Amendment 9 Quotes

Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. [Letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 - Writings 9:100--103]

Okay, first of all, I didn’t sleep with you to make amends. I slept with you because I wanted to.” He still didn’t say anything, and she pointed at him again. “And you know what? It was your own damn fault. It was those jeans you wear, and the tool belt. It was the size of your hammer!

When nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, it was enough to create massive change in our society. Over ten times as many people die from guns each year. Where is the social change?

There are those among us who have erred, deeply and significantly. Who have wounded the world and broken themselves. The worst of them lose themselves in their errors. The best of them crawl back, one foot at a time, and seek to amend their breaches. That is the way of the brave.

There are those amongst us who have erred, deeply and significantly. Who have wounded the world and broken themselves. The worst of them lose themselves in their errors. The best of them crawl back, one foot at a time, and seek to amend their breaches. That is the way of the brave. -Gabriel Keene, Pack Apex, pp. 37

no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused. 

He shifted on his feet, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and studied me with open and growing amusement; “Are you going somewhere?” I swallowed and tried to shrug but the movement was lost under the layers of clothing, “Yes.” I lifted my chin, feeling suddenly hot which reminded me of how hot it was outside… even at 9:30pm; I then quickly amended, “No.” I lowered my hands from the hat on my head and tugged at the sleeves of the jacket, “I haven’t decided.

There are those amongst us who have erred, deeply and significantly. Who have wounded the world and broken themselves. The worst of them lose themselves in their errors. The best of them crawl back, one foot at a time, and seek to amend their breaches. That is the way of the brave.

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to emotionally and mentally ill persons and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In many societies women were simply the property of men, most often their fathers, husbands or brothers. Rape, in many legal systems, falls under property violation – in other words, the victim is not the woman who was raped but the male who owns her. This being the case, the legal remedy was the transfer of ownership – the rapist was required to pay a bride price to the woman’s father or brother, upon which she became the rapist’s property. The Bible decrees that ‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife’ (Deuteronomy 22:28–9). If a husband raped his own wife, he had committed no crime. In fact, the idea that a husband could rape his wife was an oxymoron. To be a husband was to have full control of your wife’s sexuality. To say that a husband ‘raped’ his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own wallet. Such thinking was not confined to the ancient Middle East. As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife. Even in Germany, rape laws were amended only in 1997 to create a legal category of marital rape.

It is in the ‘other world’ of the Divine Liturgy that we are supremely enabled to see Christ. In the Holy Eucharist we are captivated by the vision of Him Who, being rich, for our sakes became poor that through His poverty we might become rich (cf. 2 Cor. 8:9), through Him Who laid down His life that we might live for ever (cf. John 10:15; 4:9). All those things that are uttered, prayed for, and performed in the Divine Liturgy dispose our souls to hatred of our sinfulness, our fallen state, and we feel the need to humble ourselves before the supreme Image of meekness and love Who is depicted for us in the Eucharist. The Divine Liturgy should unfailingly stir up in us the desire for repentance, the desire to amend our lives. We also encounter Christ when our hearts receive His word. When we read the Holy Scriptures, a little phrase often comes to life within us, generating in us the desire for repentance. We know from the lives of the saints that a single word can be enough to make one flee into the desert, strengthened for the work of repentance, and finally to become great in the sight of God. Such was the case of St. Anthony, who heard the Gospel read during the Divine Liturgy: ‘Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me’ (Matt. 19:21), and promptly left for the desert so as to apply it, and then became like a god among the Desert Fathers.

In 1990, under the administration of George H. W. Bush, amendments to the Clean Air Act established an emissions trading—or “cap and trade”—system to control acid rain. The system resulted in a 54 percent decline in sulfur dioxide levels between 1990 and 2007, while the inflation-adjusted price of electricity declined during the same period.174 In 2003, the EPA reported to Congress that the overall cost of air pollution control during the previous ten years was between $8 billion and $9 billion, while the benefits were estimated from $101 billion to $119 billion—more than ten times as great.175 Singer’s “billion-dollar solution to a million-dollar problem” was just plain wrong.

In 2015, in a BBC interview, President Barack Obama said that he felt “frustrated” and “stymied” in failing to get the gun control laws he wanted. In fact, he said, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings. And you know, if you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it’s in the tens of thousands.” You read that right: Barack Obama said that American gun owners are a bigger threat to our safety than are Muslim terrorists; and he said that Americans who believe in the Second Amendment lack “common sense.” My first response is that this just exposes how liberals like Obama have no grasp of the reality of the terrorist threat. They downplay the dangers of Islamist terrorism. Second, they have no respect for the Constitution. They treat that noble document with contempt. Third, they fail to consider how many crimes are prevented, deterred, or foiled by gun owners. Scholar John Lott has shown repeatedly that in American cities, in his famous phrase, more guns equals less crime. That’s a fact.

Humans have natural rights in the state of nature but they do not have civil rights. Civil rights are derived from membership in a society. The Republicans who controlled both houses of Congress after the Civil War knew this. They also knew that, before conferring civil rights, they had to once and for all abolish slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. Republican support for the amendment: 100 percent. Democratic support: 23 percent. Even after the Civil War, only a tiny percentage of Democrats were willing to sign up to permanently end slavery. Most Democrats wanted it to continue. In the following year, on June 13, 1866, the Republican Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment overturning the Dred Scott decision and granting full citizenship and equal rights under the law to blacks. This amendment prohibited states from abridging the “privileges and immunities” of all citizens, from depriving them of “due process of law” or denying them “equal protection of the law.” The Fourteenth Amendment passed the House and Senate with exclusive Republican support. Not a single Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for it. Two years later, in 1868, Congress with the support of newly-elected Republican president Ulysses Grant passed the Fifteenth Amendment granting suffrage to blacks. The right to vote, it said, cannot be “denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” In the Senate, the Fifteenth Amendment passed by a vote of 39 to 13. Every one of the 39 “yes” votes came from Republicans. (Some Republicans like Charles Sumner abstained because they wanted the measure to go even further than it did.) All the 13 “no” votes came from Democrats. In the House, every “yes” vote came from a Republican and every Democrat voted “no.” It is surely a matter of the greatest significance that the constitutional provisions that made possible the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Bill only entered the Constitution thanks to the Republican Party. Beyond this, the GOP put forward a series of Civil Rights laws to further reinforce black people’s rights to freedom, equality, and social justice. When Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866—guaranteeing to blacks the rights to make contracts and to have the criminal laws apply equally to whites and blacks—the Democrats struck back. They didn’t have the votes in Congress, but they had a powerful ally in President Andrew Johnson. Johnson vetoed the legislation. Now this may seem like an odd act for Lincoln’s vice president, but it actually wasn’t. Many people don’t realize that Johnson wasn’t a Republican; he was a Democrat. Historian Kenneth Stampp calls him “the last Jacksonian.”8 Lincoln put him on the ticket because he was a pro-union Democrat and Lincoln was looking for ways to win the votes of Democrats opposed to secession. Johnson, however, was both a southern partisan and a Democratic partisan. Once the Civil War ended, he attempted to lead weak-kneed Republicans into a new Democratic coalition based on racism and white privilege. Johnson championed the Democratic mantra of white supremacy, declaring, “This is a country for white men and, by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government of white men.” In his 1867 annual message to Congress, Johnson declared that blacks possess “less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a consistent tendency to relapse into barbarism.”9 These are perhaps the most racist words uttered by an American president, and no surprise, they were uttered by a Democrat.

Originally (1949), the Constitution contained a Preamble, 395 Articles (divided into 22 Parts) and 8 Schedules. Presently (2013), it consists of a Preamble, about 465 Articles (divided into 25 Parts) and 12 Schedules2. The various amendments carried out since 1951 have deleted about 20 Articles and one Part (VII) and added about 85 Articles, four Parts (IVA, IXA, IXB and XIVA) and four Schedules (9, 10, 11 and 12). No other Constitution in the world has so many Articles and Schedules3.

In the summer of 2014, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and other members of the Democratic brain trust introduced a measure to amend the First Amendment as follows: Authorizes Congress and the states to regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections. Grants Congress and the states the power to implement and enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation, and to distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections. Declares that nothing in this amendment shall be construed to grant Congress or the states the power to abridge the freedom of the press.8 So, let me get this straight: The amendment would allow politicians in Washington, D.C., and state capitals to regulate speech that directly relates to the business of government and their jobs—the type of speech that should be most protected! This con job was nothing but a power grab to control how citizens—including corporations and conservative interest groups—can express their political views, a grab to help keep corrupt incumbents in office. After all, it’s tough to be voted out of office when you help control what your opponents and constituents can say about you. And it’s awfully hard to express one’s individual right to a fair vote when the outcome of an election is effectively rigged. Note the special carveout for the media. Reid and company were trying to make it so corporations and conservative interest groups would be muzzled, but unions and the Democrats’ tame press would be free to spew any kind of biased crap they like. If they can’t win elections fair and square, Democrats are more than willing to silence huge portions of the citizenry to stay in power. Had the amendment somehow passed, it would have been the first time one of the Constitution’s core individual rights would have been infringed through the amendment process itself.9 The attempt itself is disgraceful.

Please note that the Gallup-documented changes in trust did not flow from the verifiable truth or falsity of the content. In the bubble, facts are no match for belief. There is no Democrat Party child-sex ring being operated out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, and never was. There is no fleet of UN black helicopters poised to invade the capitals of the world and steal their sovereignty, and never was. There was no U.S. military operation under the Obama administration to overthrow Texas and jail patriots in a vacant Walmart (I’m pretty sure we already have Texas, don’t we?). There was no George W. Bush administration plot to blow up the Twin Towers on 9/11 as a false-flag operation. There was no fake moon landing. Baby Barack Obama was born in a Honolulu, Hawaii, hospital, just as the birth certificate and contemporaneous newspaper announcements said. And at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, having already shot his own mother to death, Adam Lanza murdered twenty children and six adults. It was not a hoax. No matter what that asshole Alex Jones or his addled followers believe, the victims’ grieving parents were not “crisis actors” in a plot to undermine the Second Amendment. It was a fucking massacre conducted with a fucking assault rifle such as the fucking NRA has fought for decades to be readily available.

Why would a murderer call 9-1-1 and report a murder she just committed? Does that make any sense to you? Does it?

She looks around and decides no one saw her stab Blackwell. She concocts the defense, invents the biker dude, calls 9-1-1, and waits there for the police. It’s a nice little end-around to confuse us into thinking she’s innocent, no?

Post Malone Open Carries Gun While Buying Hoverboard in Utah Wal Mart There's long history of firearms in the hip-hop industry. Most of it is only for the show, although some of this history includes violent undertones. In actuality, many rappers legally take on an everyday basis. This includes Article Malone, who carried while buying at a Utah Walmart a week to the rapper.The Walmart article received a lot more than 1000 opinions. A massive majority were positive in him shopping at Walmart and using an open carry pistol. Not everybody agreed. Some seemed to consider the concept of carrying out a gun to become juvenile. Utah law allows open transport, if the individual has a permit. The gun has to be carried with just two steps necessary for firing: racking the slide along with pulling on the trigger.Response to Create Malone Open Carrying There's absolutely not any way of knowing if Malone has a license for Utah. Approximately 22 per cent of state residents have licenses. Utah recognizes permits for all 50 states, so he may have one from somewhere else. He owns homes in California and Utah, therefore he might have permits for either one. Malone creates a advocate for your responsible use of guns.One particular reason he supports gun rights is the same as many other gun owners in the nation. He considers"the globe will shit," and wishes to be more prepared if something happens. He actually showed off part of the collection during a meeting with Spin. At exactly the exact same time he clarified he could be right into alternative news and conspiracy theories. The writer believed the set to be"disconcerting," seemingly not understanding that a lot of Americans possess firearms and hold a number of the exact beliefs. It might seem unusual but was normal within the Utah wal mart.A UTAH Wal-mart GOT A NICE SURPRISE WHEN RAPPER POST MALONE VISITED TO BUY A HOVERBOARD, ALL WHILE BEING AN ADVOCATE OF Open-carry WITH A PISTOL ON HIS HIP.The shop actually published a photograph of Malone with a Walmart employee and depriving him . While there, he purchased a hoverboard, and spent a few minutes posing for pictures and conversing with fans. And with that visit, Malone had a pistol within a holster. Our friends at Ballistic Magazine confirm that the pistol appears to function as described as a ZEV OZ9.Malone, whose name is Austin Richard Post, is a long time owner of firearms. Section of this might be because while he was born in New York, he was raised in Texas. Over time, media outlets have been told by him regarding his service of the Second Amendment. One of the tattoos, actually, is that a snake.

, CW International Canadian based Immigration & International Student Consultant Agency. ICCRC Certified Consultants CW International is a Canadian-based Student Consultant and Immigration agency. Incorporated with the objective of providing career guidance, immigration services, and vocational direction to our clients worldwide. Please do not hesitate to call us or visit our offices 1. Guidance on Updating DLI 2. Guidance on Co-Op Work Permit 3. Guidance on Study Permit Extension 4. Guidance on Post Graduate Work Permit 5. Guidance on MPNP (Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program) 6. Guidance on Work Permit Extension (Open or Close) 7. Guidance on PR Applications 8. Guidance on applying Citizenship 9. Guidance on TRV (Temporary Resident VISA) 10. Guidance on Amendments in All Types of Documents 11. Guidance on Re-apply of Lost Document. 12. Guidance on Spouse Open Work Permit / Extension 13. Guidance on Visitor Visa / Extension 14. Guidance on Investment Programs 15. Post Landing Services. Regards CW International Branches :- Manitoba | Brampton | Surrey | Mohali Mohali Office Address: SCF 101, Level 2, Phase 10, Sector 64, Mohali, Punjab 160062 #Call:- +91 - 86993-13209 | +1 905 872 3544

Imperfect contrition (attritio) is a true supernatural sorrow from a motive of incipient charity or fear, coupled with a firm purpose of amendment. 9 It removes moral indisposition (remotio obicis) and renders the sinner worthy of receiving either Baptism or Penance, thereby enabling these Sacraments to effect his justification ex opere operate.

Nevertheless, harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders have been consistently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1982, the Supreme Court upheld forty years of imprisonment for possession and an attempt to sell 9 ounces of marijuana. Several years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the Court upheld a sentence of life imprisonment for a defendant with no prior convictions who attempted to sell 672 grams (approximately 23 ounces) of crack cocaine. The Court found the sentences imposed in those cases 'reasonably proportionate' to the offenses committed - and not 'cruel and unusual' in violation of the Eighth Amendment. This ruling was remarkable given that, prior to the Drug Reform Act of 1986, the longest sentence Congress had ever imposed for possession of any drug in any amount was one year. A life sentence for a first-time drug offense is unheard of in the rest of the developed world. Even for high-end drug crimes, most countries impose sentences that are measured in months, rather than years. For example, a conviction for selling a kilogram of heroin yields a mandatory ten-year sentence in U.S. federal court, compared with six months in prison in England. Remarkably, in the United States, a life sentence is deemed perfectly appropriate for a first-time drug offender.

Edward Carrington of Virginia wrote to Thomas Jefferson that "these Letters are the best of anything that has been written" against the Constitution.77 What was it about the "rights" in a bill of rights that was considered so indispensable? In his second "Letter," dated October 9, the "Federal Farmer" declared: "There are certain unalienable and fundamental rights, which in forming the social compact, ought to be explicitly ascertained and fixed—a free and enlightened people, in forming this compact, will not resign all their rights to those who govern, and they will fix limits to their legislators and rulers, which will soon be plainly seen by those who are governed, as well as by those who govern . . . ." Contrary to the Constitution's proponents, "I still believe a complete federal bill of rights to be very practicable.

Giving the people around them a sweeping look, Grace obviously understood the situation. “I’m going to the bathroom.” She stood up. “Sarah? You coming?” Sarah popped out of her seat, falling in next to Grace, but Otto caught her hand, halting her. “You’ll have to go one at a time,” he told her. “There aren’t any stalls. It’s just a single bathroom.” Hugh started to laugh. “They’re not going to the bathroom to actually use it,” he said. His forehead furrowing in the way it did when he didn’t understand something, Otto looked at Hugh and then back at Sarah. “They’re going to the bathroom so they can have some privacy when they talk about us.” Glancing at Sarah, Hugh amended his words. “You, buddy. They’re going to the bathroom to talk about you.

The prodigal son has been welcomed home with open arms.” “Really?” “Well,” Thomas amended, “with reluctant, irritated arms, anyway.

How the Twelve Steps Relate to Soulmaking 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. This prompts the ego to yield its ego centrism. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This introduces the idea of a higher unconscious/nous being present as a resource for change. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Here is further letting go by the ego. This links the higher unconscious to God, but it allows those not yet theistic to participate. If one cannot believe in God yet, at least they can still activate the higher unconscious. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In these next steps, we see that purgation is necessary for deeper illumination: 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. This follows Jesus’ instruction: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23, 24, RSV).” 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Here we see the main point I am making at this time—acknowledgement that meditation is an important, necessary step. Taking the issues raised in the above steps to the still point and offering them to God for healing, aids transformation. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In 1988, the Chinese constitution was amended to officially recognize private property and private business. Before then, the Communist state had been China’s only official employer, with small exceptions. By 1998, the state employed about 60 percent of the working population, and in 2010 it employed only about 19 percent.9 China had transitioned from socialism to a form of crony capitalism.

opposition in the press, for the first time in American history Congress overrode a presidential veto on a major piece of legislation. On April 9, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law. In May, for good measure, Congress finished its amended Freedmen’s Bureau bill and passed it over Johnson’s veto.

She was familiar with a certain type of American crazy. Gun crazy was normal to her, shooting-kids-at-school or putting-on-a-Joker-mask-and-mowing-people-down-in-a-mall or just plain murdering-your-mom-at-breakfast crazy, Second Amendment crazy, that was just the everyday crazy that kept going down and there was nothing you could do about it if you loved freedom; and she understood knife crazy from her younger days in the Bronx, and the knockout-game type of crazy that persuaded young black kids it was cool to punch Jews in the face. She could comprehend drug crazy and politician crazy and Westboro Baptist Church crazy and Trump crazy because those things, they were the American way, but this new crazy was different. It felt 9/11 crazy: foreign, evil.

HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks First published in the USA in 2018 by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers First published in Australia in 2018 by HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited ABN 36 009 913 517 harpercollins.com.au Copyright © Working Partners Limited 2018 Series created by Working Partners Limited Map art © Virginia Allyn 2018 Interior art © Owen Richardson 2018 The right of Erin Hunter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000. This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. HarperCollinsPublishers Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom 2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA ISBN 978 1 4607 5628 7 (paperback) ISBN 978 1 4607 1026 5 (ebook) Cover design by Alison Klapthor Cover art by Owen Richardson Logo by David Coulson

RISING ABOVE THE TOXIC ENVIRONMENT 1. Know who you are, be yourself and never doubt who you are 2. Respect yourself and remain true to yourself 3. Stand for what is right even it means you have to stand alone 4. Raise your voice against mistreatment and other forms of negative energy and never stay silent or die in silence 5. Be an independent thinker 6. Be thick-skinned 7. Always acknowledge your wrong doing and make amends because no one is perfect on this planet earth. 8. Always be willing to listen more than to say a lot 9. Be a person of integrity 10. Be watchful and be patient

In many societies women were simply the property of men, most often their fathers, husbands or brothers. Rape, in many legal systems, falls under property violation – in other words, the victim is not the woman who was raped but the male who owns her. This being the case, the legal remedy was the transfer of ownership – the rapist was required to pay a bride price to the woman’s father or brother, upon which she became the rapist’s property. The Bible decrees that ‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife’ (Deuteronomy 22:28–9). The ancient Hebrews considered this a reasonable arrangement. Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft. And if a husband raped his own wife, he had committed no crime. In fact, the idea that a husband could rape his wife was an oxymoron. To be a husband was to have full control of your wife’s sexuality. To say that a husband ‘raped’ his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own wallet. Such thinking was not confined to the ancient Middle East. As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife. Even in Germany, rape laws were amended only in 1997 to create a legal category of marital rape.

You are aware that my hellhound, Garm, will devour your father, Tyr, when Ragnarok is unleashed?” I nodded. “As Tyr’s spawn, you have his blood in your veins.” I nodded again, wondering where this was going. “Well. Garm has run off,” she told me. “You, son of Tyr, are the only one who can find him. Or rather”—she treated me to a ghastly smile—“he will find you.” “I don’t follow.” “Why, it’s very simple. My hellhound will smell the blood of Tyr and come running.” I clutched my rifle more tightly. “So basically, you’re using me as bait.” “More like a moving target,” Hel amended. “Why me?” I dared to ask. “Why not just, I don’t know, poof Garm back to his cave yourself? Or send your demons to retrieve him?” “Garm can be . . . elusive,” she said evasively. “He’s run off before, and past attempts to bring him home with magic and demons have failed.” I was going to suggest she use a hellhound whistle, but I thought better of it. “If you don’t mind my asking, why not just let him stay lost?” Hel’s expression darkened. “And risk word getting out that my dog is beyond my control? No. There is only one solution. You must lure him back to his cave.” I scowled. “Let me guess. If I refuse, you torture my mother. If I tell anyone Garm didn’t come when you called, you torture my mother.” “Oh yes. And Thomas . . . T.J. . . . if you think killing Garm will stop the hound from killing your father, think again. You cannot stop destiny. Now, away you go!

Amendment XVI Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913. Note: Article I, section 9, of the Constitution was modified by amendment 16. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.