Two spam messages about the latest "hot stock" made it past the gmail spam filter to my inbox today. There was nothing especially unusual about the content (apparently ChinaYouTV is the stock to buy this Monday, since "it's a gift at 42 cents..."), but the subject lines were bizarre:


These routines translate the 3270 data streams and function keys into 5250 data streams and function keys, so application programs only " see" 5250 terminals.

If you exit your program without calling fclose, you may lose some data written to the file but not yet transferred from the internal buffer to the disk.

Evidently, in another tricky attempt to sneak past spam filters, these subject lines were culled from web pages that can be found via Google. (see below for the source of the second one. MS-DOS??)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MS-DOS, PC-BIOS AND FILE I/O (Part 10): "If you exit your program without calling fclose, you may lose some data written to the file but not yet transferred from the internal buffer to the disk."

Apparently, the senders of this spam felt that uber-geeks were the perfect target audience to purchase stock in ChinaYouTV...


The fact that each of these subject lines yield exactly one hit when googled brings to mind ideas of breadcrumb tracks across the Internet leading to the uncovering of grand conspiracies ("follow the white rabbit?")... But, at the end of the day, I think there is nothing more sinister going on than the profit motive (and the fact that a spammer managed to get me amused enough to post his work on my blog...)

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I made two discoveries over lunch today.

1. John Piper has a blog!


2. There's a very good reason why there are so many John Piper books in the IHOP bookstore. The Church desperately needs this kind of clear teaching on the sovereignty of God in the face of disaster. It is this - not the "semi-Kushnerian" not-quite-sovereign God who is often preached in American Churches - that will prepare the Bride of Christ to be unoffended when worldwide persecution and worldwide judgment begin to come.

Here's an excerpt from his post:

"From 11 to 12 this morning, Gary Eichten of Minnesota Public Radio interviewed Rabbi Harold Kushner about the collapse of the 35W bridge. Kushner is best known for his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. There were several astonishing things about this interview—not unusual for religious talk shows on public radio, but astonishing still.

1. The most astonishing thing is that God’s grace is so great neither the Rabbi nor I was struck dead by God during the interview—he, because of his blasphemous belittlings of God, and I, because of my contaminated anger at what he said."

Keep reading "Response to Rabbi Kushner"

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Isaiah 64:4

4 For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him.

I really need to pay closer attention to the news, I think. Someone should add to that Facebook group "You know you're an IHOPer if..." an item for "You get most of your news through what people pray for in intercession sets..."

I just found out (by watching the webstream), that the infamous late-term abortion clinic in Wichita, run by George Tiller has been closed down for the past two and a half weeks. I have no idea how many times we prayed for George Tiller's salvation and for the closing of that clinic during Fire in the Night. Dozens of times at least.

Once again, I manage to be surprised by God answering prayer... Lord willing, I will eventually learn to actually expect Isaiah 64:4 to be true!

Kansas Late-Term Abortion Facility Closed While George Tiller Arraigned


So the Lord has answered the first half of that prayer. Now we need to press into the second half. Lord, have mercy on George Tiller and bring him to a saving knowledge of You!

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