In this indispensable book, the staff of the Washington Post tells the story of health-care reform and explains what it means for the American people.In the book’s first section, the Washington Post’s reporter embedded in the White House provides a behind-the-scenes narrative of how Obama and the Democrats pushed through health-care reform in the face of nearly unanimous Republican opposition. This section traces the tortured evolution of the legislation, showing how the Senate killed the public option, how the January 2010 victory of Republican senator Scott Brown left the Democrats scrambling, and how Democratic leaders ultimately negotiated among entrenched political factions—including disillusioned Democrats—to reach a compromise.What does this final package include? The book’s second section provides an accessible summary of the legislation that Obama signed into law in March 2010. In the third section, Washington Post writers answer the most pressing questions about the health-care legislation’s immediate impact. Most importantly, how will the new bill affect individuals—small-business owners, uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions, and twenty-somethings on their parents’ policies? This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how this legislation came into being and what the new health-care program means.

    Across five decades, Prine has created critically acclaimed albums--John Prine (one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), Bruised Orange, and The Missing Years--and earned many honors, including two Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting from the Americana Music Association, and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been covered by scores of artists, from Johnny Cash and Miranda Lambert to Bette Midler and 10,000 Maniacs, and have influenced everyone from Roger McGuinn to Kacey Musgraves. Hailed in his early years as the "new Dylan," Prine still counts Bob Dylan among his most enthusiastic fans. In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine's musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine's best-known songs and discusses all of Prine's albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records. This thorough, entertaining treatment gives John Prine his due as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.

    The perfect book to help parents prevent--or undo--the ubiquitous liberal brainwashing of their children before it is too late.

    To mark the event, National Geographic magazine commissioned seven articles that explore the fascinating issues—including demographics, food security, climate change, fertility trends, managing biodiversity—surrounding this topic, which are collected for the first time in this special ebook.   Envi­ronment editor Robert Kunzig starts by sketching out a natural history of population. The issues associated with population growth seem endless: poverty, food and water supply, world health, climate change, deforestation, fertility rates, and more. In additional chapters Elizabeth Kolbert explores a new era—the “Anthropocene,” or the age of man—defined by our massive impact on the planet, which will endure long after our cities have crumbled; and takes us to the Mediterranean, where she delves into issues associated with increasing ocean acidification. In Bangladesh, Don Belt explores how the people of this crowded region can teach us about adapting to rising sea levels. In “Food Ark” we travel deep within the earth and around the globe to explore the seed banks that are preserving the variety of food species we may need to increase food production on an increasingly crowded planet. In Brazil, Cynthia Gournay explores the phenomenon of “Machisma” and shows how a mix of female empowerment and steamy soap operas helped bring down Brazil’s fertility rate and stoke its vibrant economy. Additionally we explore threats to biodiversity, and the return of cities—which may be the solution to many of our population woes. Join National Geographic on this incredible journey to explore our rapidly growing planet.

    These are the very same behaviors that typify good soldiering and foster a sense of belonging among troops, whether they’re fighting on the front lines or engaged in non-combat activities away from the action. Drawing from history, psychology, and anthropology, bestselling author Sebastian Junger shows us just how at odds the structure of modern society is with our tribal instincts, arguing that the difficulties many veterans face upon returning home from war do not stem entirely from the trauma they’ve suffered, but also from the individualist societies they must reintegrate into.A 2011 study by the Canadian Forces and Statistics Canada reveals that 78 percent of military suicides from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved veterans. Though these numbers present an implicit call to action, the government is only just taking steps now to address the problems veterans face when they return home. But can the government ever truly eliminate the challenges faced by returning veterans? Or is the problem deeper, woven into the very fabric of our modern existence? Perhaps our circumstances are not so bleak, and simply understanding that beneath our modern guises we all belong to one tribe or another would help us face not just the problems of our nation but of our individual lives as well.Well-researched and compellingly written, this timely look at how veterans react to coming home will reconceive our approach to veteran’s affairs and help us to repair our current social dynamic.

    

     Few people know much about stem cell research beyond the ethical questions raised by using embryos. But in the last decade, stem cell research has made huge advances toward eliminating some of our most intractable diseases. Now this sweeping and accessible book introduces us to this cutting-edge science that will revolutionize medicine and change the way we think about and treat disease. Alice Park takes us from stem cell's controversial beginnings to the recent electrifying promise of being able to create the versatile cells without using embryos at all. She shows us how stem cells give researchers an unprecedented ability to study disease while giving patients the promise of replacing diseased cells with healthy new ones. And she profiles the scientists and leaders-many with their own compelling stories-who have fueled the quest and will continue to shape the field in years to come.

    It draws on material from the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a huge collaborative study drawing together current thinking on the subject from experts in a range of disciplines, and presents the findings of the panel for a general readership for the first time. The book also discusses the politics of global warming and what we can do now to adapt to climate change and mitigate its worst effects.

    Did you know...; Almost 50% of supermarket fruit and vegetables contain pesticide residues?* UK supermarkets make 40p on every GBP1 spent on bananas while plantations workers are paid just 1p?* Supermarkets operate a climate of fear amongst their suppliers?* Every time a supermarket opens the local community loses on average 276 jobs?In the 1970s, British supermarkets had only 10% of the UK's grocery spend. Now they swallow up 80%, influencing how we shop, what we eat, how we spend our leisure time, how much rubbish we generate, even the very look of our physical environment. Award-winning food writer Joanna Blythman investigates the enormous impact that these big box retailers are having on our lives. She meets the farmers who are selling food to supermarkets for less than they need to survive, the wholesalers who have been eliminated from the supply chain, travels to suburban retail parks to meet the teenagers and part-timers who stack our shelves and reveals the hoops third world suppliers must jump through to earn supermarket contracts. This thought-provoking, witty and sometimes chilling voyage of discovery is sure to make you think twice before you reach for that supermarket trolley quite so enthusiastically ever again.

    These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations. This is a book about how we got here. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt take us on a tour of the social trends stretching back to the 1980s that have produced the confusion and conflict on campus today, including the loss of unsupervised play time and the birth of social media, all during a time of rising political polarization. This is a book about how to fix the mess. The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for their parents, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for a democracy that is already pushed to the brink of violence over its growing political divisions. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.

    When everything is at stake, all must be confronted and superseded. At this moment, there is the distinct possibility of doing just that.”

    The story follows her journey from 1978 to '89. She experiences a childhood surrounded by love, death, poverty, and beautiful nature. Vanessa discovers music to express her joy and grief. She puts her soul into the music notes melting her listeners’ hearts. Music brings her into the larger world and on a journey to a surprise discovery. Discover the Taiwanese culture in this heart touching and uplifting story.

    Through nine thrilling novels, this handy eBook bundle features the action, the intrigue, and the entire evolving story of these unique space corps—units that are comprised of a diverse group of pilots determined to fight the good fight. This bundle includes the following titles:  ROGUE SQUADRONWEDGE’S GAMBLETHE KRYTOS TRAPTHE BACTA WARWRAITH SQUADRONIRON FISTSOLO COMMANDISARD’S REVENGESTARFIGHTERS OF ADUMAR

    I teach my children to be proud too. Because being a traveller means everything to me. It's not just a label, it goes much deeper. It's an identity that is burned into my heart.Paddy Doherty loves his life as an Irish traveler, but as a child he felt like an outsider. He was different from his siblings. On the rare occasions he went to school, he was bullied. And beyond the gates of the camp he found nothing but hostility. Slowly, Paddy's hurt turned into anger and by the age of 11 he had started out on an illustrious career as a bare-knuckle boxer. This earned him a position as one of the most well-respected (and feared) men in the traveling community. Yet while he won countless brutal fights in the ring, the real battles he faced were very much outside. In this deeply honest autobiography, he tells of how he has loved and lost five children, and plummeted to seven stone while battling depression, drink, and drugs. He describes how it feels to be shot point-blank in the head and the lengths he'll go to to protect his people. Told with all the warmth and humor he is famed for, Paddy's rich and colorful story is one that will stay with you for a long time to come.

    So what comes next? Growth will resume. But economic uncertainty will worsen, making what comes next not just a boom but a nerve-shattering SONIC BOOM. Gregg Easterbrook - who "writes nothing that is not brilliant" ("Chicago Tribune") - is a fount of unconventional wisdom, and over time, he is almost always proven right. Throughout 2008 and 2009, as the global economy was contracting and the experts were panicking, Easterbrook worked on a book saying prosperity is about to make its next big leap. Will he be right again? SONIC BOOM: Globalization at Mach Speed presents three basic insights. First, if you don't like globalization, brace yourself, because globalization has barely started. Easterbrook contends the world is about to become "far "more globally linked. Second, the next wave of global change will be primarily positive: economic prosperity, knowledge and freedom will increase more in the next 50 years than in all of human history to this point. But before you celebrate, Easterbrook further warns that the next phase of global change is going to drive us crazy. Most things will be good for most people - but nothing will seem certain for anyone. Each SONIC BOOM chapter is based on examples of cities around the world - in the United States, Europe, Russia, China, South America - that represent a significant Sonic Boom trend. With a terrific sense of humor, pitch-perfect reporting and clear, elegant prose, Easterbrook explains why economic recovery is on the horizon but why the next phase of global change will also give everyone one hell of a headache. "Forbes" calls Easterbrook "the best writer on complex topics in the United States" and SONIC BOOM will show you why.