Leighton Smith

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I was emailed this letter this morning and it has now been posted on The Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan Facebook page.

Basically Len is Lying again. Currently less than 1% of Auckland is Apartments, he is claiming 7% of Auckland can become Apartments BUT the plan actually allows 56% of Auckland to become Apartments.

To Leighton Smith,

I am a kiwi now living in AKL after 25 years overseas. One great aspect about returning is that Auckland hasn’t fundamentally changed after 25 years.

The Unitary Plan (UP) in its present form would make Auckland unrecognizable to somebody returning after 25 years absence.

Currently Auckland has less than 1% of its area covered by apartments. The UP will change that – with 56% of the Auckland area provided for apartments.

The council is mis-informing the public with its 7% coverage figure. What is not public knowledge is that the new Mixed Housing Zone provides for 10m height permitting 3 storeys of apartments. The min size is 30 sq m. The land size must be > 1200 sq m and frontage must be 20m.   Read more »

On Thursday morning Leighton Smith had guest speaker Lord Christopher Monckton in the studio to talk about global warming/climate change and addressed the invented science, lies and propaganda by those trying to force the issue of the climate change revenue gathering fraud down our throats. Lord Monckton is currently on a public speaking tour around the country speaking about the fraud, but has notably been rejected by several NZ education institutes because of his views. Also noted was the lack of New Zealand scientists and climate change alarmists such as money printing fantasist Russell Norman that don’t have the stones to debate Lord Monckton in a public forum with their false information and fraudulent science. Here is a small part of Leighton’s interview with Lord Monckton: Read more »

Frank Rich delivers a lengthy dissection of the problems facing the GOP in rebuilding but starts off with this excellent sledge, one which Leighton Smith will appreciate.

It’s gotten so gloomy that at the annual House Republican retreat just before Inauguration Day in January, the motivational speakers included the executive who turned around Domino’s Pizza and the first blind man to reach the top of Mount Everest. Were the GOP a television network, it would be fifth-place NBC, falling not only behind its traditional competitors but Univision.  Read more »

In about 15 minutes I will be sitting down with Leighton Smith collecting my winnings from our bet last year.

Readers will remember that Leighton Smith and I made a bet on the outcome of the US presidential election, months ahead polling day. He said that Mitt Romney would win easily, and I said that though i wanted Romney to win I believed that he wouldn’t be able to do it and that Barack Obama would win a second term.

I based my opinions on the mathematical and statistical approach of Nate Silver.

As you all know Obama romped home and I won the bet.

The vagaries of holidays, overlapping commitments, timing and extraneous matters meant that this was the earliest we could do it.

Never let it be said that Leighton Smith doesn’t honour his bets.

I will post photos from the event later.

Everyone commenting on the Bain compensation issue are missing some very vital analysis.

That is the political analysis.

Leighton Smith is banging on and on this morning about the process and interviewing various legal luminaries as well as Bain’s lawyer Michael Reed QC.

Then there are those talking costs. But the issue is more than costs.

But everyone forgets the political angle.

When you look at this issue there is no upside for Judith Collins to review this. She could have paid out some money based off Binni’es wonky report and it would have all gone away.

So why would Judith Collins go down this path and the ensuing public scrutiny in rereviewing Binnie’s report?

There is no political upside. Therefore the only remaining thing that can possibly be considered is that Judith Collins is acting the way she is because it is the right thing to do.

Not only right, but proper.

In any case all the debate may well become moot this afternoon when Judith Collins releases the reports.

Leighton Smith would do well to read these wise words about the recent US elections. And before anyone whinges that a left-winger wrote them, they come from The American Conservative site and true fiscal conservative Bruce Bartlett.

At least a few conservatives now recognize that Republicans suffer for epistemic closure. They were genuinely shocked at Romney’s loss because they ignored every poll not produced by a right-wing pollster such as Rasmussen or approved by right-wing pundits such as the perpetually wrong Dick Morris. Living in the Fox News cocoon, most Republicans had no clue that they were losing or that their ideas were both stupid and politically unpopular.

I’m looking forward to that lunch Leighton…

Plenty of people called me out on the US Elections, some in not so flattering terms. Well it has been a few days and I would have thought a few conciliatory emails or comments wouldn’t go amiss…but alas, there has been none, save from Leighton Smith  who will honour his bet.

One person who expended several posts about me was Blair Mulholland, as well as comments on my blog…here is one example:

There has been a lot of debate over the accuracy of recent polling in swing states with regard to the race for US President. Based on these increasingly ludicrous juiced polls, a whole month out from polling day, and with four televised debates to go, Cameron Slater is prepared to call it for Obama on Whale Oil. Imagine calling the 2005 New Zealand election for Brash one month out, and you get some idea of how stupid this move is.

I’m trying to be a good Christian, so I will refrain from calling Slater all the names I would like to call him at this point. Let’s just settle for questioning his intelligence if that is what he really thinks. I think deep in his heart he knows this is not a done deal, but he clearly wants Obama to win so very badly, because he has made the foolish error of calling it very early on, and knows that he is going to look a massive fool if Romney actually wins. If Obama does win, he has massive bragging rights. He can claim he called it early on and that he is pundit magnus rex, when the most one can say about his claims is that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Hell, you could toss a coin and be right 50% of the time.

Or you could follow Nate Silver and be right all of the time.

Polling companies want to be accurate in the last week. That’s the only poll anyone remembers afterwards. They can publish any crap before that, and it looks like they do. If, as Silver claims, he is only as good as his data, then he is no good to anybody. And neither is Slater. You can’t trust the sampling on these polls. It’s like counting the number of bumper stickers for Obama that I see here in a Democratic stronghold like San Antonio (lots and lots) versus the number I see for Romney (almost none) and assuming that Obama will win Texas by a landslide, when reality, precedent and political instinct all tell me that Romney is going to wipe the floor here by about twenty points.

I maintain that Rasmussen is still the only poll worth a damn, and Rasmussen still shows a two point race. It is still very close. Anything can happen. I think Slater should check his credit card limit in case he has to buy Leighton Smith a good feed.

My credit card won;t be troubled in the slightest.

Obama has won the US Presidential election. The results are pretty much in line with what Nate Silver predicted (chart below). In the end it was not neck and neck and people really need to understand that it is the Electoral College that matters not Rasmussen polls.

Leighton Smith graciously rang to concede for our bet just after 6pm. We have agreed on the location for the lunch which we will both enjoy. We are yet to agree on a date dur to overlapping commitments but it will be in the next two weeks.

For those rabid frothing wierdos who dissed me for my assessment of the election, you can use the comments to eat humble pie.

In the meantime I have found a video of the 100 best maniacal laughs to entertain you.

Plenty of people have been attacking me because I have been following Nate Silver and his calculations analysis of polling in the presidential election.

They seem to conflate my analysis as support for Obama. That is far from the truth, but it would be remiss of me to ignore information that is out there.

The funny thing is the very polls that just a month ago people were complaining about being bias, they are now pointing at and saying see, see Romney will win…well if the polls were dodgy then, they are dodgy now. Which brings me back to Nate Silver…he has developed a methodology and a model that is interesting and deserves reporting on. Plenty of other people have had a crack at him but let’s look at some facts:

If Mitt Romney wins on election day, it doesn’t mean Silver’s model was wrong. After all, the model has been fluctuating between giving Romney a 25 percent and 40 percent chance of winning the election. That’s a pretty good chance! If you told me I had a 35 percent chance of winning a million dollars tomorrow, I’d be excited. And if I won the money, I wouldn’t turn around and tell you your information was wrong. I’d still have no evidence I’d ever had anything more than a 35 percent chance.

Fair points there from Ezra Klein. 

Brendan Nyhan provides the following commentary and chart:

Silver’s estimates are generally somewhat more conservative than the other statistical forecasting models and only moderately more confident in an Obama victory than the betting markets. Whatever objection pundits or conservatives may have is with the state of the publicly available evidence or the way in which forecasters and bettors translate that evidence into probabilities, not with Silver or his methods.

Next Tuesday we are going to find out for sure and Friday either Leighton Smith is going to be paying or I am. Either way we are going to have an awesome lunch.