Oh dear...

Checked Weatherunderground - There appears to be a rather large cyclone headed for the middle of Australia. (this may take a while to download if you've not got a high speed connection.)

Horse Mess

Karen Schnaubelt Turner Dick posted this on Facebook - dunno the details but Karen's pretty trustworthy.

Upping the bandwidth for my "horse people" friends: 52 thoroughbred horses need homes. Will go this Saturday for slaughter. Gentleman died and his son wants nothing to do with them. Most broodmares are broke and some are in foal weanling, yearlings, 2 yrs and 3 yrs old most are gelded. FREE and papered. Friend of the deceased is trying to find homes 440-463-4288 or 440-4...63-4288 Barnesville, OH.

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Update: Apparently the anonymous poster was correct - everything is fine; someone just panicked. Sigh... If you have an emergency message to pass to the Internet, also have an update site for people to check: use something like live journal or Face Book so people can be sure it's not a physhing site or something. And when you find someone repeating an urban legend/mistaken report, explain politely, and non-anonymously for maximum credibility.