Sigh, sweet babies!

I love the aussie-that-was-the-traveling-salesperson in the pups markings/coloring!

You know what, that's a superb idea.. I think I'm going to call the Senior Citizens centers (most counties here have one) and ask if any of the folks going there need pet food. ( I actually called Meals on Wheels and asked if the seniors or homebound needed pet food.. I'll let you all know what happens)

IMO, the US companies won't speak out like that because that would let people know that they import for their products..and they'd rather not make it obvious.

Nestle [nestle purina petcare] is the one that I complained to about the Fancy Feast. They never did send the RMA labels to get the unused I had. I have more stacked up now and am currently not feeding FF - cuz they won't eat it - any of it. The only wet eaten is Friskies Liver & Chicken. Dollywad had eaten the FF liver & chicken and hurled every bite within minutes- Now she won't touch it so it's on top of my reject pile of FF (turkey & giblets, gourmet chicken, liver & chicken - all of the non-gluten varieties with various dates from Aug to Oct 09)


http://itchmoforums.com/cat-food-experiences-by-brand/fancy-feast-t1185.0.html;msg86477#msg86477

(i wish i'd posted the file number.. stolen computer=no email history)

I have never had a slobbery yakky ball put on me while I slept. (I had to think of one positive thing about it from a "human" perspective instead of a "cat" perspective LOL)

If any of you have that "rat" , the HUGE mousey from westpaws,... imagine it being totally slobbered by multiple critters and laid on your chest by The Diva, presenter of presents to mommie, and waking up with that stuck to your chin  Ho Ho Ho, right?

Or, Shuffling half awake in the middle of the night cos the plumbing ain't what it used to be.. and sitting on a wet "rainbow" fishy  That'll teach me to put the lid down always.

Right now, we're all working to make Dollywad more cat social ROFL. She's starting running (she's FAST!!) and leaping and tossing toys and yowling to "announce" her success.  She played tag with Scooter and whacked the stew of Scooter when she didn't win.
 
Scooter has made a new game of mommie going to pee ROFL.

( I "announce" ROFL  "I've gotta pee " and all the cats head to the bathroom. Saves stepped on tootsies & tails & paws. ..when I don't "announce" &  they try to figure out which way I'm going and everybody tripping and screeching...)

Scooter gets in the tub which has the shower doors opened and moved to the middle, The Diva walks back & forth rubbing my leg that's near the tub. Scooter dashes from one side of the doors to the other hiding and leaping up to grab The Diva's tail. She has a blast. The Diva is tolerant cos she figured it is worth it to get the petting from mommie and continues blissfully to march back and forth providing Scooter with tons of fun.

On the human side of my life: Finally, the gutters are all done & it looks good; I've  DSL lite; the neighbor's dead tree fell away from my house; the police scanner has made me aware that the police are in the neighborhood alot due to home invasions, vandalism, car theft, shootings etc.. I offered a $100 reward to some kids to tell me or the police if they hear who's breaking into homes. My next door neighbor, myself and one house on the next street were broken into just days apart. ..Their grandmother won't let them go out after dark cos of the shooting last week on the next street ( I heard it and the tactical unit came and staked out the neighorhood & I heard them talking about "unknowns" approaching different streets.) Somebody knows the neighborhood... I just now  heard my street name on the scanner - house broken into by 4 kids.. homeowners were home & ran them out but they got her car keys.. cops got the keys from the side of the road and saw the kids running down the main road to another "subdivision" that has a historically bad reputation... sigh. I don't know what is worse- feeling picked on and violated or knowing how bad it really is this little, very old subdivision...

Do any of you all know about/use AlarmForce security company? 

Below is "willard" with The Diva, and MK who tolerates us all..

 

So far, this article is the closestI've found to really examining the "how's" & "why's" of this economic disaster and some assessments ...maybe hints to the ones who will benefit from it happening... and IMO it's not the common citizen of any country..


Economic crisis: US, China and the coming monetary storm
by Maurizio d'Orlando

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13959&geo=6&theme=&size=A

"Trans-national oligarchies

For its transition out of Communism China has adopted an export-driven development model. As economic history shows, this model lacks internal balance as we are now realising. At present it has led to a mad dash for industrial delocalisation and is a contributing cause of the world’s current financial meltdown. If it goes on any further it runs the risk of provoking an unprecedented monetary crisis with a brutal re-adjustment of the system. So far the model has survived because it has served the interests of those in power, of those who control the purse (the US Federal reserve and to a lesser extent the European Central Bank), manpower (China’s Communist Party for example) and raw materials (Gulf sheiks and Russia’s ruling oligarchy, etc.).

Also the decisions made by the G-20 in Washington to lay the grounds for a new world monetary system in order to save globalisation can serve the transnational oligarchy. Controlling the instruments of payment is the basis of power.

Today an attempt is underway to create on the ashes of the dollar a new de facto world central bank, or perhaps a new Euro-American currency, or perhaps only a North American currency, the Amero. We don’t know. This may be good for the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Stability Forum, and the various United Nations agencies, the people in charge of the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China, and other central banks. It is not clear whether it is good for the rest of the world."

I personally avoid the abuse stories.

I do not want the headlines toned down... that's a real clue to me that it is a post that I don't want to read.
If we make the headlines "pablum" then it's harder to censor my own reading preferences.

We need to censor our own reading habits as best as we can. I know for myself that's hard sometimes and sometimes I'm successful in biting my fingers and sometimes not successful.

Life isn't a bowl of cherries either, but we cope as best as we can.

I'd put my money on censoring use of the "report to moderator" button.

ETA:  Nothing was pleasant to read about the pet food scandal and murder of thousands of pets. That's what this forum has primarily dealt with. The consequences of different food ingredients/adulterations/contaminations to our pets is like reading a list of vulgarities perpetrated on our animals with us paying for it.. and guilt, sadness, tears. I've had to take breaks from it because it tears my guts out sometimes with anger, fear, sadness.

I think what's being done with some pet food & research to set marketing points  is tantamount to abuse - of the consumer who buys it and the animals that eat it and sometimes, the animals used to test it before & after development of the products.

And, I know the continued emotional torture of worrying about what my cats Choose to eat as opposed to what I try to get them to eat.

I cannot read alot of the memorial posts without crying either.. and it takes me a while to be able to post condolences or wishes for better news.

And, frankly, I'm really tired of the complaints to the moderators. Some IMO are justified to more of a degree than others.
However, Moderators are not our mothers and for the majority of the readers/posters we're not children. 
I've reduced my own posts alot with most being on my own furkids , and try hard to mostly read. The underlying demands for moderation overall diminish, IMO, the value of this forum- and ergo the topics of my posts become "chat room" instead of real information / research.

Some have in the past pushed the tolerance levels of fellow readers/posters and IMO some did it knowingly and intentionally.  The abuse topic doesn't IMO fall into that category. It happens. If we bury it are we also burying our consciousness? That won't make it go away and won't contribute to making it any different - there are people who don't care about life - human/animal and it often makes news headlines... how else do we hear about it? Same here.

Maybe the best thing to moderate is to keep a count of how many times & why (& which) people used the report to moderator button and how many people complained about the same issue.  If it isn't a complaint from several, then there has to be a line where the moderators recommend self moderation / self constraint.

I wrote the authors of that LA article to remind them about Tembec and Uniscope - two USA companies feeding melamine to fish.

Noted that the USDA/FDA let us eat them and that is most likely why the FDA had no comment for them.

Gave them the links to some of the articles and notes.

MelaFish ain't "just" China....

What really bothers me is the fish. Why isn't the USDA checking fish while they're grocery shopping?

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-melamine24-2008dec24,0,5133588.story

"Not on the checklist

But even though some U.S. fish importers are voluntarily testing for melamine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of imported fish, currently doesn't require seafood products to be screened for melamine. Yet research from its own scientists has raised a warning flag.

Laboratory studies of melamine-fed catfish, trout, tilapia and salmon by the FDA's Animal Drugs Research Center found that fish tissues had melamine concentrations of up to 200 parts per million. That's 80 times the maximum "tolerable" amount set by the FDA for safe consumption."

An FDA representative in Washington wouldn't comment on why Chinese-produced seafood didn't have to be analyzed for melamine when imported to the U.S. Nor were FDA researchers made available to comment on their agency's findings, reported recently in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Since last year, the FDA has been restricting entry of shrimp, catfish, dace, eel and basa from China unless those shipments come with an independent lab report certifying the seafood is free of such additives. Melamine isn't included on that list of additives.





I'd bet they're not talking cos of letting melamine fish food from the US get distributed last year....they know it's not "just" China guilty of feeding melamine to fish...

Well, mine got their presents last nite. I replaced the small cardboard box & put out new brown paper since the other was sans crunch after the other nite.

The Diva was totally thrilled with the Rat she got & even put it in her bed to leave it while she ate supper. DollyWad ate supper first then Yowled & announced running everywhere with her Rainbow fishy. Ling layed and hugged the catnip bag with the open end to her nose taking very deep inhales of it with pure joy. MK was happy to finally be able to eat a dish of wet food without being bothered. She likes her old squirrel, thank you. Scooter likes boxes the best so she found the little box the new presents came in and spent considerable time putting her head in and then turning around and putting her bottom end in it.. both wouldn't fit at the same time.. which sent her off to the new box with paper. (whoever put the westpaws link in a thread should also do long-term loans next time LOL) I'm sure there are more toys they found later and they will be all over the house when I get home.

*bump* for review

Trevor mesmerized... in deep thought?  ...can somebody else drink my toys if I put them in there?

Cute pics!!

They do have a good time when they are awake  and I really enjoy them.

This morning the paper nest was flat as a pancake thanks to their antics last nite.

For the very first time last nite, I saw Dollywad act docile!(she was in the nest) Shocked the stew out of me cos Ling marched right up to her full of attitude and Dolly crouched down in submission.  Ling stared at her all poofed & stood glaring & gesturing with arched head & looking ready to rumble for about solid 2 minutes and then marched off to the kitchen. Wow. I thought Ling was gonna have some of that wad!!

When Ling came back to the den, Dollywad jumped out of the nest like a jack-in-the-box , screeched and smacked Ling.

She hit Ling on her back thanks to the delay getting out of the nest. Ling looked indignant and kept on walking away. (Thank goodness). At least they haven't developed real dislike for her yet, but I think it's only a matter of time before one of them does more than a walk off or staredown. That's the first time I've seen a ticked off Ling - she's always so laid back and easy going.

It startled me to see how much the flash reflected off of The Diva's black fur. Boy, that's a big change from the shelter, isn't it?

Hide n Seek was this morning's game.
Lots of blurs too ROFL.. mommie thumbs and giggling doesn't make for clear shots 

Dolly explored the playhouse and was hiding stuff in the nest I made out of packing paper. (She has to be closely related to Scooter with the coloring, markings-rings on her tail and faint body stripes)

Over on eFoodAlerts there is an article (one in a series) on Melamine which referenced the melamine in dog treats...

http://efoodalert.blogspot.com/2008/12/getting-rid-of-melamine-not-just-chinas.html

http://efoodalert.blogspot.com/2008/12/getting-rid-of-melamine-what-consumers.html

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/rapidalert/reports/week49-2008_en.pdf

(in table on page 6)

03/12/2008 Germany 2008.1570
melamine (6.3 mg/kg - ppm) in fish cookies with cheese for dogs from China
border control - consignment released
distribution restricted to notifying country / product (to be) destroyed


There's no detail on that, and I'll search later to see if I can find any brand or origin.. or if anybody has the info already, it might help some with these treats and source. If it's the China imported &  branded to a company or what.....