I can hardly believe it has been so long since I updated the site blog. I'm dealing with Mom's leg injury and upcoming cataract surgery while having a prolonged flare-up of my illness. The world is going down the tubes and so many issues invite comment, but then Mom needs something and I need to rest afterwards.

We're fortunate that we had such a mild hurricane season this year. There's hardly been anything of note in America, so the forecasters are reporting on the storms in the Pacific. If last year was proof that global warming was going to destroy us all, what does one make of this year?

The politicians are slinging mud aplenty. We've got a particularly nasty race for United States Senator between Bob Corker and Harold Ford. The Fords are a local family appalling in their political and personal activities, but Harold was one of the cleaner ones. Now he and Corker are lobbing attack ads all day and night. It is part of the Democrats' desperate drive to regain power, but the Republicans are rallying.

Michael J. Fox's political ad is particularly tragic. The man is deceived into believing that embryonic stem cell research will lead to a cure for Parkinson's disease, when too often the embryonic stem cells form a tumor instead of curing the patient. Further, a woman treated with adult stem cells has had tremendous improvement in her condition, showing that there may have been a breakthrough in treating this disease from adult stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell research is siphoning off funds and medical talent which would be better used in studying adult stem cells and their use. The unlimited supply of cord blood and the patient's own adult stem cells would provide a ready source for controllable stem cells which would match the patient's own tissue well enough to make further cures feasible.

So why do the researchers continue to doggedly pursue this wasteful line of research? Why does the media continue to trumpet any sliver of news supporting it and hide anything that would sway the public to the side of adult stem cell research? They've got too much invested in their position, both in pride and in finances, to admit that they are wrong!

The tomato plants held up in cages still have a few fruits, but the rest of the garden was finished by an outbreak of rats. I knew there was going to be trouble when the cats started leaving dead rats regularly by the door. They stripped everything else in the vegetable garden. I would have to start spinach and lettuce in flats on the terrace and hope that the rats weren't bold enough to climb through the cats' hole in the screen to get anything this late.

I did get another box of sweater sent off. I'm stalled on another sweater where I made it one size too big for the amount of yarn I had, and the yarn is discontinued. I'm going to have to get a skein close in color to finish one section of shoulder seam. I'm knitting a gift for Mom until I can get to the store for a match good enough to blend in.