwarded by a ‘friend’ (ie, annoying people who happen to have your email address). Today i found a perfect example, 13 Useless Random Facts on spikedhumor.com. Most of these are indeed useless but not facts. I’m feeling pedantic today, [...]

Linkage, Science, Skepticism | No Comments »