If someone whose audience is set to "public" posts on my wall, or comments on my status, is the public then able to see things on my wall even though my audience is set to "friends"?

In other words, if I post (which I wouldn't) "Leaving for vacation tomorrow" and "Susie", my FB friend whose audience is set to public, comments "Have a great time!", can the public (or Susie's friends who aren't MY friends) see my post and know that I'm going on vacation?

On that ticker thing, if I hover the cursor over a friend's comment, I can see status updates, photos, etc. on the walls of people who are NOT on my friend list. Is that because their audience is set to "public", or are posts that people think are limited to their friends being tickered to friends of friends, etc.?

They keep changing it so often, now too.
Hard to keep up with it, LOL

I'm not sure how/what others settings show.

Sometimes I log off and just google that friends name & facebook - to see what shows to the public vs when logged on.

That's about the most simple way to know for sure.

Hmm. And there are two "publics"...the non-Facebook public (googlers) and the Facebook members who are not my friends. Argh.

FB has become too complex for us. We rarely look there or participate.

They have made it impossible to use safely IMO.
The new thingey where that long list of pictures shows up when you log on...cannot block that at all! Blech!

If your page is set to private ie friends only then no-one else can read anything there, even if your friends post to it and have their settings more public.
There post/comment will be viewable on their activity, showing they posted to your wall, but anyone going to your wall cannot read more there
But
allowing Friends of friends is not private and allowing Everyone makes it totally public

Be sure to reset your privacy settings as the new changes reverted some things that were previously set private to public

That's one thing I do, every time they change something- recheck all my privacy settings there.