Welcome to the New Normal

You know this drought we've had here for, oh, eight to ten years now? Maybe it's not a drought. Maybe this is what the climate here is like now. Maybe this is the new normal... So says the Bureau of Meteorology.

While I'm posting links, there was an interesting story on the ABC a few days ago about one of the survivors of the Ash Wednesday fires back in 1983. What struck me about this story was I remember seeing photos of this guy in the papers back in the day. Nice to see that he's survived, as has Cockatoo.

Mr Obama

Have I mentioned in the last twenty minutes how much I like Barack Obama? (And yes jedi_amara this is another post about Politics :-P )

I'm just reading about Hillary Clinton visiting Indonesia, the first place she's been outside the US since becoming secretary of state. All part of a plan to reach out to south east asia and especially the large Muslim nations there. Which is a bloody brilliant strategy - to be visiting a country like Indonesia which is a traditionally a friend of the US, but which also, conveniently, a democratic Islamic nation. And is where Obama lived for a few years as a kid... What a great way to send a message to the moderate Muslims in the world. If they get countries like Indonesia and Malaysia on side, that'll really dent the image of the US as the bad guys...

Bye Bye Socks the Kitty

In other "politics" news, former First Cat Socks has been put down. He was nearly 20 years old - a very good age for a cat. Apparently he'd been struggling the last few months, and was too weak to stand in the last couple of days.

There has been a lot of coverage, like in the LA Times and heck, look at all the articles in the Google News Search about his demise!

In other Cat news, I have my cat, Marvin the Bitey, back from his sojourn up in Preston with my cousin and her kids. Also took him to the vet this morning - he needs to chew more interesting gristly things for the sake of his teeth. And he's already put three deep scratches in my arm - I dared to move him off a chair :-)