Reuters reports:

Billionaire real estate magnate and television personality Donald Trump says he won’t run for the White House in 2012.

The announcement thins the field of potential Republican candidates for the upcoming US presidential election.

The host of NBC-TV’s “Celebrity Apprentice” said his decision followed “considerable deliberation and reflection” after weeks of an unofficial campaign.

“I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election,” Trump said in a statement, adding that he is “not ready to leave the private sector.”

Trump’s poll ratings for the Republican nominations have plummeted to 8% after he was humiliated at the WHCD. It is bad enough to have made a fool of yourself by becoming the highest profile champion of the “birthers”, but to not be able to laugh at yourself as you get roasted makes it even worse.

The Republicans have quite a challenge finding a candidate who can be competitive against Obama. Newt Gingrich has declared and he is formidable. But scandal may trip him up. The base still has not warmed to Romney. For now I’m still saying look out for former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Intrade has Obama’s re-election chances at 61%, and that seems about right to me.  The Republicans are rated 65% likely to win control of the Senate (I would put it higher), so if Obama is re-elected he will probably have to deal with Republican control of both Houses.

The Herald reports:

David Bain will speak at an injustice conference in Perth next year in his first public appearance since he was cleared of the murder of his family.

I guess Robin Bain couldn’t make it.

National have announced that they have selected Joanne Hayes as their candidate for Dunedin South. Congrats to Joanne. Joanne is the Chief Executive of Ngai Tai O Te Awa Trust.

Last weekend Georgina te Heuheu announced her retirement. Georgie became a National MP in 1996, and off memory was the only National MP who was of Maori descent.

Today National has eight MPs of Maori descent. On top of that National’s candidates in Northland, Wellington Central and Dunedin South are of Maori descent. And on current polling they could all well become MPs via the party list if they do not win their seats.

This has all happened with no quotas.

What is remarkable isn’t so much that National is selecting so many Maori candidates, but that so many Maori are making themselves available to stand for National. 20 years ago it was near unthinkable.

UPDATE: And to further make my point, Claudette Hauiti has just been selected as the Mangere candidate. 11 out of 63 candidates in general seats are Maori.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been to an improvised show – one where the audience help direct the plot. Snake Oil last night was a good reminder of how entertaining they can be.

Greg Ellis is a snake oil salesman – Dr Artemis Lovelace. He has an engaging stage presence and booming voice, which makes him indeed a credible snake oil salesman.

I’m full of admiration for anyone who can talk non-stop for an hour, without even pausing for reflection. Hard enough to do when you have a prepared script, but much harder when you literally invent the story as you tell it. I got asked twice to make up a key detail, choosing pasta as a food and stamp collecting as a hobby. Within seconds these became major plot elements, as Ellis talked about how pasta brought together native americans and italian-americans in his whimsical tale.

Equally challenging to making up a story as you go, must be remembering it. Elis invented a number of characters (including the twins Ping and Pong) and they all were referred to throughout the show.

The show only runs for four days. If you are a fan of improvised shows, then you’ll enjoy spending an hour with Greg Ellis.

AP reports:

The leader of the International Monetary Fund, a possible candidate for president of France, was pulled from an airplane moments before he was to fly to Paris and is being questioned by police in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel maid.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken off the Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and turned over to police Saturday afternoon, said Paul J. Browne, New York Police Department spokesman.

He was being questioned by the NYPD special victims office. Strauss-Kahn had retained an attorney and was not making statements to the police, Browne said. No charges have yet been filed.

The 32-year-old woman told authorities that she entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel near Manhattan’s Times Square at about 1pm Eastern (1600 GMT) Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and attacked her, Browne said.

She told authorities that he tried to force her to perform oral sex on him. She somehow broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

This will be one of the trials of the decade, if the allegations are correct.

He was not just a possible candidate for President of France, but I would say the clear favourite to becomes the 34th President of the Republic.

Incidentially he was accused of attempted rape in 2002 by the then 23 year old Tristane Banon.

Yes even I watched the Masterchef finale.  Nadia was my favourite, but I thought both contestants came over really really well.

And boy does a macaroon flower frenzy tower make you feel hungry or what?

Late last year the Sunday Star-Times started running polls by Horizon Research. I commented on them in September and again in December. I had concerns over the results they were coming up with. Unlike all the other public parliamentary pollsters, they use an Internet panel for their polling, rather than randomly selected phone numbers.

There is of course no sure fire way to know whether a poll is accurate or not, except when measure against an actual election. The only election they have previously publicly polled is the Auckland Council. Horizon predicted Len Brown would win the Auckland Mayoralty with a 31%  margin, and in fact the actual margin was just under 14%.

I deliberately have not blogged again on them, because I think you should not rush to judgement off just one or two polls. No pollster is 100% reliable. Even with a margin of error, that is only to 95% confidence. That means that around 1 in 20 polls will be outside the sampling margin of error.

The katest Horizon poll is here. They helpfully include their results for the last six months, so I have done a comparison of the results for the Horizon polls with the average of the polls for the four other companies which do public parliamentary polls. They are Colmar Brunton, Reid Research, TV3 and Digipoll. Rob Salmond found that the average of the polls for the four public pollsters was highly accurate at the 2008 election.

In doing the comparison, I compare percentages of decided voters, as that is what is commonly reported and is comparable to an actual election result.

As one can see the Horizon Poll has National around 10% lower than the average of the four other pollsters. I’ve also included the lowest and highest poll score for National in each month, and Horizon poll tends to have National 5% to 10% below anoy other individual poll.

This is difficult to reconcile. It is possible that Colmar Brunton, Reid Research, Digipoll and Roy Morgan (who have long established track records) are all getting it wrong, and that this brand new company by using Internet Panels is getting it right. But I know where I would put my money.

With Labour, there is less of a gap. They tend to have Labour 2% to 3% lower than the average of the other polls, but pretty close to the lowest scores each for the other polls.

Horizon has had the Greens significantly higher than the average of the other polls for five out of six months. On average by about 3%.

With NZ First, Horizon have had a huge gap, often being more than double the average of the other polls. Around a 5% gap on average which is huge. Also worth pointing out there is a certain self-fulling aspect to polls. The increase in January in the other polls was probably partially due to publicity over them being at 9% in the Horizon poll.

The latest (May 2011) poll has ACT at over 5%. This isn’t as extraordinary as the fact their April 2011 poll had ACT at over 4%. In fact the Horizon poll says ACT gained more support in March and April under Rodney Hide (a 2% gain) than they gained in May under Brash.

I would not be unhapy with ACT at 5%, but to believe ACT are at 5% in May, you need to believe that they were at 4% in April prior to the leadership change.

The discrepancies between the Horizon polls and the other four pollsters are huge. I do not see a way to reconcile them. Now this is not to say Horizon are necessairly wrong. It is possible the other four pollsters are all wrong. Now the average of the other four pollsters got the 2008 election close to spot on, and Horizon were out on the Brown-Banks margin by around 17%. But despite that, it is possible that the other four companies have just fluked their results over the last few years, and only Horizon is applying an accurate methodoogy to their sampling.

Roger Kerr blogs:

I have spent much of this week in Houston, Texas. Texas is the go-ahead large state in the United States today, and Houston is the oil and gas capital, America’s second largest port and home to a huge medical complex.

With it’s business-friendly environment, Texas is attracting firms and people from other states, notably over-taxed and over-regulated California, in large numbers. It has no state income tax. The state legislature only meets for 8 weeks every two years – and without air-conditioning so that politicians do not get too attracted to the place.

Heh. Amusing but not the part I suggest we emulate.

Houston is famous for having no zoning (land regulation). Yet it looks pretty much like many other US cities. Without controls you do not find an oil refinery next to prime residential real estate and the expected collection of businesses cluster around the port. But there are many neighborhood associations that set their own rules about things like how close to a boundary you can build or what colour you can paint your house.

The absence of land supply restrictions makes housing (and much else in Houston) incredibly cheap. You can get a very nice two-garage, four-bedroom house for as little as US $200,000. Some 500,000 ‘refugees’ from New Orleans moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina without putting any significant pressure on house prices or the land market.

If ever the government gets around to a fundamental review of our dysfunctional Resource Management Act, there would be many lessons to be learned from Houston.

What I find most interesting is that the absence of zoning hasn’t resulted in the city being vastly different to other cities – just cheaper.

Think how much time and money would be saved, and lawyers dispensed with, if there was no district plan for a city!

The first thing you notice upon entering Circa Theatre One is its remarkable transformation. The stage, being a cottage with no walls, is in the middle of the theatre, and the seating is on both sides of it. This has the unusual effect of being able to see half the audience beyond the stage. It gave an intimate feel to the performance.

The Lead Wait is not a comedy, even though there are a number of humourous scenes in it. It is hard to stick it into a category, but I’d classify it as a dramatic mystery. The mystery traveller obviously has some past history with the other characters, but you don’t know what. The plot is quite captivating, as your mind runs through the possibilities of how it all stitches together.

Leon is the wise-cracking and relaxed head of the house. He welcomes the mystery man back and even lets him use the bath. In fact all four characters have a bath on stage, and this is a source of most of the humourous aspects. Especially when Leon teases young Ian that his bladder got relaxed in the bath. All four characters have full frontal nudity in front of each other, plus of course the audience. This reinforces the atmosphere that in the past, there has been intimacy between some of them.

Juliet I took to be Leon’s wife initially. She was very upset to have the mystery man return, and didn’t want him to even stay for dinner. I was assuming she cheated on Leon with him, but in fact it transpires Juliet is Leon’s sister and she is sleeping wih the young and naive Ian.

Leon has a mania for digging holes in their property, and uses canaries to detect where the air is bad. This greatly , Ian, who is teased for being too sensitive by Leon. Actual live canaries are used in the play, but I presume not killed!

The play is around 90 minutes long and the mystery starts to get solved as time goes on. It then turns from a mystery into a powerful drama. The final ten minutes can only be described as powerful and shocking, with one scene even having me shudder in my seat.

So this play is not a barrel of laughs comedy. Don’t go to it if you are wanting to just be entertained. However if you are looking for a play which captivates you, which grips your emotions, which shocks you and leave you feeling somewhat raw afterwards – then go see it.

The plot is expertly constructed, and the four cast members brought their characters to life. The stage was excellent, and captured that feel of a remote country house so very well.

Neil Reid in the SST reports:

HONE HARAWIRA has confirmed veteran activist John Minto will be invited to stand for his new political movement, the Mana Party, in the general election.

In an exclusive interview, the nation’s most polarising MP described Minto – formerly the leader of anti-apartheid group Halt All Racist Tours – as “a great New Zealander”.

And Minto – who has rejected three previous offers to stand for other political parties at previous elections – has confirmed if his family backs him, he “would be delighted” to accept the offer.

It’s 20 years since the UUSR ditched communism and around a decade since the Chinese effectively did the same. But in NZ, we may get to put another Marxist into Parliament.

Belinda McCammon in the SST reports:

A TRANS-TASMAN alcohol blitz has left police disappointed at the number of liquor outlets that continue to break the law despite an extensive campaign warning retailers not to sell alcohol to minors.

Operation Unite, which started throughout Australia and New Zealand on Friday night, is the fourth time the nations’ police have worked together in a weekend of action targeting alcohol harm.

I’m all in favour of Police operations where they crack down on outlets selling liquor to under 18 year olds. In fact I think they should be doing it far far more often.

But why is it a Trans-Tasman operation? The issues are a purely local one. Is there some belief that we should only crack down, if Australia is also? Trans-tasman operations make sense for crimes which involve our borders, or criminals working together from both countries. But why for a simple under-age drinking sting?

The New Zealand side of the operation, which lasted from 6pm on Friday and finished at 6am yesterday, involved 1069 police officers.

Sales practices were tested by controlled purchase operations at 208 off-licence liquor outlets, and there were 46 incidents of alcohol being sold to minors. …

121 controlled purchase operations were run at licensed liquor outlets to test whether minors were being sold alcohol.

46 incidents when alcohol was sold to minors on these occasions.

It seems around 35% of outlets sold liquor to an under 18 year old. That is a massively high figure and to me suggests the Police should be doing these crackdowns monthly or even fortnightly. It also reinforces my belief that better enforcement of the current law is preferable to changing the law.

Neil Reid at Sunday News reports:

RAISING the minimum wage would boost the economy and Government’s piggy bank, plus keep Kiwis from moving across the Tasman.

That’s the message Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei has for Finance Minister Bill English ahead of Thursday’s 2011-12 Budget.

Turei wants the minimum wage lifted by $2 an hour from the current $13.

“Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would not only significantly improve their lives at a time when living costs are soaring, it would also generate up to $173 million per year for the Government at a time when the fiscal deficit is ballooning,” Turei told Sunday News.

The rise would immediately generate an extra $101m a year in increased PAYE taxes, she said. It would give 300,000 workers increased spending power, leading to a gain of about $72m annually from GST.

This argument is so economically illiterate, I don’t know where to start.

First of all if PAYE taxes  go up $101m a year, then the company tax will drop by more than that. Let’s say those 300,000 workers are around 150,000 full time equivalents. If their pay goes up from $13/hr to $15/hr, they will gain $4,160 each before tax, or $624m in total.

At 17.5%, this will lead to an increased PAYE tax take of $109m – close to the $101m quoted.

But the employers will have had their profits drop by $624m, and they pay 30% tax on that. So that is $187m less tax paid in company tax.

So Turei’s argument is just nonsense. She has deliberately ignored the impact on company tax.

Beyond the direct fiscal costs, there are also flow on effects such as job losses. Youth unemployment would continue to skyrocket if you made it illegal to hire a 16 year old for less than $15 an hour.

Kathryn Powley in the HoS reports:

They say anything can happen in an election year but threatening to kill your favourite candidate for Prime Minister seems unlikely to help get him voted in.

However, a Palmerston North man charged with threatening to kill John Key said yesterday he would still vote for him in November.

He threatened to kill him, but still plans to vote for him? Why?

Incidentially if he gets sent to prison, then he now won’t be able to vote.

He’d joked that he knew Key ate dinner at a Lower Hutt steakhouse on Thursdays.

“I said to him I was thinking of going and seeing if he was there and blowing him up. It was not like I was actually going to do it,” he said.

In fact, he would vote for Key. “John Key is doing a pretty good job at the moment, better than Labour.”

Poor Labour. They can’t even get the votes of those trying to kill John Key.

Herald Politics quiz is here. 9/10 in 1 min 6 secs.

David Hold was a regular commenter on Kiwiblog, and other blogs. He was an owner and managing director of Barrons Recreational Vehciles in Taupo.

David was a generous guy. He donated a brand new Winnebago to Whale and myself for two months for the 2008 election campaign as the blogmobile, and also arranged one for the Mt Albert by-election. David was from the United Kingdom, but had a great love for New Zealand.

Sadly David killed himself last Tuesday. There is always a complex set of issues around any self-inflicted death, and I’m not privy to these. I will miss David, and his humour. He would often text or e-mail outraegous jokes – few of which are printable. My thoughts go out to his family and closest friends.

Charlie Gates at Stuff reports:

The first New Zealand cinema census of 4000 people found 62 per cent went to the cinema once a month, with 27 per cent seeing as many as three films a month.

It also found 51 per cent regularly downloaded movies, but 87 per cent of those did not pay for them.

Only 40 per cent of respondents were opposed to illegal downloads. The survey was conducted by movie website flicks.co.nz, and 48 Hours and Incredibly Strange film festivals creator Ant Timpson.

Flicks managing director Paul Scantlebury said he was surprised by the number of people illegally downloading films.

He said people turned to the internet because movies were shown in New Zealand much later than the rest of the world.

“Everyone is online and knows a movie is out and is good, but often it will be out on DVD in the US before it is out in the cinema here,” he said. “iTunes is not really much better. The legal way of doing this is not very good.

“If there was a viable, legal and local option, people would use it. It is sad because people are forming habits and learning new ways to access movies.”

Exactly. If you do not make movies available legally, this means that the only way to see a movie in a timely manner is to access it illegally. Isn’t that sort of dumb?

However, Motion Picture Distributors’ Association chairman Robert Crockett said illegal downloads could damage an industry that sustained 22,000 New Zealand jobs. “This highlights the issue that there is illegal downloading and we need to do something about it as a creative industry,” he said.

“I think most people want to do the right thing if they know that what they are doing is illegal and has a cost locally.

“I’m sure they will choose to do the right thing if they are given a viable and legal option to do so.”

Exactly.

Danyl at Dim-Post has found a second letter from Don Brash to John Key:

It is with a heavy heart that I withdraw my membership, not only of the National Party, as I explained in my previous letter, but also from the National Party Social Bowling Club of which I have been a proud member for twenty-three years.

I do not take this decision lightly and I have made it after observing, with mounting alarm, your lack of commitment to the activity of bowling.

When I had the privilege to serve as President of the Social Bowling Club and you were my treasurer, I railed against the inefficiency of the sport as I saw it. Despite repeated attempts to destroy the little pins at the end of the lane with our heavy balls, there was never any reduction in the total amount of pins. We spent many hours knocking them down but the next time the Club met there they all were again, standing upright just as before, presumably placed there by some malign, unseen state agency.

I gave many speeches, John – which you endorsed – calling for the cessation of bowling using balls, arguing for the deployment of hand grenades and fragile crystal globes filled with acid. Have you forgotten those plans?

And he continues:

The things I discovered shocked me. I learned, and reported back to you, that the pins we knocked down during each game were the SAME PINS EVERY TIME. Concealed at the back of the lane was a large, complicated mechanical apparatus that picked them up and set them standing again! I was literally sick with terror and disgust! All our previous efforts had been for naught!

I appraised you of these facts, John, but your response to them staggers me. You have not disconnected this equipment, as I advised. You have not smashed the pins with heavy mallets, even though, as we now know to our terrible cost, their total number is small, no more than a few dozen at best, and they could easily be annihilated. Instead I have looked on with uncomprehending horror as, under your leadership, National MPs now bowl from the start of the lane instead of standing directly above the pins and hurling the balls at them as was practise during my presidency.

Superb satire.

My nzherald.co.nz column this week is called “A battered budget“