Samantha Pierce

(Hat tip Booker Rising ) Update 9/1/05: Amazon.com has changed its mind. Here's their donation page . From Michelle Malkin : 10) Where is Amazon.com? And how about Yahoo!? Microsoft? Dell? Cisco? Countless readers and a few bloggers have wondered why these tech companies, which stepped up the plate to help raise millions of dollars for tsunami victims last year , have not yet set up fund-raising efforts. Let's concentrate on urging Amazon.com to set up a one-click donation similar to its tsunami relief effort . Send an e-mail to Amazon.com here . 130pm EDT update : Just saw this on Information Week . Amazon.com says it doesn't plan on helping with the Katrina relief efforts. The article notes that other tech companies are not jumping in to help: [M]ainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina's. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cr...

This is a collection of links that I've found where people list information about how to help out those who survived Hurricane Katrina. It is a work in progress. Instapundit : lists charities and blog burst information Baldilocks : lists mostly religious charities Paul of Wizbang has suggestions for how bloggers can help . He also reminds us of the magnitude of the situation. Think about it for a second from my chair... (I'm not whining but) I'm almost 40 years old.... Here is the sum total of all my worldly possessions: 4 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of blue jeans, a box of family pictures, 2 flashlights, a piece of trench art my grandfather brought back from WWI and my father's hammer. (Hey, it means a lot to me!) That's it. Everything else is gone. And BTW, I'm unemployed. I tell you that not to whine but to let you see the tree thru the forest. Multiply my situation by about a million. Stop and think about that......

The remnants of Hurricane Katrina came through our roof last night and this morning. And just yesterday our contractor had come by to take some final measurements before beginning work on repairing the roof. Now I've got peeling paint and water to clean up. The basement doesn't seem any wetter than usual so that seems to be the worst of it. hurricane katrina

[This is still a work in progess.] Thursday, December 04, 2003 So why do wives have to submit to their husbands? Because your God said so. It works for me. Thursday, December 04, 2003 Email received from a friend regarding submission: Friday, December 05, 2003 http://unclesamscabin.blogspot.com/2003/12/these-folks-have-clearly-misunderstood.html Monday, January 05, 2004 Is there a biblical precedent for prohibiting interracial marriage? Thursday, January 15, 2004 Sharia and one more dead Christian in Iraq Friday, January 16, 2004 New posts at Dhimmi Watch Saturday, January 17, 2004 Some news about Christian shot in Basrah Sunday, January 18, 2004 Coming to a theater near you! Friday, January 23, 2004 Paedocommunion Saturday, January 24, 2004 Forced conversions in Pakistan Wednesday, January 28, 2004 "The Passion" under fire Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Rise of Christianity in Turkey Saturday, January 31, 2004 More at the Evangelical Outpost on "The Passion" Sa...

Earlier today I was ready to scream at the television, "Can we please stop talking about oil for just one hot minute?" Now here I am talking about oil. But it's just one question. Why isn't the increased price of oil in the face of Hurricane Katrina counted as price gouging and therefore an offense for which one can be prosecuted? hurricane katrina

Yes it could have been worse but this is bad enough. There's a list of charities here that are helping those affected by the hurricane. hurricane katrina

"One faith, one hope, and one baptism, one God and father of all" The New Black Freedom Fighter Journey to the Republican Party: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 What's in a name? Have you been called a racist lately? In it for the money Black Heritage Can you be a Christian and a... Stop the oppression of African Americans! Are you for real? Thoughts on the President's proposed immigration policy Is there a biblical precedent for prohibiting interracial marriage? Adventures in the Welfare Office Bush dishonouring the dead? Evolutionary theory Great is Artemis and Allah akbar "In the darkness I rise"

Includes Adventures in Motherhood and Blogging While Pregnant posts. ******************************************************************** Wednesday, March 10, 2004 Tales from the Crib: Adventures in mommyhood Tuesday, May 04, 2004 To pre-school or not to pre-school? Wednesday, May 19, 2004 Rough Day Tuesday, July 06, 2004 First Day of School Saturday, July 10, 2004 School update Monday, July 12, 2004 Ah the joys of motherhood Monday, July 26, 2004 What's in your pocket? Monday, August 02, 2004 Sunday morning shenanigans Wednesday, August 04, 2004 My reading list and what to do with a kid who says "no" all of the time. Thursday, August 12, 2004 It's the little things Friday, August 20, 2004 Autism or regular kid stuff? Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Autism Spectrum Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Adventures in parenthood Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Rules of shopping Monday, February 28, 2005 Women in the blogosphere Friday, March 18, 2005 A day in the life Monday, March 21, 2...

I've been focusing on teaching Ethan to write lately. He knows all of the letters of the alphabet in various forms. Ethan also knows how to spell his name but has a hard time recreating a graphical representation of the letters. As far as shapes goes he can draw a reasonably round circle and most of the time a squarish looking square. He can do rectangles too but they are sometimes hard to distinguish from his squares. Ethan has a really hard times with triangles. He knows that there are three sides but he can't seem to get the three lines to meet properly with out help. He tends to loose his place on the paper whenever he picks up his hand to make the next mark. If I nudge his hand back before the pen makes contact with the paper he usually does okay. Ethan can make the horizontal strokes in the letters in his name with out too much trouble (aside from his hand wandering out of place). The vertical and diagonal lines give him a lot of trouble. Again his hand kind of wanders of...

I think the name Katrina will be retired after this. The warning from the National Weather Service reads like an apocalyse movie script. Pray for the folk in New Orleans and others in the gulf. A friend just pointed out that when Katrina's done with the south she will head north into our territory. And she could still cause a lot of trouble when she does. Back in 1998 we had a real wild storm (not hurricane related but tornadic) that had parts of the city of Syracuse without power for a week. The university even canceled classes for a day. Not looking forward to anything like that again. Hat tip Wizbang and Ramblings' Journal . Update: 11:07 PM EDT The new track for the storm just came out. It looks like it will hit New Orleans head on. I'm going to have a hard time going to sleep tonight. I'm afraid of what I may find in the morning. The potential for loss of life and destruction is staggering. We are fortunate in that these kinds of things happen so rarely here in...

UPDATED I came downstairs this morning after showering and taping off around the trim in our bathroom (I'm still painting it) to find Ethan painting his feet and the kitchen floor. Thankfully it was the kids' water washable paint that I had added soap to so clean up was easy. I eventually went back upstairs to paint the trim in the bathroom. When I came back downstairs so hubby could leave I found the floors in the kitchen and livingroom strangely sticky. After I asked him about it hubby volunteered that Ethan had been in the kitchen painting the floor with soap. Again after hubby came home I went back to taping and painting in the bathroom. I heard some yelling and crying from downstairs over the noise of the bathroom fan. I was working with oil based paint so stopping in the middle of painting to go see what was going on wasn't really an option. So I left hubby to fend for himself. Hubby left again and I came downstairs to mop the sticky soap film up off of the floors. I ...

I've been listening to reports on the proposed closing of Walter Reed Army Hospital all day. This part of the proposed plan keeps bugging me, "If the plan is approved, the hospital would move most staff and services to the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., to create an expanded facility and streamline medical services. [snip] One-time costs, including construction and renovations, would total $989 million . The Pentagon would save $301 million over 20 years by consolidating operations at the naval hospital, the commissioners said." [emphasis added] Someone please explain the math of this to me? Really. Unless they mean that they will be saving $301 million a year how is this cost effective?

Today I'm thankful for/that: Strangers who will pray for you any time you need it. Free food. Boxes and boxes of it. The safe travel of friends to foreign lands. Quiet evenings. What are you thankful for?

We do when you take our good heathen thumping Bibles away. Someone in Wayne, New Jersey did a search for this and clicked on my blog. What, I wonder, did they have in mind? "can you be christian and not racist?" And what were you looking for out there in Los Angeles at the University of California? I'm a little disturbed that this came out of someone at an institution of higher learning. I've got another "angry black people" search. I got a hit from one around this time last year . This one is out of the Mendocino County Office of Education in Ukia, California. Don't know where the first one came from. "pat robertson moron" You said it not me.

The 84th Christian Carnival is at Wallo World this week.

Everybody and their momma is crying about how the No Child Left Behind law is an unfunded mandate. Some are going so far as to sue the government because they can't afford to comply with NCLB. So let me get this straight. The government passes a law that basically says to schools this is your job, these are the standards to which we expect you to perform your job, do your job well and you get paid, do your job poorly and you won't get paid. Schools then respond, we can't meet those standards and we aren't even going to try unless you give us more money. What have they been doing with all of the money that has been previously given to them? Now imagine that you are a service provider in a community. For years your service has been crappy. You've been telling customers it is because you don't have enough money to provide them with quality service. You keep asking them for money. They keep giving it to you. Finally after years of giving you money and still getting ...

Everybody wants to know exactly what Supreme Court nominee John Roberts thinks about this, that, and the other thing. They want to make sure that he has the approved views on their pet issues. Everybody is trying to predict how he would rule in this, that, or the other hypothetical situation. Some Senators are going to go so far as to demand that Roberts commit to voting one way or another on their pet issue. ( Feinstein to ask Roberts about views on abortion .) Any judge who would commit to voting a certain way on any issue before being presented with a case is unfit to serve as a judge anywhere let alone on the Supreme Court of the United States. Roberts' job, should he be confirmed, will be to make decisions based on the merits of the case brought before him. On another note, it has been entertaining to watch the media and special interest groups spinning their wheels in desperate and painfully obvious attempts to paint John Roberts as the new anti-Christ set to take us back t...

A couple of weeks back I blogged about speculating about reasons why God allows unpleasant things to happen in people's lives . I don't see the point in that kind of thing. Well, God, in his infinite wisdom (and some might say twisted sense of humor), has brought me to a place where I am wondering why. Why as in why am I here and what actions am I supposed to take. As I face a difficult situation in my life that is not going away anytime soon (sometimes I think of it as my version of the thorn in Paul's side) I'm trying to fathom what the most godly response would be. Do I have the strength to make that choice? A good part of the Christian life, all of it actually, is sanctification. Sanctification, the process of being made holy and developing a godly character (yes I know there's more to it than that but this is not a treatise on sanctification, all of you amateur theologians can back off your keyboards). It is not easy. It is often not pretty. It requires each of...

That's what Dell Gaines calls today's mega-churches in his post The Rise of the Info-Church: Is This What Church is Supposed to Be? " This philosophy of no limit growth through marketing the crap out of your organization, pack the house, get on TV with your huge church mentality, in my opinion underscores the failure of the modern American church to stem the tide of moral relativity in modern culture. " Being no fan of mega-churches I myself I tend to agree with his points.

Brian of Memento Moron poses an interesting question to the blogosphere. There are those who condemn Christians for supporting the war in Iraq because, in their opinion, it is un-Christian to support war at all. These are also the same people who condemn Christians for supporting other things based on Christian belief that they find objectionable. So Brian comments , " Seriously, if there'’s anyone reading this that has made both those arguments to a righty: Oppose war because your faith says you should; Keep your faith out of politics because it's a personal matter; I'’d love to hear from you. Please explain to me why it's ok to apply my religious beliefs to one issue, but not to the others. I'’m sure the explanation'’s a good one. " I don't think he's gotten any good answers yet. Maybe you have some.

It's been a crazy day. I can't remember exactly what I did today but I know it was a crazy day. So I'm thankful for/that: The first goldenrods to bloom. Cooler weather. Changing seasons. Isaiah got a clean bill of health at the doctor today. Ethan: "I want bathroom!" (This resulted in a mad dash through the mall to find a bathroom.) The fabric store. So much fun stuff to find in the fabric store. Especially in the sale and clearance sections. Veggie Tales and Elmo DVDs. I think hubby would be lost without them. What are you thankful for?

I've lost three grandparents in less than two years. I've seen first hand that grief can do crazy things to people. My parents had to endure their siblings' misbehaviour leading up to and following my grandparents' deaths while dealing with their own grief. We assume that the behaviour of my parents' families was grief induced. If it wasn't then they were being just plain selfish and making a difficult situation even worse. People did things that they claimed were in the best interest of my grandparents but it was clear that they were looking to avoid responsibility and make themselves feel better about the situation. All of this is to say that I know a bit about death and grieving. I don't know where Cindy Sheehan is in her grieving process but it is unfortunate that we have all been dragged into it. I wonder though, would Ms. Sheehan feel any better if the President did meet with her again so she could vent at him? I doubt it.

I'll be busy painting the bathroom this week. I'm also working on putting together a curriculum for the teaching I'll be doing this fall. And on top of that I have to make sure that we have enough clean clothes to take with us to New Hampshire this weekend. I suppose I might be able to bang out a post or two while I wait for paint to dry but don't get your hopes up. Oh, and happy anniversary mom and dad. Thirty years of wedded bliss. Here's to thirty more. Cheers!

I've been too busy/hot/tired/lazy to really get worked up enough to blog about anything much this week. Then I nearly chopped a finger off making dinner last night (nothing really serious but man it hurts) so I'm now down to nine fingers on the keyboard. A lot of things have caught my eye this week but I didn't get worked up enough about them to write a whole post. Here they are in no particular order. PETA Protest . Do I really need to say anything else? But you've got to see this . Big Churches Use Technology to Branch Out " Some American congregations have grown so large in recent years that they could pass for small cities. [snip] Now some mega-churches are trying to reverse the trend by creating smaller satellite "campuses." When I heard this on the radio on Sunday I thought, oh good they're finally catching on that bigger isn't better and instead of forming these mega-churches they are going back to smaller community churches. No such lu...

Today I'm thankful for: Isaiah Joshua, aka bubba, aka licka bubba, aka bubba chunk, aka bubba saiah, aka zeeah, aka Dennis the Menace, aka Houdini. Born this day in 2002. He will be the cause of my first grey hair. Someone not familiar with the way Isaiah talks understood something that he said in an appropriate context. He said please while trying to take some cake off of their plate. You can see pictures of my little Houdini on my picture blog . I may post some new ones later today if time permits. In the mean time, what are you thankful for?

The 82nd Christian Carnival is up at In the Outer . I'm actually in it this week. Next week's Carnival will be at All Kinds of Time . Send entries to ChristianCarnival@gmail.com.

" Well, there are infidels and there are infidels. Two gay teenagers in Iran— Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni—count as infidels of the other kind. Now, when I did a search in the archives of the New York Times , I easily found a 2300-word story about Zach, the gay teen who was sent to a religious-based camp in order to be morally rehabilitated. But undoubtedly it is a sign of my incompetence that I could not find in the New York Times anything about the hanging of the two gay teenagers in Iran. Surely, the New York Times did not miss the story, which caught the attention of folks throughout the world. So what happened? My answer is very cynical. The killing of those two teenagers in the name of Islam is an indication of just how horrendous the belief system is of some of those who invoke the name of Islam. Two teenagers? Could there be a clearer sign that these adherents of Islam simply do not respect life? I am afraid not. And this is an enormous embarrassment for li...

AltonBrown.com Rants & Raves . He doesn't post very often though. But that same wacky personality that keeps you glued to the television whenever his show Good Eats is on comes through loud and clear. Thanks to Memento Moron for posting a link to it. I'm trying not to giggle like a little kid over this new discovery.

" While Jesus said that the peacemakers are blessed, today's supposed peace movement is no place for the followers of Christ. For those who criticize America'’s involvement in Iraq - not strategic or tactical decisions, but the right and need for action - —are not seeking to make peace but to make nice. And to alter evil by taking its hand. " So begins Heirs of the Sixties at Rooftop Blog . The comments are a bit on the hysterical side. They show a gross misunderstanding of what it means to turn the other cheek and Christian faith in general.

TulipGirl has completed the third piece in her series on Gary Ezzo. Evaluating Ezzo's Leadership, Part 3: Other Concerning Patterns is up. Check it out.

Isaiah was heard saying the following things this week: I want cheese. I want pineapple. I want icee. More, more, more! Jonah 3:5 (It sounded more like "nonah fee fie"). Don't know why he was saying it but I looked it up. "And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them." Okay. Sophia's first jaunt in the sandbox. She had a grand old time but I'm still cleaning sand out of her diaper. This conversation: Me: Ethan what is this? (holding painting from his school bag) Ethan: It's a picture. Me: This is a picture of..... Ethan: (after a brief blank stare) Picture of name! (big smile) Me: Good job Ethan! (Ethan giggles and his smile is even bigger) It really did look like his name once you knew what you were looking at. He got E T and H down before he ran out of room. What are you thankful for?

I fell off of the carnival bandwagon around about the fifties. It's about time I got back on. So the 81st Christian Carnival is at Dunmoose . Next one will be at In the Outer .

Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci...

The Voice and weirding way of the Bene Gesserit or the Force and Jedi training? Discuss. (There's an interesting comparison between Star Wars and Dune here .)

Some people like to speculate on God's reasoning when something that they consider to be bad happens to them. How often do these same people speculate on God's reasoning when something good happens to them? Asking God why when something bad happens presumes that we were undeserving of our misfortune. It also presumes that we deserve any good thing that God grants us. Neither is the case. I recently had someone speculate to me about why God would give me two autistic children. The thesis was that God must have known that I would be a good mom to my kids and that my experiences would help other parents. Now I am a good mother (if I do say so myself) and my experiences may be helpful to others but I don't see any point to speculating about why I have autistic children (aside from determining cause and possible avenues for treatment) except to make myself feel better about what is most definitely a stressful situation. (There also seems to be an assumption that this is a bad th...

So what do you do when your darling 4 year old decides to practice his emerging scissor handling skills on the costume you've been diligently working on for weeks?