It's time to look out for ticks on your cats and dogs

The warmer weather has increased tick numbers on the NSW North Coast and quite a few domestic pets are turning up at local vets with tick poisoning.

It is wise to check your pet daily, as poisoning symptoms have been known to occur within 48 hours and usually show within 4 days of the tick beginning to suck blood.

Head, ears, mouth, under jaw, shoulders/shoulder blades, elbows, flanks, tail, and anus are some of the common areas on dogs and cats where burrowing ticks are found.

Onset of symptoms vary and your pet may just appear off-colour, have a depressed appetite, a persistent cough, or experience laboured breathing, begin unexplained vomiting with unsteadiness in the hindquarters.
Dogs may produce an altered bark.

Death is likely to occur if the animal is not treated or poisoning is advanced, so be vigilant with your pets and consult the local vet.

If you can afford to do so, purchase a tick preventative treatment and apply according to instructions.

The Daily Examiner article this week on Clarence Valley tick season.

Chart found at Love My Pet

Whatever happened to the working class in that 2008 VP debate?

Watching the US Biden-Palin vice presidential debate was as riveting as watching paint dry, but one thing was strangely fascinating - neither candidate seem to acknowledge that there really was a working class in America.

Sarah Palin used the term "working class" twice and Joe Biden studiously ignored it.

In this election everyone on Main Street seems to spring Topsy-like straight from some idealised middle class.

I'm still wondering what is so socially taboo about belonging to the salt-of-the-earth working class in the good ol' US of A.

What was equally fascinating was Joe Biden's constant assertions that McCain was in bed with Exxon and that this example of Big Oil would get nothing from an Obama administration, especially not a $4 billion tax cut.

I'm sure that the Exxon board found that somewhat surprising as the company (which gives away nothing for free) is on record as donating $61,050 to Barack Obama - almost $16,000 more than the company gave John McCain.

The donation to Obama is the most it has given to any 2008 election cycle individual candidate.

So while Sarah Palin's dogged determination to stay on message rather than answer the adjudicator's questions showed just how little she was across many issues; Joe Biden's failure to be honest over Exxon meant that he came across as manipulative and cynical.

Can't see either getting a dance at the next B&S ball.

Transcript of the debate found here. It probably reads better than it sounded on the day.

water worries and the red menace

Most people get their water from a municipal system, but here on the farm we have to rely on our rain water tanks.

So you can imagine my discomfort when one of the water tanks had moved on its sand bed and was leaking; it had turned communist and decided to lean radically to the left.

This was a major blow in this true blue water-starved National Party enclave.
Action had to be taken. After all, if our new Mayor had known of the incident we would be of his Christmas card list.

The problem was how to use the water as quickly as possible and re-orientate the Trotskyist tank before further mishap occurred.

A quick look around the sheds threw up a possible solution. If the errant tank was spliced into the main house water lines then we could turn off the header tank and use the water in the house thereby gaining the maximum value from this precious resource.

So with hacksaw and pipe fittings in hand I sallied forth only to discover a trench had to be dug to place the connector pipe at the correct level.

Back to the shed, then with shovel, mattock and a sense of destiny I returned to the scene of the crime. With a few hours of sweat and swearing the trench was complete.

It did not take long to do the necessary surgery to connect the tank to the main house line, now was the moment of truth - would our old Chinese made pressure pump be up to the task of controlling pressure from this new addition to the tank family?

This is when the true nature of the communist conspiracy became obvious.
The pressure pump was so excited that it finally had an ally that it refused to stop pumping even when no water was needed in the house.

The pump continues to sing of the death of capitalism regardless of how I turn the regulator valve.

Now I’m sitting on the veranda having a well earned ale and thinking that with a little more co-operation the system could work, but how do you get the different components to talk to one another and what would be the outcome if they would co-operate?

Say again, Mr Rudd!!

In an interview with the ABC 7.30 Report on Wednesday, Prime Minister Rudd was asked:

And that begs the obviously question, if our banks are well capitalised, they're sound, they're well regulated, there's not a problem, why can't they pass on any interest rate cut officially next week in full to mortgage holders?

I'm still trying to untangle Rudd' reply which began:

Well, the Reserve Bank of Australia only last week indicated through the Financial Stability Review that the cost of bank finance has obviously gone up as a result of the global financial crisis. Our banks are not immune from the impacts of this.

Therefore, obviously, if there is an official interest rate cut, we the Australian Government want to see a maximum pass through of that to consumers.

But we must make sure also it is done if a manner which is consistent with the stability, continued stability, maintaining the stability of the Australian financial system.

Consumers have just been through 10 interest rate rises in a row under the previous Government and they deserve the maximum pass through. And the maximum pass through also consistent with maintaining the stability into the future of our system.

牛糞, Kevin 牛糞!

Back to the future - courtesy of corporate greed and political manipulation?

With the global financial markets appearing like houses of cards erected on shifting sands - it is comforting to realise that according to a US Treasury official the the humongous amount of the mooted financial bailout is "not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number" and that US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may have deliberately engineered an exacerbation of the US liquidity crisis in order to force Congress' hand on this rescue bid.

Let us hope as a nation we Aussies keep the same sense of humour which saw us through the last 'great unwinding'.

Cartoon displayed at The La Trobe Journal

What is Barack doing with all those campaign dollars?

The Obama election campaign raised around $66 million in donations in August this year, 51% of which was apparently made up of donations of $200 or less.

Both he and McCain also receive hefty amounts from industry and lobby groups.

According to Open Secrets Obama has declared:

Cash on Hand: $77,404,118

Debts: $469,025

Date of last report: Aug 31 2008 12:00AM

Totals may include compliance fund receipts

With the source of all his election campaign funding breaking down in this manner:

Individual contributions $426,902,991 [94%]
PAC contributions $450 [0%]
Candidate self-financing $0 [0%]
Federal Funds $0 [0%]
Other $27,152,882 [6%]

Hardly a week goes by without some Obama for America appeal for a donation landing in my inbox, complete with 'offers' like this:

Yesterday I had to laugh as the email began; I've never asked you to make a donation before.

Good heavens - they never stop asking!

Obama seems to have collected enough to run a small island state and appears to have spent over $368 million so far.

Every single cent, other peoples money. What on earth is he doing with it all?

And is anyone out there receiving a relentless flow of begging letters from the McCain camp?