But journeys embarked upon full of the joys of the season all too often grind into a standstill of rage and bitterness before Hampshire even gives way to Wiltshire.Four-and-a-half thousand years ago the bluestones of Stonehenge were conveyed west from the river Avon along a small section of its route. Roman roads crossed it and drovers' paths lie beneath it. Its route cuts across some of the finest chalkland in southern England. The views are huge, the hills wide and windswept. Ancient woods lay across the summits of the downs and prehistoric monuments and sites are everywhere, the evidence of ancient habitation and worship left in abundance.Tom Fort samples the fare at the Willoughby Hedge Café , legendary among truckers. He seeks out service stations and inns and turnpike toll houses; tells stories of dreadful crashes and highway robberies; of solstice seekers and Stonehenge; of Queen Guinevere and Sir Launcelot; of army camps and racing tracks; Battles and festivals; of churches, abbeys, farms, houses, burial mounds, trout fishermen and falconers.Digging in dark corners, explorating long-forgotten byways and pouring over ancient maps Tom Fort has created a travel book, a book of social and cultural history, and a book about the England of 3000 BC and the England of 2010 AD.

    So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp.Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don't accidentally act on the naive idealism you are required to project to the general public.The reality of political power is very simple: bad farmers own crops and livestock -- good farmers own human beings...

    Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.From the Hardcover edition.

    Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of a P2P network to check for double-spending.https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

    The nation’s major policy challenges go unaddressed, our economic future is uncertain, and political corruption is becoming normalised. We can’t understand the current predicament of our democracy without recognising the central role of Murdoch’s national media monopoly. There is no longer a level playing field in Australian politics. We won’t see another progressive government in Canberra until we deal with this cancer in our democracy. Three more things must change for Labor to be returned to office. Labor must significantly broaden its political base; demolish the entire rationale for the conservative political project now that the Liberal Party has abandoned its position on debt, deficit, and government intervention in the economy; and put forward a clear plan dealing with the challenges ahead: recurring pandemics, demographic decline, technological disruption undermining economic competitiveness and employment, the rise of China, and the continued economic and environmental devastations of climate change. All four tasks are essential. All four will require great political courage.

    The electrifying behind-the-scenes account of a year that brought Ireland to the brink and back - the inside story of Ireland’s struggle to contain Covid-19.Based on a wealth of original research and over a hundred interviews with cabinet members, public health officials, frontline workers, and ordinary people on whom the crisis exacted a personal toll, A State of Emergency is the incendiary untold story of Ireland’s response to the biggest public health emergency of the past century.Ranging from the halls of Government Buildings, where conflict between the new Cabinet and its public health advisors threatened to derail the official response, to the frontlines of the containment effort itself, where doctors, nurses, and the communities they served found themselves pushed to breaking point, A State of Emergency is a landmark work of journalism and a riveting insider account of the struggle to bring Ireland back from the brink.

    At a time when the arbiters of American culture were obsessing over organic kale, cold-pressed juice, and SoulCycle, the man who stood second in line to the presidency was unapologetically smoking Camels, quaffing a glass of red, and hitting the golf course whenever he could.There could hardly have been a more diametrically opposed figure to represent the opposition party in President Barack Obama's Washington. But when Boehner announced his resignation, President Obama called to tell the outgoing Speaker that he'd miss him. Mr. President, Boehner replied, yes you will. He thought of himself as a regular guy with a big job, and he enjoyed it.In addition to his own stories of life in the swamp city and of his comeback after getting knocked off the leadership ladder, Boehner offers his impressions of leaders he's met and what made them successes or failures, from Ford and Reagan to Obama, Trump, and Biden. He shares his views on how the Republican Party has become unrecognizable today; the advice--some harsh, some fatherly--he dished out to members of his own party, the opposition, the media, and others; and his often acid-tongued comments about his former colleagues. And of course he talks about golfing with five presidents.Through Speaker Boehner's honest and self-aware reflections, you'll be reminded of a time when the adults were firmly in charge.

     “You’re about as useful as a windshield wiper on a goat’s butt.” Keep this book handy, someday you’ll be glad you have it. “Let's play horse. I'll be the front end and you just be yourself.” Pick any of the many jaw-dropping insults then laugh at the look on your adversary’s face when you whip one out and use it on them. You’ll leave no doubt in their mind that you are a master of sarcastic insults! ADDED BONUS: In addition to the fresh and hilarious insults in this book, you’ll also find great sarcastic observations about life hidden inside this book’s pages, like… “I think the reason so many people have smart phones is because opposites attract!” You’re no idiot, so you need this book to start your new life as the master of sarcastic insults and put-downs! “Hey! Who left the Idiot Box open? Now they're everywhere!”

    . . Now complete in one volume! I never asked Hemi Te Mana to rescue me. It was true that I had a lousy job. Not to mention a lousy apartment and too much responsibility, although it was a responsibility I wouldn’t have given up for the world. That still didn’t mean I needed rescuing, if that was what you’d call the situation I ended up in. And anyway, I knew that a multimillionaire Maori CEO with too many muscles, a tribal tattoo, and a take-no-prisoners attitude was way, way out of my league. So, no, I didn’t ask him to, but he rescued me anyway. Because Hemi was fierce. But you know what I found out? So was I. Note: This started as the “book within a book” that Faith is writing in Just in Time: Escape to New Zealand. And, yes, it has more steam than the "Escape" books. Because Faith had a lot of sexual frustration to work through. If you don't like strong, determined alpha men and very spicy (but fully consensual) sex, DON'T buy this book. Maybe head for New Zealand instead.

    One of those soldiers was my son, who never made it back. Now, I'm here to ask you, was it worth it? ​​​​​​​ The gathering was supposed to have been a perfunctory media exercise on retiring Senator Jackson Ridge's last day in office. When a grieving mother slips in and poses that simple question though, everything - from Ridge's own legacy to American interests in Afghanistan - all get called into question. Racing against a ticking clock and powerful figures that would prefer to keep things happening across the globe a secret, Ridge must call on every last favor he has accumulated over the course of his time in office in search of answers. Answers that ultimately have him looking at more than just the life of a fallen soldier when trying to decide if, in fact, it was all worth it... From bestselling author Dustin Stevens comes a new standalone work, a gripping political thriller with equal parts suspense and mystery!

    Plough the Furrow begins in 1910. Esther Everatt, shunned by her family and desperate for work and a place to say, finds her way to Sam Brumby's farm. Able to work alongside any man, she earns old Sam's grudging respect. Prepared to risk everything to secure her future, Esther marries a local farmhand. But as war arrives she comes to understand that only the truest of love can survive the passing of the seasons. Sow the Seed follows the story of Kate, Esther's daughter. Kate is determined to marry her childhood sweetheart, Danny. But when she reaches eighteen Kate is told the bitter truth of her family's past and the reasons why marriage to Danny can never happen. Heart-broken Kate witnesses many things amidst the chaos and destruction of WWII, which finally lead her to experience a love that allows her to leave the past behind. Reap the Harvest is set in the aftermath of the disastrous Lincolnshire floods of 1953. Kate's daughter Ella finds herself compelled to live at Brumby's Farm with her grandmother, Esther. This story of love, war, secrets and tragedy seems destined to repeat itself in heartache before coming full circle and bringing this glorious trilogy to a close.

    From both sides of the aisle.A bipartisan killer is on the loose, and only one man can stop them.Garrison Chase has done it all: A sniper in the Marines. A covert government operative. An agent for the Bureau. Now he’s opted for a quieter life in a sleepy coastal California town.His skills aren’t going to waste, however, as he occasionally works for a friend who owns a security firm in Washington, DC. And Chase’s latest job—protecting a United States senator from a threatening colleague—thrusts him right back into the action when he barges into a private meeting between the senators only to discover a bloodbath.Though it looks like a murder-suicide, Chase has his suspicions. He’s convinced it’s a setup, that someone else was at the meeting. But nobody believes him. Not the local police or the feds. Everyone wants the case wrapped up neat and tidy.When two more senators are targeted, one murdered and the other abducted, the feds finally get involved. But Chase is one step ahead and has already tracked down the killer. Now the real investigation can begin.As Chase peels back the layers, dark secrets and a deep coverup are revealed. The only way to stop the chaos and expose the truth, is for Chase to enter the dangerous and dirty waters and tread alongside the Washington elite.

    But Jameson International isn't just any company. It's owned by thirty-two-year-old business mogul and celebrity, Red Jameson. Red is known for his high flying lifestyle; dating models and hanging with the rich and famous. The powerful billionaire can have any woman he wants, and the naive college graduate can't imagine making much of an impression on her new CEO. But when Red Jameson takes notice of her and invites her up to his secluded office one day, everything changes. As it turns out, the powerful businessman also has a voracious sexual appetite, and it's been whetted by none other than Nicole herself. And Red needs to be in charge at every turn. Nicole isn't just any girl though, and Red Jameson's shocked to find that the young intern is more than a match for him in a battle of wits and will. What He Wants (Ten Books): Twenty-one-year-old law student Charlotte Holloway isn’t the type of girl to lust after things she can’t have. But when she starts working for the sexy and mysterious Noah Cutler, Charlotte can’t help but dream about the gorgeous billionaire, even though she knows it’s just a fantasy. Men like Noah – gorgeous, dark, and driven-- usually aren’t interested in women like her. Noah Cutler is a man who doesn’t take no for an answer. His drive to go after exactly what he wants has made him one of the most powerful men in the city. And while he could have his pick of any woman, his sights are set on Charlotte. And he won’t stop until he’s taken control of every inch of her deliciously curvy body…

    How did Bernie Sanders make it out of the backwoods of Vermont – where he lived for a time in a ramshackle off-road “sugar shack” with no electricity, and where he never got more than 6 percent of the vote in a string of doomed, fringe far-left campaigns in the 1970s – to become a leading contender in the 2016 race for the White House? And perhaps more importantly for author Will Bunch, how did this gruff and sometimes didactic gray-haired political survivor make it out of the 1960s and ‘70s to become the last torch-bearer of the youthful idealism of that nearly lost “Age of Aquarius” – The One who didn’t drop out, sell out…or simply give up? In the fall of 2015, Bunch – with the voices of the late Hunter S. Thompson and the other iconic “New Journalists” of that lost era ringing in his ears – set out on a road trip that took him from the battlefields of northern Virginia to the salty air of backwater Boston to the neon sky of the Las Vegas Strip, all to get to the bottom of “The Bern Identity.” He follows the long strange trip of Bernie Sanders – a kid from a cramped Brooklyn flat who couldn’t tell a lie in school, who mourned the migration of his beloved Dodgers and was shaken up by “Death of a Salesman,” who became a campus radical, a dreamer of revolutions, and then almost disappeared before his improbable election of mayor of Burlington in 1981. Sanders’ remarkable bio is interspersed with the tale of the true believers who packed hockey rinks and concrete convention floors in crowds of 20,000 or more, who tweeted incessantly and posted memes of Sanders flying in coach class, and who exploded with excitement at their hero’s call for a “political revolution” to raise the beleaguered middle class. In a time of rampant cynicism about American politics, “The Bern Identity” turns into something most unlikely – a love story, between the long-distance runner who never gave up his fantasy of real social change, and the dreamers and the radicals and the formerly hopeless who were waiting for him at the finish line.THE AUTHOR Will Bunch is senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News – where he writes the popular political blog Attytood – and also shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting in 1992 when he was at New York Newsday. He is the author of two other Kindle Singles: October 1, 2011: The Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge, about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and Give It To Steve!, about the 1948 Philadelphia Eagles winning the NFL title during a raging blizzard. His full-length books include The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama, and Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, The Los Angeles Times, American Prospect, American Journalism Review, and elsewhere. He lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with his family.

    Is there an alternative to the neoliberal globalization that is ravaging our planet? Collected here are three classic works by Che Guevara, including his essay, "Socialism and Man in Cuba." (Also available in Spanish as Justicia Global ISBN 1-876175-46-X)