No Virgins

That’s my headline for this story:

An American captain being held by Somali pirates was freed unharmed Sunday in an operation carried out by U.S. Navy Seals, U.S. military officials said. Three of the pirates were killed and the fourth was captured.

[…]

U.S. military snipers opened fire on the pirates within seconds after an on-scene commander determined that Phillips’ life was in “imminent danger” because one of the pirates was aiming an AK-47 at the captain’s back.

I’m glad the captain is safe.

It is tragic, though, that three other humans had to die. And no matter what Islam might have told them, they had no harems of 72 virgins each awaiting them.

The devil surely is glad for their deaths.

And the Savior — whose resurrection we remember today — well, what do you suppose His response is?

(Oh, and I had this thought cross my mind earlier this afternoon: Were any of the American snipers Christians?)

Did You Know?

Three words spoke to my heart this morning. May they continue to echo there:

Father, forgive them

No, you didn’t know that. But now you do. And that fits in with this:

Are you a twit if you don’t want to Twitter?

Last month, Alex Slater took it a step farther. He dumped his Twitter account and stripped the information on his Facebook page to a minimum. Though he has more than 600 “friends” on Facebook, he checks it much less often.

“Being exposed to details, from someone’s painful breakup to what they had for breakfast – and much more sordid details than that – feels like voyeurism,” says the 31-year-old public relations executive in Washington, D.C. “I’m less concerned with protecting my privacy, and more concerned at the ethics of a ‘human zoo’ where others’ lives, and often serious problems, are treated as entertainment.”

Yes, I have a Twitter account. No, I don’t have a raft-load of Facebook Friends. Yes, I think the above article is worth reading in full. No, I don’t plan to announce on Twitter that I had two cups of coffee and two Tylenol so far this morning.

Oh, and speaking of Facebook:

Fast-growing Facebook’s user base hits 200 million

Facebook also updated its display of site statistics.

According to these, more than half of its users log in to the site at least once a day, and the fastest-growing demographic is people over 35. About 70 percent of Facebook users are outside the United States (MySpace still claims to be the nation’s largest social network).

For those itching to know if they are popular enough: the average user has 120 “friends” on the site.

And speaking of friends, do friends let friends over-text?

Hammer time for cell phone used to run up $5K billA cell phone used by a Wyoming 13-year-old to run up a nearly $5,000 phone bill will text no more thanks to her angry father and his hammer. Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne sent or received about 20,000 text messages over about a month, and her parents’ phone plan didn’t cover texting.

🙄

Meanwhile, some other “friends” are waking up around the globe:

Huge worm stirring to life

The dreaded Conficker computer worm is stirring. Security experts say the worm’s authors appear to be trying to build a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction as many people feared.

As many as 12 million computers have been infected by Conficker. Security firm Trend Micro says some of the machines have been updated over the past few days with fake antivirus software – the first attempt by Conficker’s authors to profit from their massive “botnet.”

So, this post begins by featuring a Friend. (And what a Friend we have in Jesus!)

Now it ends featuring someone else’s friend:

Woman finds cashiers check and returns it

But just as she was about to do her part for a cleaner planet and deliver the paper from the parking lot to a trash can, she noticed it was a real cashier’s check with a real signature.

“I couldn’t believe it. I almost passed out,” Curtis, who works as a loan negotiator, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I have never seen a check that big. Not in my possession, anyway.”

She immediately set out to find its rightful recipient….

Good day?!

Pirates’ Prayer Petition

Well, will you?

A U.S. Navy destroyer arrived off Somalia on Thursday to apply pressure for the release of an American ship captain taken hostage in the first seizure of U.S. citizens by increasingly bold pirates.

[…]

The four gang members were holding the captain on the ship’s lifeboat and the crew were trying to negotiate his release.

[…]

“We are surrounded by warships and don’t have time to talk,” one of four pirates on the lifeboat told Reuters by satellite phone. “Please pray for us.”

OK, Christians — they asked for it!

Pray away!

Giving Advice

“I don’t have any good reason to tell…” so-and-so this-and-that, observed the counselor-to-be.

“How about ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’?” thought the other, who should have been the counselor’s counselor.

I wonder what kind of advice-giver I have been over the years.

And what kind I will be from here on out.

Roths in Winston

"We always want to give to people that need help."

So this evening I looked at a Google Alert I got for the word Mennonite. Most of the time there’s little to nothing of interest to me in these Alerts.

But I saw David Roth, 10, and Winston (Oregon) mentioned. He’s my cousins’ son!

So I “had” to chase down the article: Read it all

Above all, love God!