The Author of America Abandoned Says Democracy is Over in the U.S.

America Abandoned (PRNewsFoto/Jill Cody)

"It's Been Stolen and We've Been Robbed," Jill Cody Asserts

In her eye-opening new book America Abandoned: The Secret Velvet Coup That Cost Us Our Democracy, author and political activist Jill Cody minces no words about where the U.S. stands in 2016. "Our country, the alleged United States of America, is technically no longer a democracy. It has been abandoned to an oligarchy, defined as 'a government run by the few' and 'a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.'"

Cody, whose book was just published this month, explains how multibillionaires managed to take control of Congress, the Supreme Court and, thus the country in a Velvet Coup that few saw coming. She traces its origins to a 1971 memo written by Louis Powell called the Powell Memorandum. 

The confidential memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce laid out a road map to further the interests of the Chamber's version of free enterprise capitalism—a road map that was promoted by a parade of highly paid corporate lobbyists and Powell's eventual appointment to the Supreme Court.

As the presidential election looms, carrying with it the possibility of a billionaire making it to the White House, Cody can talk about:

• 7 ways the Velvet Coup caused the abandonment of ordinary Americans.
• Why government should not be run like a business and who benefits if it is.
• What Living in the Black or Living in the Red means, and how our individual and organizational choices could either rescue or ruin America.
• How we can boldly recapture our middle class and democracy with personal activism and heightened voter participation.

PRAISE FOR AMERICA ABANDONED

"From right wing conservatives to Wall Street fat cats, progressive writer Jill Cody delivers a no-holds-barred look at a country that's becoming politically, morally and financially bankrupt."
Thom Hartmann, nationally syndicated talk show host and bestselling author

Jill Cody (PRNewsFoto/Jill Cody)

ABOUT JILL CODY

America Abandoned is Jill Cody's first book. Her life-long passion for knowledge and desire to inspire change in politics, the environment, higher education and organizational development led her to pursue a 31-year career in public service. She was personally trained and authorized by Vice President Al Gore to share his presentation on An Inconvenient Truth. 

She has assisted in coordinating national and international strategic planning meetings on Information Literacy in Washington D.C., Prague and Egypt. Cody earned a master's degree in public administration from San Jose State University and devoted her career to public service.

SOURCE: Jill Cody

USA: Chihuahua Predicts Election In New Book

"If I Were The President's Dog!" by The Fabulous Bookwormzillas (PRNewsFoto/The Fabulous Bookwormzillas)

A chihuahua named Rocko got the attention of his sitter, and what happened next can only be described as an astounding hoot!

IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT'S DOG! - Written by The Fabulous Bookwormzillas and Illustrated by Ashley Carey was telepathically transmitted by Rocko, a chihuahua - to his sitter, GoldenEagle. She shared Rocko's messages with her family, and her grandchildren began to create dialog and scenarios from the transmitted thoughts of the chihuahua. 

"We had no idea when we began writing in '08 that the winds would turn the political tides our way via the 'craziest election season ever!'" says GoldenEagle. "And when election results were predicted back then, I was blown away!" 

In the book IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT'S DOG! the reader has a front row seat into the mind of Rocko's pup-culture reverie! You are amused by his comedic imagination as he shares his personal thoughts and heart-felt dreams of becoming the first chihuahua to ever reside in the White House!  

As Rocko campaigns to be dubbed as the next DOTUS, he introduces you to his presidential amigos, UK Royals, pop-culture events, international peace solutions, presidential canine facts, celebrity friends, fashion perks, red carpet appearances, and a presidential prediction in the Rose Garden!  

Rocko's 'big dreaming' and winning attitude demonstrates his credo: "It's not the size of the dog in the dream, it's the size of the dream in the dog!"

Hunter, Cherokee Skye, Keagan, and Zyan Cunningham and Gabriella Nedelykovic wanted to share their love of reading and writing with other children. The Fabulous Bookwormzillas, Inc. a 501(c)(3) Children's Literary Arts/Writing Collaborative was then formed to facilitate their love of being ambassadors of literary cheer! 

• They will write, publish, read and gift their books primarily to Children's Hospitals, and diverse community events. 

Tiara Starr English-Cunningham RN, (a pediatric nurse) and a parent/VP staff member is very pleased with the group's decision.

Due to the present turbulent political climate, Rocko wants to make the following statement:

"When adults become so emphatically engaged in their own particular causes, they sometime lose their sense of awareness and become self-serving; not understanding the unintended consequences of their words and actions. As a result, children and animals are inadvertently affected by the release of such tremendous negative energy! Hopefully, IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT'S DOG! will bring bi-partisan levity and a different perspective to the present political environment!" 
-Rocko-
DOTUS

>> The book trailer can be watched here: vimeo.com/182015970 <<

SOURCE: The Fabulous Bookwormzillas

Why Watching Westworld's Robots Should Make Us Question Ourselves

 By Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield

For a sci-fi fan like me, fascinated by the nature of human intelligence and the possibility of building life-like robots, it’s always interesting to find a new angle on these questions. As a re-imagining of the original 1970s science fiction film set in a cowboy-themed, hyper-real adult theme park populated by robots that look and act like people, Westworld does not disappoint.

Westworld challenges us to consider the difference between being human and being a robot. From the beginning of this new serialisation on HBO we are confronted with scenes of graphic human-on-robot violence. But the robots in Westworld have more than just human-like physical bodies, they display emotion including extreme pain, they see and recognise each other’s suffering, they bleed and even die. What makes this acceptable, at least within Westworld’s narrative, is that they are just extremely life-like human simulations; while their behaviour is realistically automated, there is “nobody home”.

But from the start, this notion that a machine of such complexity is still merely a machine is undermined by constant reminders that they are also so much like us. The disturbing message, echoing that of previous sci-fi classics such as Blade Runner and AI, is that machines could one day be so close to human as to be indistinguishable – not just in intellect and appearance, but also in moral terms.

At the same time, by presenting an alternate view of the human condition through the technological mirror of life-like robots, Westworld causes us to reflect that we are perhaps also just sophisticated machines, albeit of a biological kind – an idea that has been forcefully argued by the philosopher Daniel Dennett.

The unfortunate robots in Westworld have, at least initially, no insight into their existential plight. They enter into each new day programmed with enthusiasm and hope, oblivious to its pre-scripted violence and tragedy. We may pity these automatons their fate – but how closely does this blinkered ignorance, belief in convenient fictions, and misguided presumption of agency resemble our own human predicament?

Westworld arrives at a time when people are already worried about the real-world impact of advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. Physicist Stephen Hawking and technologist Elon Musk are among the powerful and respected voices to have expressed concern about allowing the AI genie to escape the bottle. Westworld’s contribution to the expanding canon of science fiction dystopias will do nothing to quell such fears. Channelling Shakespeare’s King Lear, a malfunctioning robot warns us in chilling terms: “I shall have such revenges on you both. The things I will do, what they are, yet I know not. But they will be the terrors of the Earth.”

But against these voices are other distinguished experts trying to quell the panic. For Noam Chomsky, the intellectual godfather of modern AI, all talk of matching human intelligence in the foreseeable future remains fiction, not science. One of the world’s best-known roboticists, Rodney Brooks has called on us to relax: AI is just a tool, not a threat.

As a neuroscientist and roboticist, I agree that we are far from being able to replicate human intelligence in robot form. Our current systems are too simple, probably by several orders of magnitude. Building human-level AI is extremely hard; as Brooks says, we are just at the beginning of a very long road. But I see the path along which we are developing AI as one of symbiosis, in which we can use robots to benefit society and exploit advances in artificial intelligence to boost our own biological intelligence.

More than just a tool
Nevertheless, in recent years the robots and AI are “just tools” line of argument has begun to frustrate me. Partly because it has failed to calm the disquiet around AI, and partly because there are good reasons why these technologies are different from others in the past.

Even if robots are just tools, people will see them as more than that. It seems natural for people to respond to robots – even some of the more simple, non-human robots we have today – as though they have goals and intentions. It may be an innate tendency of our profoundly social human minds to see entities that act intelligently in this way. More importantly, people may see robots as having psychological properties such as the ability to experience suffering.

Things will only get more complicated as robots look more life-like. Juxi

It may be difficult to persuade them to see otherwise, particularly if we continue to make robots more life-like. If so, we may have to adapt our ethical frameworks to take this into account. For instance, we might consider violence towards a robot as wrong, even though the suffering is imagined rather than real. Indeed, faced with violence towards a robot some people show this sort of ethical response spontaneously. We will have to deal with these issues as we learn to live with robots.

As AI and robot technology becomes more complex, robots may come to have interesting psychological properties that make them more than just tools. The fictional robots of Westworld are clearly in this category, but already real robots are being developed that have artificial drives and motivations, that are aware of their own bodies as distinct from the rest of the world, that are equipped with internal models of themselves and others as social entities, and that are able to think about their own past and future.

These are not properties that we find in drills and screwdrivers. They are embryonic psychological capacities that, so far, have only been found in living, sentient entities such as humans and animals. Stories such as Westworld remind us that as we progress toward ever more sophisticated AI, we should consider that this path might lead us both to machines that are more like us, and to seeing ourselves as more like machines.


About Today's Contributor:
Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Sheffield Centre for Robotics, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Forests Ontario and Del Ridge Homes Continue Partnership to Restore Canada's Forests

GreenLife Del Ridge Homes, Forests Ontario, City of Markham, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and 45 community volunteers combined efforts to plant 1800 trees at Milne Dam Conservation Park. (CNW Group/Forests Ontario)

This Saturday, Forests Ontario, GreenLife Del Ridge Homes, the City of Markham, and 45 volunteers from the community came together at Milne Dam Conservation Park to plant 1800 trees. We were honoured to be joined by Mayor Frank Scarpitti of Markham who thanked everyone for the day's efforts.

The planting brought a close to a successful planting season in which Forests Ontario and GreenLife Del Ridge Homes worked together to plant 80,000 trees across Ontario.

These plantings are part of the GreenLife Woods initiative, launched by Forests Ontario and GreenLife Del Ridge Homes in April. GreenLife Woods will support the planting of 140,000 trees on behalf of GreenLife East Markham I and II, the latest Net Zero condominium development from GreenLife Del Ridge Homes.

GreenLife East Markham integrates technical innovations to produce more energy than it consumes, including onsite electricity generation through wind and solar sources. 

GreenLife Woods further complements GreenLife Del Ridge Homes' commitment to eco-friendly building.

"Del Ridge has shown incredible enthusiasm and commitment to this initiative," says Rob Keen, CEO of Forests Ontario. "Del Ridge is not just offsetting the impact of their new development, but contributing to a network of healthy forests that will serve as a major asset in addressing the challenge of climate change."

Dave de Sylva of GreenLife Del Ridge Homes notes, "To our knowledge, we are the first builder in Canada or even in North America to take such a proactive step to build responsibly. We are committed to the environment and we hope that GreenLife Woods will inspire other builders to join us and partner with organizations like Forests Ontario to secure the long term health of our natural ecosystems."

Forests Ontario would like to thank all the volunteers who joined us at Milne Dam Conservation Park and extends our gratitude to GreenLife Del Ridge Homes for their continued support of thriving forests across Canada. Forests Ontario and Del Ridge Homes look forward to continuing our partnership to restore Canada's forests in 2017.

SOURCE: Forests Ontario

Anti-Trump TV Ad Claims Women Need to Drug Themselves in Order to Vote for Donald Trump

TV ad called "Republixan" (PRNewsFoto/Yakety-Yak PAC)

An anti-Trump Super PAC plans to air a 30-second TV ad called "Republixan" in selected battleground states. The ad was broadcast on CNN and Fox News during the Republican convention.

Yakety-Yak PAC, a newly formed, Washington, DC-based Super PAC that produced the ad, is targeting Republican women.

The ad is a parody of pharmaceutical commercials and urges Republican women to talk with their doctor about taking a drug called Republixan -- "a little red pill that relieves the stress, guilt and shame associated with voting for Donald Trump."

According to the PAC's director, Deno Seder, "No rational, thinking woman would vote for Donald Trump unless she was drugged."

The ad's producer, Jeorge Seder, remarked, "This is a great ad, believe me, a great ad. An incredible ad. We're going to win so many voters, we're gonna get tired of winning, believe me. It'll make Trump start bleeding from his whatever."

In the ad, a narrator warns of harmful side effects such as "tax cuts for the rich; reduced benefits for women, veterans and minorities; cuts in Medicare and Medicaid; cuts in funding for education; a possible war with Iranand other side effects hazardous to the health of our nation."

This ad and other anti-Trump ads can be seen at www.yakety-yakpac.com.

SOURCE: Yakety-Yak PAC

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