In regards to the previous comments, I hope this sheds some light on the situation. MYOPORUM THRIPS CONTROl The genus Myoporum (Myoporaceae), native to Australia and New Zealand, contains several popular ground cover and tree species that are widely planted in Southern California because of their aesthetic beauty, minimal management needs, low water requirement, and lack of pests. Because of its hardiness, Myoporum is also considered by some to be an invasive species threatening natural habitat areas in California. Since 2005, an exotic species of thrips new to the U.S. is causing great damage to landscape plantings and nursery stock of Myoporum in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. Currently two species of Myoporum are affected, M. laetum and M. 'Pacificum'. Live thrips and damage have not yet been observed on M. parvifolium, another common low growing Myoporum species. In general, little is known about this pest of Myoporum. The invasive thrips has only recently been described in the scientific literature from samples collected in California and sent to Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). It is a new genus, Klambothrips, and the new species name is Klambothrips myopori Mound and Morris (Mound and Morris 2007). It does not yet have a common name. Damage to Myoporum by this thrips is characterized by gall-like symptoms and distortion of new leaves. Terminal growth can be severely stunted and leaf curling or folding with thrips populations' within the folds is common. This characteristic is similar to Cuban laurel thrips, Gynaikothrips ficorum Marchal, on Ficus species in that reaching the populations within the folds with pesticides can be problematic. Klambothrips myopori was first observed in Southern California in Orange County in 2005. CDF A declared the thrips a "Q" rated pest and endeavored to eradicate the pest from landscape plantings using Merit (imidacloprid). However, time and funding lacked and resources were diverted to infestations of more serious invasive pests like Diaprepes. Therefore, landscape plantings of Myoporum became more heavily infested with thrips over time, and the aesthetic quality of the plantings waned. No further efforts to eradicate this pest were attempted by CDF A. In late 2006, we performed an efficacy trial using three products against the K. myopori in the hopes of identifying products that may be used in management of this pest. Methods Host Plant Site and Experimental Design: A landscape setting of Myoporum 'Pacificum� groundcover alongside a caddy shack at a golf course in Oceanside, CA was used for the trial. The 22 meter by 1.5 meter planting was separated into sixteen 1.2m2 plots to accommodate four treatments with four replicates. Since the treated area was linear, a completely randomized design was used to assign treatments to each plot, and a buffer area between blocks that may have received drift was not evaluated. The thrips infestation in this planting was moderate to heavy. Treatments and Application Method: Treatments included a control (untreated) and foliar applications of three selected pesticides: Avid (abamectin) @ 8floz/100 gal, Merit 21 (imidacloprid) @ 45ml/100 gal, and Conserve (spinosad) @ 200ml/100 gal. No surfactants were used in this trial. Treatments were applied twice (on September 30 and October 13, 2006) using a backpack sprayer with a flat fan nozzle at 25-35 psi. Sampling and Analysis: Thrips populations were assessed through samples consisting of six terminals (10cm) arbitrarily taken from the center of each plot. These were bagged and taken back to the laboratory for assessment of the number of live thrips/sample/plot. In the laboratory, the terminals were placed in 85% alcohol in a quart sized food container, allowed to sit for several minutes and then shaken to dislodge the thrips from the twisted foliage. The alcohol was then poured through fine mesh screening material, which was then placed under a stereomicroscope to count the number of thrips. A t-test for location was used to test treatment means against a fixed value (m�= control mean) on each sample date. Observations were made to identify any biological agents that may be affecting thrips populations. Biological agents identified were counted in the sampling procedure above. In addition to the number of thrips per sample, a rating of the damage caused by the thrips was assessed at selected dates. A damage scale from 0-10 was used to assess the level of damage per terminal on a random group of terminals in each plot, 0 = 0% of the leaves on the terminal growth were damaged and 10 = 100 % of the leaves were galled and damaged. A pointer was placed at random to six different positions within the block and a rating was given to the terminal that was touching the pointer. Data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U-test (�= 0.05); each treatment verses the control on each date. Results and Conclusions Spinosad (Conserve) significantly reduced the mean number of thrips compared to the control between Sept 13 and Oct 17 (Figure 1). Imidacloprid (Merit) significantly reduced the mean number of thrips compared to the untreated control between Sept 26 and Oct 11. Abamectin (Avid) did not reduce the mean number of thrips compared to the control on any date. The amount of damage observed on Myoporum declined over time in all treatments during the length of the trial. Statistically significant reductions in the number of damaged terminals were observed following the second treatment application on Sept 13 (Figure 2). Minute pirate bugs, Orius tristicolor (White), natural predators of thrips, were observed in almost every sample (Figure 3) indicating that predation was occurring by a native predator on this exotic pest. The mean number of Orius per sample date remained stable in the untreated control throughout the trial. In contrast, the mean number of Orius per sample date declined over time on treated foliage and no Orius were observed in imidacloprid treated foliage on the last two sample dates. The data indicate that two applications of imidacloprid or spinosad will reduce the number of thrips and significantly reduce the amount of damage to infested Myoporum. The Myoporum used in this trial were very heavily infested which may explain why abamectin (Avid) did not appear to reduce thrips numbers as much as the imidacloprid or spinosad. However, abamectin (Avid) did reduce the damage over time, which suggests that there was some effect on the thrips' population dynamics. For better success, a curative or preventative treatment of thrips products should be applied earlier in the population cycle, or earlier in the year when population levels are initially lower. All pesticide treatments appeared to have an effect on the number of minute pirate bugs observed in the samples. However, with the exception of the imidacloprid treated foliage, Orius were always present. The data suggest that imidacloprid has a detrimental effect on minute pirate bugs over time, taking them to extinction. It is not clear, however, whether the effect comes directly from treated foliage or feeding on treated foliage, or whether it comes indirectly from feeding on treated thrips. Further investigation is needed to answer that question. While we report that a great number of the predatory Orius tristicolor were observed feeding on K. myopori in our trials, a significant reduction of thrips numbers or damage to terminals was not observed (see untreated controls, Figures I & 2). The small reduction in damage to untreated plants observed over time indicates that there may be seasonal variation and some degree of recovery by infested plants. Control of K. myopori and reduction in damaged Myoporum will most likely involve the use of insecticides. However, other beneficials, resistant cultivars, and other IPM methods may be available in the future. More trials are planned using new and older chemistries in the near future on both landscape plantings and in the nursery. References Cited Mound, L. A. and D. C. Morris. 2007. A new thrips pest of Myoporum cultivars in California, in a new genus ofleaf-galling Australian Phlaeothripidae (Thysanoptera). Zootaxa. 1495: 35-45. Acknowledgments The authors thank Mr. Joe Neri and J.C. Resorts for providing the location for this trial at Arrowood G.C.

Is it only happening in Internet Explorer? It could be your video card settings or drivers. Likewise with your mouse. Have you changed your PCs background picture lately? Changed mouse pads? Does it happen when you use the arrow buttons on the keyboard? Are all your updates installed? Rebooted? Did a virus/spyware check? Look for any bmp files in C:\WINDOWS\Web\. Try deleting your saved passwords - Tools, Internet Options, Delete, Delete Passwords. As a last resort you can try doing a System Restore back to a point when it wasn't happening. If you have a Logitech mouse see the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Scrolling problems with Logitech mouse

Oh my gosh, Pal, how unbelievable that they would chew through that concrete! It makes me shudder just thinking about it. And those being rats, not mice. Thank goodness you knew what to do. Busy: Yellowjackets are scary, as they can be so aggressive. Oakley, I would have done the exact same thing! Mdln: that can is what we used. I bought it at Home Depot for $8.95, which is expensive. I was glad to get something engineered to work for rodents, though, so I wasn't' arguing the price that day (LOL). But, this stuff is injected into holes via a long, plastic tube. It hardens fairly quickly, which is good for the hole, but makes the tube unusable soon after. So, have a game plan before you start and fill everything quickly. Wet paper towels, a sturdy paper plate and a metal spatula to smooth out the foam worked best for us. I had to use Goof Off to get it off of the spatula, though. Tibbie: I'm kind of concerned, as I pick up our new furkid on Wednesday afternoon, which is just 2 days from now. I need to make sure nothing harmful such as mousetraps, etc. (we don't use poisons) are around for him to get into. P.S. I'll try to post pics of my new boy on Thursday.

CAN WE STOP THIS SILLY POST!?! I started it, can call it that, and now wanna end it. I DIDN'T torture the mouse but DAMN sure didn't want it in my house. Almost surprised I haven't been called a "bully" since I am sooooo much bigger than the poor defenseless mouse. Once it was OUT of my house, I didn't stand by trash can cackling with delight and listening for sounds of desperation. Once OUT of my house, about the LAST thing I would remote consider doing would be to get it out of trash and release it!?! I didn't put the mouse and my CAT in a box for a wire cage match. OOH, could made a video to post on YouTube!! It surely woulda gone viral and I would have been the center of attention! On a more reasonable note (imnsho), there has been NO more mouse activity since my crime against nature. NO sightings. NO nervous prowling by cat. NO DEAD mice in the SIX traps still around my house.