Got a spam e-mail from someone claiming to be doing social work in North Korea and also claiming I had been in contact with them in the past. Then it closed with this disclaimer:

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE – This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it may contain information that is confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you must not read this transmission and that any disclosure, copying, printing, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone or return e-mail and delete the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner. Thank you.

Please note:

1. This disclaimer comes at the END of the message, after I’ve already read it.

2. It tells me that if I am not the intended recipient, I am prohibited from reading it.

What does this tell you about the intelligence level of the average spammer? Genii?? I think not!

P. S. I plan to get to some serious blogging soon. I know it’s been a bit light lately.

BREAKING NEWS: The epicenter of the quake has been pinpointed to a graveyard outside of DC, where all our Founding Fathers just rolled over in their graves due to current leadership in Washington.

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, I  thought it was funny, so am passing it along.

Got a link from the Internet Evangelism Bulletin for this. Quite incredible.

Comes from the-scientist.com, so it must be true, right?

Obesity levels have risen dramatically in research animals and others living close to humans, suggesting environmental factors are encouraging everyone to gain weight, according to new findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

You can read the whole thing here (free subscription might be required).

So… it isn’t that you eat too much.

Or that you are a lazy couch potato.

It’s the environment. Naturally. I knew that.

I’ve just been scanning in some photos my mom took back when I was a shadow of my present self. I am glad to know that I can blame it all on the environment.

And I thought all my Yankee friends might feel better after their Thanks-gorging to know this.

You’re welcome.

I’m a little confused by Dave’s latest. I think it might be the unspecificity of ‘this and that’. I’m sort of getting lost the further he goes using these terms. Would it be too much to give some real world examples? (Oops, I said I was hoping to get away from sarcasm!)

But really, what is Dave trying to say in his post? This is what I am getting:

1. I get the part that Biblical truth is timeless. I think that is what Dave means by ‘this’.
2. I get the part that the way we use the timeless principles to address real life issues is called applications. I think this is what Dave means by ‘that’.
3. As we progress in the discussion of ‘this’ and ‘that’, it seems that Dave is saying that applications are relative, dependant on the context of the times. Does that mean that applications change over time? Could we have some examples?
4. There appear to be different categories of relationship between ‘this’ and ‘that’.
1. First, there is potential for disagreement among Christians because not everyone sees the connection between ‘this’ and ‘that’ in the same way. (And as long as we agree on the ‘this’ we need to give latitude to others on the ‘that’.)
2. Next, there is a possibility that ‘that’ could lead to a violation of ‘this’. While we should be concerned about the possibility, as long as we agree on ‘this’, we should still give latitude over differences in ‘that’.
5. When ‘that’ is elevated to the same level as ‘this’, trouble occurs, unless ‘that’ equals ‘this’, but not all agree and as long as ‘that’ doesn’t equal ‘this’, we should allow one another latitude in ‘that’.
6. If differences over ‘that’ lead to questions about motives, we err and do not the truth. Instead, differences over ‘that’ should result in ‘open, constructive debate’. (Dialogue, anyone?)
7. The key is to start talking about the Scriptures – the ‘this’. We’ll get so in harmony over ‘this’, ‘that’ will be irrelevant. Your ‘that’ is different from my ‘that’? No problem, bro, we’re in sync on ‘this’, fill your boots!

Is ‘that’ all clear? Maybe I should have said, is ‘this’ all clear? What is ‘this’, anyway? Should we be in agreement about ‘this’? How do I know? I could have been talking about ‘that’ all along while someone else is talking about ‘this’.

‘This’ is extremely confusing. (But be careful how you explain it to me, you wouldn’t want to get into the motives thing, you know.)

P.S. Please take this in a light-hearted spirit. I think I get what Dave is saying, but, wow, trying to wade through all the ‘this’es and ‘that’s is getting to me!