Christina Engela

Going to the extreme of inviting and welcoming people into your church in order to hear you condemn them or to know from your policy that you condemn them is not much better than bullying.

It was a mild winter__ evening in __app__ Saloon and Speakeasy_, in the northwest corner of the only legal red-light area of the city. (The S.O.D.s believed in crime management.) Timaset Skooch leaned back in the aluminum framed chair, checking his cards carefully while wearing his best poker face. Across the table from him sat Jonn Deire, a large man who was trying very hard to out-poker face him and who didn__ enjoy jokes about his name much.

Mykl d__ngelo groaned where he sat slumped in his chair. The irritating noise was unsettling his pet dog lying on his lap. The wickerwork garden chair creaked pleasantly under him and some native Earth birds made pleasant sounds above while the cool wind wafted over him as he lazily _

The best way to piss off your enemies is to out-succeed, out laugh and out live them.

Moments later, Sona Kilroy, heading for the open doorway, stepped over the sergeant__ body. With an old auto-rifle in his left hand and his favorite sword in the other, and the sharp melodic din of bolts and bullets ringing in his ears, __he Hammer_ grinned an evil grin to himself, well pleased. He wished he could__e seen the look on the face of Indomitable__ captain when he realized the tables had just been turned on him! The thought amused him. It was bloody hilarious. He cackled, reveling in this complete reversal of fortune. Then he stalked onward with conviction, a grim smile on his lips _ intent on taking the ship for himself. * * *

These mods made significant improvements to the cars _ enough so that I changed my mind (another procedure altogether) every time I thought of selling the damn thing and buying a Toyota. I hope you benefit from this and preserve your ailing finances!Good luck!

He thought about it for a minute. The kitty was only around seven thousand give or take a gold tooth and some coinage _ minus the ship _ which must__e been worth well, a lot more than seven thousand, even in scrap metal. An alarm was going off somewhere, faintly.

The reason for the peculiar name could be found in the whimsical sense of humor of the early colonists who arrived on Deanna several decades in the past and found very little at all there to laugh at. Obsidian Crows might seem funny at first, unless you just happened to ride over one with your Jeepo five miles out of town and didn__ have a spare tire. Although there was a reasonable expectation of hitting one of these diminutive brutes on the roads, this did not happen nearly as often as you might think.

This was true, she knew. Being involved with him gave her the privileged position of knowing him intimately. There were nights when he would wake up sweating, the nightmares returning out of the blue after a peaceful period sometimes weeks long. Growing up in the middle of a fierce civil war could indelibly mark a child. To Mykl, birthdays were always just another year under the belt, where the only reason to celebrate was that you weren__ dead yet. She took his hand, squeezed it tight and led him inside.

Apathy.The reason you may wake up one day being not only a 2nd class citizen, but a criminal because of who you are - and then wonder why 'somebody' didn't do something when there was still time?

Interestingly enough, every time I corner a fanatic with scientific facts which they cannot argue or disprove, they either dismiss me as 'anti-God' and a 'secular humanist' or they start spouting reams of misapplied and irrelevant 'scripture' at me, like good little sheeple and like that will in any way, shape or form prove anything... Which just proves to me that common sense and actual reason doesn't come into it. Only hatred.

Isn't unconditional love supposed to work both ways? How can we expect unconditional love for ourselves if we are not willing to grant others the same mercy?

As a human rights activist it is concerning to me that those committing atrocities against vulnerable people view these atrocities as 'progress', and assert with pride and conviction that they are 'Christians' and that they are doing 'God's will'.

You are strong, tempered like steel in the fire and by the blows of the hammer of life. Nothing will break you again, only make you stronger and more whole. Perfection is the pride of those who have not lived, who know not these things in their arrogance. They remain the same - raw and without form. The hammer never touches them, and they lie on the shelf, gathering dust, slowly tarnishing and fading and crumbling. the blows of the hammer in the fire refine us into bright shining glory for the roles we play in life - until we are one with the anvil, becoming immune to the hammer's little knocks, and smile at it.

One bright sunny day at a successful Literary Agency_Literary Agent: __o, Tina _ we asked you to try and write a children__ story__ina: __h-huh.

Where would tourism be without a little luxury and a taste of night life? There were several cities on Deanna, all moderate in size, but the largest was the capital, Atro City. For the connoisseur of fast-foods, Albrechts_ famous hotdogs and coldcats were sold fresh from his stall (Albrecht__ Takeaways) on Lupini Square. For the sake of his own mental health he had temporarily removed Hot Stuff Blend from the menu. The city was home to Atro City University, which taught everything from algebra and make-up application to advanced stamp collecting; and it was also home to the planet-famous bounty hunter _ Beck the Badfeller. Beck was a legend in his own lifetime. If Deanna had any folklore, then Beck the Badfeller was one of its main features. He was the local version of Robin Hood, the Davy Crockett of Deanna. The Local rumor mill had it he was so good he could find the missing day in a leap year. Once, so the story goes, he even found a missing sock.

If you expect me to respect your private beliefs and faith and your rights and dignity as a person, how can you actually expect that from me if you are unwilling to reciprocate and continue to incite hatred and the vilification of mine.

Christians believe their God gave us all free will - strange that for over 2000 years, they have tried to take that choice away.