Well it’s been a few days since I last posted here. What can I say - there are some things more important than blogging. But I thought I better check in so you wouldn’t think I’m not coming back.

I am not a morning person but my career forces me out of bed early each morning. Too early. One thing I’ve learned is that I’m pretty worthless without some decent sleep - so I’m forced to go to bed pretty early. So early that I can’t watch Monday night football with my boys. This year we’ve started something new though. We tape the game on Monday night and watch the game on Tuesday. This has been a real time saver too. You can cut out all the commercials, half time and even create your own instant replay. The real problem is getting through Tuesday without hearing who won the game on Monday.

So here’s the plan. You can have a part in a new Pierpont tradition by not blogging about the game or emailing me about the game until Wednesday each week. Got it? Thanks. I knew you’d understand

Imagine my surprise this morning when I pull up a browser window to do a search with my favorite search engine and I find something new - an added tab on the Google home page labeled News. Google has built very nice news page that not only lists the latest news items but shows how old they are and lets you search “4,000 continuously updated news sources”. Something else I find nice is that you can leave the Google News page open and it will refresh/reload every 15 minutes to show you what’s changed.

According to Google…

“The headlines that appear on Google news are selected entirely by computer algorithms, based on how and where the stories appear elsewhere on the web. There are no human editors at Google selecting or grouping the headlines and no individual decides which stories get top placement.”

Find out all about the Google News page here.

Now this is my kind of switch. If I had to use a Mac this is the way I’d want to do it. Like the Apple switch campaign Edd Dumbill bought a Mac. Unlike the Apple switch campaign he installed Debian GNU/Linux.

This from Oswald Chambers daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest for September 20th;

“The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly.”

Today’s LangaList newsletter brings to my attention an XP security flaw that I think is important enough to repeat here. First of all you need to know that if you’ve already applied Windows XP Service Pack 1 you’re system is not at risk for this particular vulnerability and it would be a good idea for you to apply XP Service Pack 1 to your system. In the mean time Fred Langa points out a great, free utility to secure your system easily from this particular threat. That utility is made available by Steve Gibson and his site has all the gory details. Here’s just part of what Steve Gibson has to say about the XP security flaw;

“Ever since its release, Windows XP has contained a critical flaw that could be trivially exploited at any time by any malicious hacker. By causing any Windows XP system to process a specially-formed URL (web-style link), the XP system would obediently delete all or most of the files within any specified directory. (That’s not good.)”

“This flaw is considered critical because these malicious URLs could be delivered to any XP user through any means: via an eMail solicitation, a chat room, a newsgroup posting, a malicious web page, or even processed automatically without the user clicking anything by merely visiting a malicious web page. (That’s bad.)”

“Curiously, Microsoft was informed of this easily-demonstrated, quite significant, and trivial-to-fix, Windows XP defect back in June of 2002, but chose not to proactively address the significant vulnerability created for their users until the September 9th, 2002, release of Windows XP’s first service pack.”

OK - this one is for technogeeks. It’s a combination of wireless and voice technology that make the voice OS and “Isaac” sound pretty cool. I can’t wait till someone creates it and it’s cheap.

Joshua Claybourn points us to President George W. Bush’s “amazingly thorough and convincing case” for action against Iraq.

Martin Roth quotes Major General Tim Cross of the British Army who answers the question: in war, whose side is God on?

Too often we expect God to be on our side. But that is not the real issue. It is not a matter of whose side God is on in warfare, or any other aspect of life. The real question is not, “Whose side is God on”, but, “Are we on God’s side?”

He also shares that Major General Cross “lays down five guiding principles for the officer seeking to follow Jesus.”

A must read for all those who wish to be spiritual leaders–attention, fathers, husbands, pastors.

By Kenneth F. Pierpont
September 11, 2002
(Kenneth F. Pierpont is Kevin’s father, has pastored for over 40 years, and now pastors with Kevin at Jonesville Baptist Church.)

This morning and through the day, our television sets have given us many opportunities to hear about and relive the awful events of last year, this day. In an hour or so, our president will speak to the nation live. I want to hear him.

—Read the Rest of the Entry…

This excerpt is from an article I wrote for blogs4God.com.

Shortly after the 11th last September I hung a flag from a pole on our house. It was something I’d been meaning to do but it took a wake-up call like the attacks on our country to light the fire in me. Soon my children were making flags and hanging them around the house. We began praying more earnestly for our country, our President and leadership and our military. These were things we could do. We realized then we would never forget September 11, 2001.

Martin Roth poses the question “Can you really be a soldier and a true Christian?” He concludes his article with the following statement;

A year ago, on September 11, Todd Beamer, knew that. He knew that it was more wrong not to fight terrorists, and so he prayed the 23rd Psalm and then probably helped stop United Airlines Flight 93 from crashing into the White House. Pray that all other Christians may know the same.

By Kenneth L. Pierpont
(Ken is Kevin’s older brother amd contributes reagulary here. For more of his great writing be sure to check out KenPierpont.com.)

If you know me you know I like to tell happy stories about good things. I like to tell stories of love and goodness. I make excuses for celebrations every day. I like to point others to God’s good gifts all around them. I find this especially easy to do when spring overcomes winter and when summer turns to autumn. Evidence of God’s goodness abounds in autumn. But sometimes even in the autumn heartache silences laughter and tears drown any thought of celebration. That is what happened one sunny morning last fall.

—Read the Rest of the Entry…

In the next few days we’ll be hearing and seeing many things in the news about the events of September 11, 2001. There will be many memorial services and times of reflection. I want to reflect for a moment and share with you a quote from Christin Ditchfield. She wrote this in an article for Focus on the Family;

—Read the Rest of the Entry…

Todd Beamer’s last known words were “Let’s Roll”. Todd’s wife Lisa has continued to “roll” and this article illustrates why, for her, that’s possible.