Florida Snips & Snaps

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February 6, 2010 Guest Article 3

Write For Money
Christina Zila, Textbroker.com

LAS VEGAS—While experts are divided on the duration and severity of the current recession, there are signs of hope for American workers.

Although the professional services segment showed a net loss of jobs, one Las Vegas company has bucked that trend. Textbroker International, a German customized content and article provider, opened its US branch last year. It now employs more than 13,000 writers on a freelance basis and is still hiring nationwide.

“Freelance writing is perfect for someone who has recently lost their job,” says Jan Becher-Fochler, founder of Textbroker. “Everyone who can write sentences with correct spelling and grammar is accepted. They choose when to write, so they can still search for a full-time job or career while taking care of the bills.”

Some writers have found the job so fun, it has become a full-time career. “We all need to make a living right now, mine is almost completely with Textbroker,” says George Root III, a writer for Textbroker since November of 2008.

The work keeps coming: Textbroker recently surpassed its German parent in total number of clients. More than 5,000 companies use Textbroker.com to provide stories for websites, blogs and news feeds.

Textbroker had a very good year in 2009. We recruited thousands of clients as well as talented authors. With your help, we produce tens of thousands of articles per month.

The secret to this success is a system that depends on high investments in marketing, development, and people. To survive in this market, we have to improve our offerings and be more present in front of our clients.

We will be ramping up the development of our service by adding new software engineers. This will bring improved features, making your work here easier and more profitable. Additionally, we are adding to our sales & marketing area so that you will have a large variety of orders throughout 2010.

To reach these goals, we have raised the prices for *new* clients slightly. You will only see this change in your DirectOrders. Instead of the previous 25% commission, we will add a 30% commission. The OpenOrder rates paid to you stay the same. The client prices for quality levels 2-4 and the per-order fee have been adjusted. We have not changed the price for level 5 orders.

This change is for *new* clients only. Clients who registered before January 5, 2010, will have the old pricing structure. Your current DirectOrder clients will see no change.

For more information or interview opportunities, please contact Christina Zila at 702-835-9340.

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Is God Alive?
John McCoy

God created man in His own image, or so the Bible tells us. How far does that image go? I believe that God knows all that has been and is but I would like to believe that He might not know what will be. The reason is pretty simple: if "All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players;" then what is the point? Where is the fun?

If He knows what will happen, then where is the anticipation, the joy in having it come out right, or the sorrow in seeing what has gone wrong. Where is the reason for us to "try, try again," so that we can do a better job next time? God gave us free will - the ability to make decisions between various choices.

I believe that life is a path with many doorways and directions. Each decision we make opens one door and closes another.

If we are all truly acting from an unseen script, then what is the point of prayer or pleading with God to help us do some particular thing? For that matter, what is the point of life itself?

We pray or plead for God to take some particular action whether it is to save our life, win a lottery or something else. If all is already "written," then we are just wasting our and God's time by praying. All the promises we ever make are worth nothing - if what will happen is already written.

Another indication that God is alive also comes from the Bible. God became so angry with what was happening that He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He later chose to destroy all life on earth except the family of one man, Noah.

That's why I believe God is a living, breathing entity who takes an active part in our lives. He is all powerful and can do anything He should wish to do. If He decides to hear our prayers, He can help us win a lottery or save our life and then see if we keep our promises to Him to tithe or do some other good with the that life. If we do, He is pleased. If we do not, then He will be less likely to grant our prayer the next time.

Another corollary is that predestination is not a fact. The concept of predestination is in conflict with the concept of free choice - unless you feel that my writing this article is predestined and I have no choice in the matter.

It follows also that if God is alive, He has a purpose and a goal. I don't claim to understand either but I can only hope that answering my prayer will bring Him a little closer to fulfilling it. I do believe in free choice and that God does answer prayers, even if, sometimes, as Morgan Freeman says in the movie Deep Impact, "that answer is no."