Sideswipe: June 4: Other political scandals of New Zealand

1898 – Liberal Party MP William Larnach commits suicide in a Parliament committee room, the result of impending financial disasters and (reputedly) rumours over a sexual relationship between his wife and her step-son.
1977 – Muldoon accuses high-ranking Labour Party MP Colin Moyle of having been questioned by the police on suspicion of homosexual activities, at that time illegal in New Zealand. Moyle is forced to resign from Parliament.
1984 – Independent MP John Kirk, the son of former Prime Minister Norman Kirk, absconds, owing more than $280,000. He is arrested in the US, held in prison, then extradited to New Zealand.
1996 – Governor General Sir Michael Hardie Boys caused much controversy over openly stating his opposition to Minister of Youth Affairs Deborah Morris's suggestion that young people have access to contraceptives.
2010 — ACT Party Member David Garrett, the primary party advocate on tougher sentences and ending name suppression in ongoing court cases, admits stealing the identity of a dead infant for the purpose of obtaining a passport 26 years prior. Garrett subsequently resigns.
2014 — The National Party used a song similar to a hit by US rapper Eminem in a campaign ad during that year's election. The song's publishers filed a lawsuit against National for copyright violation, stating they did not give consent for the song to be used in a political ad.

Conspiracy bigger than sane people hoped

The QAnon conspiracy started by an anonymous user of message board 4chan, who claims without evidence to have special "Q clearance" access to US national security information. A new survey of Americans shows how many people believe in the madness. An uncomfortably high 15 per cent of Americans agreed with the statement "the government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation". The belief was more prevalent among those who got their news from far-Right news outlets such as One America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax (40 per cent), people who do not watch television news (21 per cent), and people who trust Fox News (18 per cent). the survey also found that 9 per cent of Americans believed in the false statement that "the Covid-19 vaccine contains a surveillance microchip that is the sign of the beast in biblical prophecy".

People pylons

"If we have to live with them, why not turn them into something both functional and artistic? This was the sentiment of American design firm Choi+Shine Architects, which submitted the concept to Iceland's High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition. The concept, dubbed "The Land of Giants", sought to transform mundane transmission towers into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design."

Did you know?

1. On 9/11 the search-and-rescue dogs were getting so sad from finding so many dead bodies that the search-and-rescue helpers hid themselves in rubble to make the dogs happy.
2. In England in the 1700s, 90 per cent of men had one of these eight names: John, Edward, William, Henry, Charles, James, Richard, Robert.
3. In the 1800s, ducks were sometimes called "arsefeet" because their feet are so close to their bottoms.
4. Mikhail Gorbachev was a big fan of Twin Peaks and asked George H.W. Bush to find out for him who killed Laura Palmer. David Lynch was contacted by the producers on behalf of the President but didn't tell them the answer.