The Press Just Doesn't Get It

As I was listening to the BBC's radio news coverage of the impending Iraqi elections, it became obvious to me that they just don't get the real issue.

They were all concerned about the security of the polling places, and even interviewing Iraqis who claimed that all the security measures prove is that the polling places are not safe.

Well, duh!

The real issue is whether the Iraqis really want freedom. Their country has been invaded by so called insurgents who only the Iraqis have a chance to defeat. (Most coalition soldiers won't know the difference between a Syrian, Iranian, or Iraqi accent.) In order to prove to themselves, the "insurgents", and the world that they want freedom, the Iraqis must turn out at the polls despite the fact that some of them will be blown-up, shot, and or otherwise assaulted. Freedom isn't free, and even some of the Iraqi citizens complained that they didn't overthrow Saddam Hussein. Well, no is their chance to stand up and fight for their country!

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Only by Faith, not by the Law

Galatians 3:1-29

You foolish Galatians! By whose strange powers have you been tricked? Before your very eyes you had a clear description of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross! Tell me this one thing: did you receive God's Spirit by doing what the Law requires or by hearing the gospel and believing it? How can you be so foolish! You began by God's Spirit; do you now want to finish by your own power? Did all your experience mean nothing at all? Surely it meant something!

Does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you because you do what the Law requires or because you hear the gospel and believe it? Consider the experience of Abraham; as the scripture says, "He believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous." (Genesis 15:6) You should realize, then, that the real descendants of Abraham are the people who have faith.

The scripture predicted that God would put the Gentiles right with himself through faith. And so the scripture announced the Good News to Abraham: "Through you God will bless all people." (Genesis 12:3) Abraham believed and was blessed; so all who believe are blessed as he was.

Those who depend on obeying the Law live under a curse. For the scripture says, "Whoever does not always obey everything that is written in the book of the Law is under God's curse!" (Deuteronomy 27:26) Now, it is clear that no one is put right with God by means of the Law, because the scripture says, "Only the person who is put right with God through faith shall live." (Habakkuk 2:4)

But the Law has nothing to do with faith. Instead, as the scripture says, "Whoever does everything the Law requires will live." (Leviticus 18:5) But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, "Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God's curse." (Deuteronomy 21:23) Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God. (Joel 2:28-29)

My friends, I am going to use an everyday example: when two people agree on a matter and sign an agreement, no one can break it or add anything to it. Now, God made his promises to Abraham and to his descendant. The scripture does not use the plural "descendants," meaning many people, but the singular "descendant," meaning one person only, namely, Christ. What I mean is that God made a covenant with Abraham and promised to keep it. The Law, which was given four hundred and thirty years later, cannot break that covenant and cancel God's promise. For if God's gift depends on the Law, then it no longer depends on his promise. However, it was because of his promise that God gave that gift to Abraham.

What, then, was the purpose of the Law? It was added in order to show what wrongdoing is, and it was meant to last until the coming of Abraham's descendant, to whom the promise was made. The Law was handed down by angels, with a man acting as a go-between. But a go-between is not needed when only one person is involved; and God is one.

Does this mean that the Law is against God's promises? No, not at all! For if human beings had received a law that could bring life, then everyone could be put right with God by obeying it. But the scripture shows that the whole world is under the power of sin; and so the gift which is promised on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ is given to those who believe. But before the time for faith came, we were guarded under the Law until this coming faith should be revealed. Therefore the Law was our tutor until Christ came, in order that we might then be put right with God through faith. Now that the time for faith is here, the Law is no longer in charge of us.

It is through faith that all of you are God's children in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and are heirs to what God has promised.

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Live from Greensboro

Today is the first travel day of the new year for me. I'm headed to Aspen for Winter X Games IX. God has provided a beautiful day for flying. :-)

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SPAM update

Of all the e-mails that I sent in a bid to stop freelotto.com from spamming, only their hosting company, Tucows, Inc. has bounced. Finding the e-mail to which to communicate with Tucows was difficult and time consuming, so it was disapointing to discover that the e-mail didn't work. As I followed up on the e-mail failure, I tried to use the feedback form on their "contacts" web page. This too, failed to function. How unusual for a publically traded internet company to have so many broken lines of communication. I figure, either they don't want to hear complaints about their customers, or they are incompetent. I sent a note to their press relations e-mail (this one didn't seem to bounce) asking if they'd like to comment, or at least tell me how to make a spam complaint. I'll be sure to post their response, if I get one.

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SPAM

I have been relatively unaffected by spam, on my personal e-mail accounts. At least since I dumped AOL years ago. (Although to be fair, when they foolishly created a pubically searchable listing of every registered screenname on the AOL service in a bid to provide everyone a homepage on the nascient world-wide web, spam was more of a usenet problem than an e-mail problem.)

Anyway, since I have now received 4(!) spam e-mails within a week, I feel the need to take action. Oh, by the way, freelotto.com is the main spammer in this case. I had done everything in my power to get them blacklisted by RoadRunner a couple of years ago, and now they have gotten a hold of my main e-mail address. I guess I'll have to try to get them blacklisted by my other e-mail provider.

Here is a bit of software filtering I'm going to try. SpamPal

Meanwhile; I have put in complaints about freelotto.com with the FTC at spam@uce.gov, Tucows, Inc. their registrar, and with OmniTI their e-mail provider.

Should you wish to be proactive about the spam or UCE, all you need to do is look in the internet header information from the spam email (try right-clicking the email and selecting properties, and veiw source), look for the originator of the email, the first place that it came from. Then do a "whois" search. The whois information will tell you who you may choose to contact concerning that particular spam problem. (Remember be polite, they might actually be able to help!)

As an example, below is the whois information about freelotto.com from Tucows.

Whois info for, freelotto.com:
Registrant:
PlasmaNet, Inc
420 Lexington Ave
Suite 2025
New York, NY 10170
US

Domain name: FREELOTTO.COM

Administrative Contact:
Registrar, Domain domreg@freelotto.com
420 Lexington Ave
Suite 2025
New York, NY 10170
US
212-931-6760
Technical Contact:
Registration, Domain hostmaster@OMNITI.COM
10445 Rosemont Drive
Laurel, MD 20723
US
301 776 6376


Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 31-Jul-2003.
Record expires on 04-Nov-2011.
Record created on 23-Oct-1996.

Domain servers in listed order:
UDNS1.ULTRADNS.NET 204.69.234.1
UDNS2.ULTRADNS.NET 204.74.101.1


Domain status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

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Cry out and be saved!

And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.
-Matthew 14:25-33

When God first laid this passage on my heart, I was reminded of a time just days ago when I had taken my eyes off of Him and fallen back into my old sin. I was grateful, because as I recalled, He was there to lift Peter back up again and so He was faithful to lift me back up again, too.

However, as I reread the passage above, it was revealed that this is not just a picture for Christians in their daily walk, but a picture of God's saving grace. For those who have not yet come to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of their life, once they understand that they are drowning in the sea of their own sins, they need only cry out "Lord save me!" and He is faithful to do so.

Also, let us walk in confidence in the Lord, as Christians. Let us not doubt that when (not if) we take our eyes off of Him and we begin to sink, He is there. And let us not be slow about turning back to Him, who is our strength.

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The Dead Sea Scrolls To The Bible In America

The Dead Sea Scrolls To The Bible In America is a touring museum exibit including fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other interesting Biblical artifacts.
From the front page of the site...

What is being hailed as the single greatest traveling exhibition touring America today will be on display in North Carolina. Some of the rarest artifacts and earliest Biblical manuscripts from around the world will visit North Carolina from Jan 14, 2005 thru February 27. The exhibit will present a display of the History of Scripture from Antiquity to Modern America, highlighting the importance Dead Sea Scrolls to the founding fathers.
This awe-inspiring collection of artifacts, manuscripts and Bibles comes together to tell the story of the complete history of the Bible. In addition to the several Dead Sea Scroll Biblical fragments from books of the Old Testament and as well as other important manuscripts uncovered at Qumran, the show will also display: the earliest forms of human writing (5,000 year old clay tablets from Mesopotamia); examples of early Hebrew; some early New Testament manuscripts, Medieval Biblical Manuscripts; and first editions of important printed Bibles from the Gutenberg Bible (1455) to the King James Bible (1611).

I don't know for sure, but it appears we may be the last stop.

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The Philosophy of Ministry of Calvary Chapel

I have just finished reading this short booklet. It is "on the list" for those wishing to take part in serving at Calvary Chapel of the Triad, my local church. It is a brief Biblical exposition on the basic organizing concepts of a "Calvary Chapel" and a record of how it came to be. It is (imo) a worth-while read for Christians in general, and especially for those who find themselves struggling with what they believe God wants them to do.

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Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Home

Appearently, this was just released Friday.

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Home

I have installed this on both of my machines at home (I have a laptop that I take on the road, and a poor beat-up old desktop that keeps on chugging along), and I'm very pleased with the result. This free software from Microsoft found spyware that other scanners had missed. Further, I had previously installed a remote control software (VNC) on my old desktop, and the scanner correctly identified it (the VNC software could be used maliciously, but MS AntiSpyware suggested that it could have been installed for administrative uses as well, which was true in my case).

It's still a beta, and it crashed on my laptop after it finished scanning and cleaning, but it restarted fine and seems to be functioning well. See if you can spot the grammatical error on the "scanning" page. (Highlight from here Look for the word "then" improperly used instead of the word "than" on the right hand side of the page. This seems to be a common mid-western grammer usage error. to here to find the answer.)

Overall I highly recommend that anyone using Microsoft Windows download and install this program. Even if you already have a Spyware scanner, this free program is a good way to evaluate how well your current scanner is doing.

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First Cache

Found my first Geocache yesterday between Church services! Or more correctly, we did. :-)

This cache was a "letterbox hybrid" cache. Basically, this means that you are given coordinates and then have to use a compass to pace off the directions to the actual site. The weather was great, and this cache is the first of a series entitled "Rainbow Dragon's Treasure". Hopefully we can get together to do more of this soon.

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Tsunami Aid

The church I attend supports Gospel for Asia as a part of its missionary outreach program. An interesting fact about Gospel for Asia is that 100% of donations go to field work. From it's 2003 Financial Report:

GFA remains committed to sending 100 percent of every contribution designated for the mission field to the mission field. Separate bank accounts are kept to ensure that no funds specified for field use are spent for operating costs. Most of GFA headquarters staff raise their own support and many donors have graciously designated contributions for the administrative needs of the ministry. To ensure our financial accountability to you, our donor, GFA is a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. We fully support the purposes and goals of the ECFA and display its seal proudly to reflect compliance with its membership standards. Complete audited financial statements are available upon request.

If you want 100% of your donation to go to ministering to the needs of the tsunami victims in Asia, then Gospel for Asia is a ministry you should prayerfully consider donating through.

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New Year's comet matters

There's a (relatively) new comet to look at this New Year. Here is a map of where comet Machholz will be on January the 7th.

Also Deep Impact is due to launch January 12th. This mission is desingned to crash! Deep Impact is due to smash into comet Tempel 1 on July 4th. It should make for a fine astronmical fireworks show, and it comes at the discount rate of $330,000,000. :-)

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