Weight Watchers Says Eat at McDonald's to Lose Weight

Weight Watchers has now officially endorsed Chicken McNuggets as a "healthy meal" in New Zealand, where McDonald's restaurants will begin carrying the Weight Watchers logo on several menu items. This bizarre and inexplicable decision has now made Weight Watchers the laughing stock of the health world where nutrition and weight loss experts normally don't use "McDonald's fast food" and "weight loss" in the same sentence.

As The Guardian reports, "As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald's will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald's to dieters."

Nutritionists, not surprisingly, were shocked at the announcement. The idea of eating at McDonald's to lose weight seems a bit ridiculous, and anyone who believes that eating Chicken McNuggets will cause you to lose weight is arguably one nugget short of a Happy Meal. Sometimes you just have to point out the stupidity of these things, even at the risk of offending someone who has convinced themselves that eating more Chicken McNuggets is their ticket to a slim, fit and sexy body.'

Read more...

New Zealand's Cyber Spies Win New Powers

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.'

Read more...

New Zealand Climate Agency Accused of Data Manipulation

Climate scientists in New Zealand today accused the foremost climate-research institution in New Zealand of data manipulation of the same type as the East Anglia Climatic Research Institute (CRU) is alleged to have done.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition today issued this paper saying that a graph published by the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is not only wrong but is the result of painstaking and unjustified adjustment of raw temperature data covering the period from 1853 through 2008, Ian Wishart of The Briefing Room announced today.'

Read more...

New Zealand Mayor: Pay the 'Appalling Underclass Not to Breed'

An outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country's child abuse problem - pay the "appalling underclass" not to breed.

Michael Laws - who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a "bloated brown slug'' - has again hit the headlines.

"That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born," the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio website where he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.'

Read more...

New Zealand Votes to Legalize Smacking Kids

New Zealanders voted overwhelmingly to overturn a law that prohibits parents from hitting children, according to the results of a nationwide referendum released Friday, but the government says the law is working and won't be changed.

Read more...

Massive New Zealand Quake Moves Country West

Southern New Zealand has moved slightly closer to the east coast of neighboring Australia as a result of a massive earthquake last week off the country's South Island, a scientist said Wednesday.

The magnitude 7.8 quake, centered in the ocean near Resolution Island in the country's Fiordland region, twisted South Island out of shape and moved its southern tip 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said.

Read more...

Family Convicted in Exorcism Death

A New Zealand jury has found five New Zealanders guilty of the manslaughter of a family member during an exorcism ceremony to drive a "makutu" or Maori curse from the woman. Nine family members of the victim, Janet Moses, 22, performed an exorcism on her in October 2007, forcing water into her mouth and eyes to flush out demons and lift the makutu.
Moses drowned and a 14-year-old girl the group also believed was possessed suffered serious eye injuries as people picked at the demons they saw in them, the High Court hearing was told.

Read more...

Fugitive Rice Escapes Justice In Auckland

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a narrow escape from justice, with the assistance of the New Zealand Police, in Auckland on Saturday 26 July. The police can now consider themselves accessories to war crimes. Rice met with government leaders in Auckland but was chased by 150 protesters spurred on by a bounty of $10,000. They called for her arrest, under the Geneva Convention, for war crimes and for her role in authorising the use of torture.

Read more...