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Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Here are a few photos that I love shot by Dimitri Hyacinthe in N.Y. Dimitri is an AMAZING photographer and person!!! And super great to shoot with : )!
Layton says he is doing that to ensure that $1 billion of new funds reach jobless Canadians as a result of Harper's latest manoeuvre.
However, let's put that in perspective. The NDP, with Layton in the forefront, has time after time said in and out of Parliament that they do not think the Tory government is doing enough to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
We in the Liberal Party agree.
That is why we believe the time has come to vote the Tory government out of government and have an election so that Canadians can get the government they really need.
And we believe this is necessary because the economy is in deep trouble, and changing that will require a government with a different view to that of the Tories.
And that is more important than a small fix to the EI problem.
How big is the problem (which Layton's NDP is prolonging by its support of the Tories)?
Read this from the Globe & Mail's Daybook for September 30 to get an idea:
"One measure of a recession's toll is the amount of unused capacity, or slack, in an economy. Empty warehouses, unemployed people and idle assembly lines offer stark examples of the deepest downtown in a generation. They also indicate how far an economy has to go before it can climb out of the slump. Today, Daybook looks at industrial capacity.
INDUSTRIES
PRODUCERS
Textile mills are running at half capacity. Oil and gas firms have slowed their activity. Paper mills are closing. And operations in 32 mines were closed or suspended during the first half of the year…
CAPACITY
Across the country, industries are running at just 67.4 per cent of their capacity utilization rates, the lowest level in at least 22 years, Statistics Canada says.
All sectors except food manufacturing saw their capacity use fall in the second quarter. The mining sector, for example, operated at 50 per cent of capacity.
Transportation equipment factories ran at 46 per cent. And primary metal makers used just 62 per cent of their capacity - a record low.
To put that in perspective, in 2000 when the economy was abuzz with the high-tech boom, Canadian factories were humming along at 87.1 per cent of capacity."
Jack, take note of the steep curve facing our economy: capacity utilization at 67.4% versus 87.1%.
And every day you support Harper's do-little and stall-a-lot government simply delays the steps needed to improve the capacity utilization, and provide good jobs to Canadians.
Are you sure that you and the NDP really want to do that?
It is not too late to put Canadians first.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
This short article by Clyde Prestowitz bears repeating:
"For years Larry Summers and I had a running argument over industrial policy.
As a mainstream economist in good standing, he, of course argued that governments can't pick winners and losers and that even if it could, special interests would inevitably capture the process and distort it. Under no circumstances, he emphasized, should America have an industrial policy.
My view was that as an industrial nation we would inevitably make decisions that involved picking winners and losers. Breaking up AT&T, standards setting by the FCC or FDA, R&D spending by N.I.H, etc. are all examples of such decisions. The only question was and is whether those decisions would be guided by some overall productivity optimizing criteria or by chance or, more likely, the very special interests Larry feared.
Well, now that the U.S. government owns the banks, insurance, and auto companies with Larry as the chief winner and loser picker, that whole discussion has become moot.
But now that we are picking winners and losers, the question of how we are doing it has become very important. So far, the answer is "not very well."
While pouring big bucks into GM and Chrysler to keep them alive, the administration has largely ignored one of the biggest factors making them uncompetitive - the exchange rate. The strong dollar and the policies of China, Japan, Korea and others to undervalue their currencies tend to undercut the rescue effort. Industrial policy will only work if it is a complete policy, and a complete policy in this case must be one that deals with the exchange rate question.
More important, however, is the question not only of saving Detroit, but more broadly, of revitalizing the whole U.S. productive base. To avoid a repeat of the experience of the past two years, we must come out of this crisis with a vastly reduced trade deficit. But to do that, we must begin to produce more of what we consume, which is, after all, what Obama has been talking about when he discusses creating green and other kinds of jobs. But the problem is that right now, the greener we get, the more we import because we don't make most of the stuff we would need to install.
Take batteries for instance. Electric cars, lawn mowers, and other devices need batteries. With a few small exceptions, U.S. companies don't make batteries. They also don't make windmill blades and turbines. They also don't make solar cells or concentrators.
Even if GM and Chrysler survive in some reduced form, a lot of workers are going to lose their jobs as a lot of factories are shut down. A sensible industrial policy would be looking at ways to replace those auto factories with battery, windmill, and solar cell plants. The new Commerce Secretary ought to be talking to Korean battery makers, Danish windmill producers, and Japanese photovoltaic cell manufacturers about why they should be investing in the U.S. and why they should be doing joint ventures with American companies. He should have some financial investment incentives to use to entice these companies to U.S. shores.
At the same time he should be creating government-industry consortia to promote development of these technologies in the United States. Use the Sematech consortium that was set up in the late 1980s to meet Japanese competition in semiconductors as a model. He should also be working with State governors to see to it that new factories are located so as to replace old ones and to take advantage of concentrations of worker skills.
In short, America needs a real industrial renaissance policy, not just a save GM and Chrysler policy."
The same applies to Canada, and the need for an industrial renaissance policy here is yet another reason why we need to replace the current minority government (which is ideologically opposed to using the power and influence of the federal government of Canada for such things) with a government prepared to design and implement such a policy.
This is what is happening in the US:
"Long duration structural unemployment now represents a record 3.2 percent of the US labor force and over a third of those unemployed. Some industrial sectors have been completely devastated. As of June 2009, 35% of all jobs in auto industry have been lost, 25% of textile jobs, 25% of all furniture making jobs, 15% of semiconductor jobs, 15% of all plastics and rubber manufacturing jobs gone likely forever. All told according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14% of all high paying manufacturing jobs have been shed since the start of the economic downturn in December 2007."
To cope with this requires a government in Canada which aims at using the power and influence of the federal government to change things, unlike the Tory government under Harper, which Jack Layton's NDP is now propping up.
What is the bigger threat to workers in Canada – the $1 billion of EI which Harper used to buy Layton's support, or the deindustrialization of Canada?
I did a photo shoot while i was i New York and i wore beautiful clothes by Laurence. I did the shoot with Meg McCabe with Marilyn as well! :)
My last trip to N.Y.C. i shot with super talented photographer Shameer Khan i really admire how successful he already is and hes only 19!! He is testing with the top agencies in N.Y.!! Here are some photos he took of me that we took on a rooftop.
Unlike the Harper brand of Tory party, which is the closest we have yet come to the Lenin-Stalin party model (of one man one vote with the leader being that man), the Liberal Party is a fairly loose association of provincial power bases. It is not surprising then that every now and then conflicts erupt between the centre and the provincial power bases:
"He dropped another bombshell, too, questioning the political acumen of the rather-new-to-politics Toronto crowd around Mr. Ignatieff, wondering how Quebec politics can be done from Toronto. He was referring to the fact that it appeared decisions around who should run in the Montreal riding of Outremont were being made in Toronto, by Mr. Ignatieff's inner circle, and not in Quebec by Mr. Coderre and his team.
It has been a constant criticism of the Ignatieff inner circle that too many are from Toronto, but Mr. Coderre was the first to say so publicly.
Mr. Ignatieff is not immune to this, either. He is said to be disappointed in himself. In conversations with friends over the weekend, he lamented the fact that he hasn't taken seriously enough the caucus's concerns about making his office more broadly based.
“Michael is a lot of things, but he's not stupid,” a veteran Liberal official said. “He knows that this is not very good.”"
The Cat gives this word of advice to Michael Ignatieff.
Announce immediately that you are going to set up a commission (the "Selection Commission") with a mandate to report back to you by no later than June 30 2010 on methods used to select candidates. And then deal with the fracas in Quebec.
The commission you set up should be tasked to examine the methods used to nominate candidates for the Liberal Party, the rights of provincial party leaders and of the Party leader, the methods used in contested nominations, and to provide you as leader with several alternatives for you to consider.
Selection Commission members should represent all provinces, proportional to the population in each province.
The Commission is to recommend how an ongoing, permanent Candidate Selection process is to be instituted, such that the Leader can receive advice from a permanent Selection Advisory Group, with respect to any contested nominations.
The Commission should frame its advice by considering what selection criteria should guide the permanent Selection Advisory Group and the Leader of the Party when it comes to selecting a candidate. These selection criteria should be ranked in order of priority, and should include a consideration of the obtaining of the correct balance of male and female Liberal MPs in Parliament.
The Leader will of course retain the right to overrule the recommendations of the permanent Selection Advisory Group if it his or her opinion a higher ranking selection criterion should apply in any given case.
By committing to such a commission now, Ignatieff can ensure that the issue will be properly addressed, while clearing the decks for fighting the coming election. Most Liberals would be satisfied with the proposal, and we can turn to preparing to fight Harper's do-nothing government.
Harper has dangled extended EI benefits totalling around $1 billion for some 190,000 jobless as a carrot before the NDP, and the NDP has said it will support his government until such time as it takes to pass this measure into legislation:
"The federal New Democrats are throwing a lifeline to the Harper government, offering on Wednesday to prop it up and stave off a fall election for as long as it takes to get the House of Commons to approve $1 billion in new support for unemployed Canadians… But when asked how much time he was giving the government to adopt the measures, Layton did not give a deadline, saying he first needed to study the proposal, introduced in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon. The NDP said that defeating the government and forcing an election would prevent unemployed Canadians from receiving the new benefits. "We're not going to do anything to block that money, and an election campaign would definitely block it," said NDP Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair. "That money wouldn't flow (during an election campaign) to those families who need it, and that's not something we're going to do." … The government has estimated that up to 190,000 people could benefit from the new spending."
One can quibble with Jack Layton about whether we should allow the Tory government to hold hundreds of thousands of Canadians hostage (through their slow injection of funds into the economy under the stimulus programs, and their reluctance to widen the EI laws in a proper fashion, so as to cope with the steep recession facing us).
But Layton's NDP has decided to support the Tories in the coming confidence motion, so as to flow the $1 billion to the 190,000. Of course, Harper understands that Layton has tied a noose around his neck, tightened the knot, thrown the rope over a tree branch, handed the end of the rope to Harper.
It will be interesting to watch just how many times and under what guises Harper (who is not worthy of trust, according to the NDP) will stall the introduction of the legislation so as to ensure that the NDP votes time and again in favour of the government on confidence measures. Just a gentle tug of the noose every now and then might well keep the NDP on it's toes, and doing Harper's bidding.
The irony is that the NDP really do not trust Harper, and really believe that a new government (a minority Liberal one) which provided progressive policies, would be much better for all Canadians.
Of course, there is one way for the Liberals to provide Layton with a means for him to vote against the government on Thursday, and still obtain a strong measure of support for the 190,000 jobless.
Michael Ignatieff might publicly commit to the NDP that should the government fall on Thursday's vote, and the Liberals become the government, he will introduce legislation immediately which provides for at least that $1 billion of aid for those 190,000, with payments backdated to, say, October 30, for those who were unemployed from October 30 until the new Liberal legislation is introduced. That will lessen the harm done to these jobless by providing them with support, even if it is retroactive support.
As part of this offer, Ignatieff can also offer both the NDP and Bloc that the new Liberal government will as a first priority establish an all-party commission tasked with providing the government with further suggested changes to the EI legislation, and requiring such suggestions to be made asap but no later than 45 days after the Liberal government is sworn in. Any changes accepted by the Liberals will be fast tracked into legislation.
Monday, 28 September 2009
Today i had a great day shopping i went to Wasteland vintage store and got an adorable CHANEL shirt for $22.00 and went to Marc by Marc Jacobs and got a cute heart mirror for $5.00, a lipstick pen for a $1.50, and a random rat key chain for $1.00!!!! Then to end the Day we got cup cakes!!
Women Management (Milan)
Women Management (New York)
Place Models (Hamburg)
Vacatio Model Agency (Riga)
-> her tfs forum topic
My new ford L.A. card! The picture on the front is taken by Karl Rothenburger and the back is taken by Tony duran.
The Casino Power Plant More Liberal Mismanagement
Thank you very much to the reader who sent this in. A funny video but not so funny if you are a taxpayer in Ontario!
-Darryl
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Beatrice Models (Milano)
Storm Models (London)
City Models (Paris)
Priscillas Model Management
Fusion Model Management (New York)
MD Management (Hamburg)
-> her tfs forum topic
The latest revelation of Iran's secret efforts to obtain the uranium needed for a nuclear weapon program means that an Israeli strike on Iran is much closer:
"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he believes Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons, after the recent discovery of a secret uranium enrichment facility in the Islamic Republic.
"My personal opinion is that the Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons," said Gates in an interview with ABC News, set to be aired on Sunday.
But he added: "I think the question of whether they have made a formal decision to move towards the development of nuclear weapons, uh, is in doubt."
The nuclear site in the arid mountains near the holy city of Qom is believed to be inside a heavily guarded, underground facility belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guard, according to a document sent by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to lawmakers.
In the ABC interview, Gates said the fact that Iran had concealed the site's existence raised significant questions as to their nuclear ambitions.
"This is part of a pattern of deception and lies on the part of the Iranians from the very beginning with respect to their nuclear program," the defense secretary added."
The US has called for more extensive sanctions on Iran, but to obtain the blessing of the Security Council for such enhanced sanctions means both Russia and China must agree; their track record to date seems to indicate that they won't go along with really effective sanctions against Iran.
And so that leaves the remaining alternative: a strike by Israel on several of Iran's nuclear facilities, so as to delay the development of such weapons by several years. The Iranian response will cause a new wave of problems for President Obama, and could unsettle oil markets substantially.
Layton has lead his NDP party into supporting the Harper Tory minority government, in return for a promise to inject a paltry $1 billion more into EI. This is the crux of Layton's reasoning:
"He did reach out. The $1 billion he is proposing to spend on improving EI benefits isn't enough, of course. Too many unemployed won't benefit from these changes. And critics have called it "peanuts" and a "bone." But that's absurd. Only Bernie Madoff ever believed that $1 billion is peanuts and he has, I suspect, recently changed his views.
For us, though, the real question is how to use political leverage responsibly when you have it. Do we support this measure, which will get much-needed financial help into the hands of people whose benefits will be running out this winter and may end up on social assistance? We fully appreciate that doing so means an election will not happen right away, and will leave in place, for a time, Stephen Harper's minority government, whose right-wing agenda we have vigorously opposed."
Layton's reasoning is suspect and faulty. If he really is concerned about the plight of the many unemployed, and about the inadequate unemployment regime Harper is now applying across our country, then he should have followed his "real question" of how to use political leverage responsibility to its logical end.
And that end is simply this: Given that many Canadians are hurting because they or their family members have lost their jobs; given that many more will lose their jobs in the next two years; given that many of the replacement jobs will pay far less and be less stable than the jobs lost in our manufacturing sector; given that the Harper Tories do not believe in changing the ability of Canada to compete and provide high paying, stable jobs for all, through the use of partnerships between the federal government and Canadians; given that the Bloc support in Quebec means it is unlikely that there will be a majority government (Tory of Liberal) in the near future, then the question is – How should the NDP best exercise the political leverage it might have in Parliament in order to properly protect and help Canadians in the short, medium and long term?
Jack Layton's action in accepting the mess of porridge offered him by Harper is flawed because he looked only to the short term, and not the short, medium and long term.
The bulk of Canadians would be better off if we had a minority Liberal government in power right now, supported by the NDP and if needed the Bloc in order to provide progressive governance to Canada.
Layton should re-consider the timeframe of his decision, and vote the current government out of power.
That would be the proper way to act in the interests of most Canadians.
Revert to your principles, Jack, and think of the alternatives. You do have a choice.
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Saturday, 26 September 2009
Last night i was in the teen vogue D&G fashion show!! I had such a blast! The clothes were sooo amazing, i saw like every celeb., talked to Kelly Osbourne who is soo sweet, met Taylor lautner, saw the whole cast of 90210, and danced with my bff Morgan and the new stars of the up and coming show Victorias on Nickelodeon, Victoria Justice and Evan!!
