sweasel.com

Is sweasel.com acting funky today, or is it my ISP? I think it’s this site…but a lot of other sites seem to be hanging up on me, too.

Interesting article by Steyn in MacLean’s about the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission. Check out this quote from their website:

“The denial of racism used by so many whites in positions of authority ranging from the supervisor in a work place to the chief of Police and ministers of government must be understood for what it is: an example of White hegemonic power over those considered ‘other.’ “

Got that? It’s racist to deny you’re a racist. These people are nuttier than squirrel shit, aren’t they?

Anyhow, I didn’t realize that Germany had hate speech laws prior to Hitler’s rise to power.

“Remarkably, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the Canadian anti-hate law. Moreover, those laws were enforced with some vigour. During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech. And, in the opinion of the leading Jewish organization of that era, no more than 10 per cent of the cases were mishandled by the authorities. As subsequent history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it.”

sweasel.com seems to be working fine for me.

You’ve almost got that right. It’s racist for a white person to deny that he or she is racist. It’s not the denial that’s causing the trouble. It’s the denier’s skin color.

::blink, blink::

OMG hax! And I just discovered that if you hold your mouse over the sweasel in the header, it runses! How is it I never noticed before?

Heh. It’s only about a week old, is why. Actually, you have to click it once to start it, after which you just mouseover. That’s a pity, because I was going to make all my sidebar art animate when you moused over, but I can’t figure out how to make it do that without the click first. I’m going to have to find me a Flash expert and ax him.

This is funny. Cracked asked a cartoonist to draw 200 cartoons in 12 hours.

Bloggers and blog surfers are twitchy, unpredictable, explorer-by-nature people, so it’s perfectly all right to not have noticed the cute little whatever-weasels-are-familywise before. We are certainly squirrely.

I have been hearing stuff like this recently, Gabriel. On NPR and through other caterers to the self-loathing crowd (hereinafter forevermore referred to as the SLC™). I’m posting an inital link to it on my blog and will add more at the day goes on. Don’t want to clog Weas’ filters.

Oh yeah, Hi Weas!

I don’t have to click before it moves. I mean, I’m pretty sure I haven’t clicked on your header. It only moves in individual posts, but not on the main page.

Firefox/2.0.0.14 Windows Vista

Mustelids. Mustelidae.

As are badgers, wolverines, fisher cats, minks, otters and polecats. Skunks used to be, too, but they have their own family now. Must be the stench.

Yeah, it’s supposed to be in the comments but not the main page. Interesting that you don’t have to click it. I do under both Opera and IE. I don’t if I load the flash file directly.

Hmmm.

Hey cool. My IQ just jumped several points. Not saying much when you keep company with Boston Ferns.

Had a girlfriend once who owned a ferret who was a fragrant chap. The guy liked to bite down on the big toe (territorial?). It wouldn’t have worked out, anyway.

To reciprocate, Lemurs are Lemuridae. Shocking, I’m sure. Sounds kind of nasty, doesn’t it? Excuse me, but your lemuridae is showing…

And yes, it shows on the home page and will not refresh the page on a click like most banners do. Odd. I still say “keep it”.

My God, I first thought that said “Is that a horny badger?” Frightening.

Huh. If I open up IE, the banner doesn’t appear in individual posts at all. It’s just a blank gray box. Maybe I’m missing a plugin?

Hm. It works almost as well with “horney” (it’s from the Cracked link, btw).

Yeah, I didn’t put it on the home page because I like to refresh by clicking the banner. And I couldn’t make the comment one go home with a click, because you have to make it click to make it move. That’s how I usually navigate, so it gets on my nerves a bit, but I’ll leave it up for now.

I’ve always wanted a ferret. But they do smell and apparently you have to keep them in pairs and I don’t think the pussoes would like it. Also, I hear they have a sock fetish, so I don’t think Uncle B would like it, either.

You may be missing a plugin, or it may be a firewall thing. I get that at work because our filters are set up not to allow Flash controls on a web page to load.

Wait. No. I’m lying. It won’t load with IE for me, either — I just tried.

How odd.

Well, I’ll give them this – they are gosh-darn cute, but the “Let’s hold the recreation of the 1984 Olympics in your shirt” thing gets old and the scratches are horrendous.

All right, nobody in their right mind would ask me about Flash animations~but I stumbled across an article linked by w3c when I went to validate http://ew1.ingram.bz as XHTML using their validator.

Seems the standard method of embedding a Flash object isn’t “correct,” and the article talked about how to get it to do what you want it to do.

Me, since I could give a rat’s patootie as long as the screen turns green when I hit the validation link, I quit explorin’ Flash as soon as I got there. The construct that I ended up with looks like:

<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”link to flash animation” width=”x” height=”y“></object>

There are other attributes that can be added, and the “</object>” construct seems to work where “… />” does not.

Note that its actually a much simpler construct than you normally see embedding Flash stuff, because some of the attributes are all folded into the “data” attribute.

Lemme see if I can break my web page and find the article again.

And the only reason I’ve posted this much Flash crap is because its a measure of my jealousy over Uncle B’s greenhouse.

Oh, and IE has an oddity about correctly formed XHTML that it won’t play until the animation is completely loaded.

(And most version of Linux Opera won’t work with Flash because they don’t have a GTK main event loop.)

And yes, I am avoiding the dishes.

It’s funny…now that you mention it, I remember that article, too. I had an animation that wouldn’t animate. I remember I never did get it to work reliably with all browsers.

Greenhouse pr0n:

Woops! That was me from IE, which doesn’t know it’s me. Here’s the pr0n:

Found it!

FLASH SATAY!

Wow, that is a NICE greenhouse! Do windows open out, too?

That’s it! I’m burning my laptop and never coming back!

(And very nice greenhouse pr0n. Is it available on this side of the pond?)

(I may be well percolated, but now I am literally squeaking with envy.)

I am literally squeaking with envy.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when you pop.

I just had Uncle B on Skype. He’s been washing gravel and spreading it on the floor of the greenhouse for three hours so he’s crawling off for a nap. He says, yes, they do sell Hartley Botanic greenhouses in the States, but they’re very expensive.

I don’t think the windows open, LK, but it’s got vents in the top that open automatically when the temperature exceeds a certain level.

Now, I’m going to read that article and try fiddling with the code…

LemurKing:

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when you pop.

Well, my wife got the really pretty hummingbird feeder and all I got was the packing slip.

So, I figure she owes me.

Weasel, checking something:

He says, yes, they do sell Hartley Botanic greenhouses in the States, but they’re very expensive.

I believe it. Expensive, that is. Looks rather the Cadillac of greenhouses, that.

Geez, people, you look at all the gold leaf, encrusted with gems, and platinum door handles and you leap to conclusions and call it a Cadillac?

Really, I covet that greenhouse. Think how well my habaneros and basil would grow in that.

WHOA! Now that’s a greenhouse!

I’ll be in my bunk!

*later*

I tell you, I go out into Meat Space for a few hours to buy a pellet gun for the plethora of runnybabbits around here (the Badger Disease) (my Ruger .22 is in Texas, and I wouldn’t dare shoot it in suburbia anyway)) and not only does Weas-El put up a neat, clean Weekend Weasel post, and kickass Garden Pron, but the post immediately gets filled with dozens of comments.

Now I’ll never catch up.

Double-Whoa!

I just noticed the door: its on slide-rails! Ah-ha! My engineering mind (retired) just figgered it out! Door slides COMPLETELY out of the way so happy gardener with armful of gardeny goodness doesn’t get fucked with by primitive hinged door! And it appears to be a WIDE door, too.

Yes?

God bless neurons! I wish I had another one. Then I’d have two…

Someone put some sweat into the brick footing for the walls, too. Is that Badgerworke? Industrious critter. It looks seriously straight and level. Hard thing to do…

Think how well my habaneros and basil would grow in that.

And my prostrate rosemary from Cottage Grove could winter over…

That is real nice badger lodgings there.

Great column by Steyn too. I will have to have my daughter read that. It will be a nice supplement to ‘1984’ she is reading in English class.

EW1 … Go Grovers!

Any plant that looks good and can be consumed is A-OK in my book.

Michigan poison ivy… not good eats.

Sorry about using The Weasel as a spirit medium there. I only managed 3 ½ hours sleep last night and after the work in the garden and food…. I fell over 🙂

Well spotted McGoo, by the way – it is a wide door. I was able to back a full size wheelbarrow through it today, with multiple loads of gravel.

The story goes like this. Yea these many years, the badger has yearned for a greenhouse. I nearly bought one when I moved into my last place but I ran out of money. Good thing too, as I ended-up away from home so often it would have been wasted. So, when we found Badger House, I decided to earmark some cash to buy the best greenhouse I could get and damn the expense. I’m not moving again, so I’ll only buy one and I reckoned that if I’d opted for a cheaper type I’d always have felt that slight, nagging regret that I hadn’t got the best.

Hartley Botanic greenhouses have this idiosyncratic shape (some people think they look like Nissen (Quonset) huts) but that shape has all sorts of engineering advantages as well as several horticultural ones.

It’s beautifully made – the door slides like greased silk and you can have any number of the top vents openable, plus louvre windows beneath. I chose four top vents, three of which are automatic (a neat trick based on springs and expanding/contracting materials in a piston – no electricity required).

Was it worth the money? There’s a lot of snobbery in gardening and a lot of arty people who like to pose with a pair of secateurs and a glass of Pimms, but wouldn’t know an anemone from an artichoke. Hartley does cater to this crowd to an extent. Their catalogue is a thick, full colour book, with lots of misty pictures of improbably young middle class women swanning around pretending to be Vita Sackville-West.

Then again, they are also serious engineers. They make for Kew Gardens and produce gigantic glasshouses to special order (they built the new Edinburgh Botanic gardens one, for example).

So far so good, anyway. The first plants have moved in and I intend to follow suit, as soon as the power is connected, on Monday.

Meanwhile, A Murder Has Been Arranged. The runnybabbits have been running riot. This morning I found the little thugs had eaten all the new shoots on my raspberry canes. I’m still waiting for the netting to arrive for the fruit cage and the little psychos had just nipped in there overnight and wolfed the lot.

Cursed with the only squeamish stoat on the planet, I’ve had to arrange for some of her relatives to visit – the local ferret mob. They will … ‘deal with the problem’, I have been assured.

I’ll be taking photos. Expect lots of red. Private request, only, I’m afraid. I suspect Her Ladyship won’t want rabbit entrails all over her site. Calls itself a mustelid!

Hell, Badger, you can post ’em at my place! I’ll make a special page for ’em. We can call it The Ferret Feeding Frenzy Page.

I snuck a peek at the Hartley site. Ouch! ‘Spensive. But apparently really, really well designed.

And you’re right about justifying the greenhouse: You and I both know that we are … ahem … a bit closer to the end than the beginning, so-to-speak, and can’t afford to make many mistakes that will reduce our immediate pleasure in our life and our surroundings! We can’t count on many do-overs anymore either; they waste time. That’s my attitude, anyway. Hope that’s not offensive.

No offence at all, McGoo – you’re absolutely right! I decided a few years ago that I simply wasn’t going to piss around with rubbish any longer. If it’s a big deal to me (cameras, computers, greenhouse, that kind of thing) I’ll buy fewer, better ones and enjoy the hell out of them.

I think it’s called being growed-up. Or old. Old will do, too.

Yep. Time is too precious to piss around – especially on the important stuff. I found too many times that when I cheaped out on something important, I got what I paid for.

Having (developing, really) a measure of patience helps, too. It took me a looong time. I’m a big proponent of instant gratification. Heh. I’m just willing to wait longer for it now.

Congrats on the greenhouse. I hope it serves you long and well.

Uncle B.:

Or old. Old will do, too.

Now, if I could just convince my younger, trophy wife that I’m entitled to act old when I feel like it, I could almost enjoy it.

If I could just convince Uncle B I’m a trophy wife.

Huh. My life might be a lot easier if I could convince my trophy wife that she is.

Ha! What kind of competition do you have to enter to get a trophy weasel?

Ha! Lizard Brain has managed to sing the blues and break all the rules.

Smartass.

Uncle B.:

Ha! What kind of competition do you have to enter to get a trophy weasel?

That is going to take some pondering, that is.

But I highly suggest that the word “slut” isn’t used anywhere in the vicinity…no matter what you mean by it.

My god, that is mighty poetry, Weas-El!

Good spot, m’lady…

I’m just disappointed nobody’s inquired about the demise of Uncle Badger’s Giant Banana.

It was a truly impressive specimen, cut down in the prime of life.

We said we wouldn’t talk about that!

I thought maybe it was a term of endearment, or sumpin. Delicacy *ahem* forbade any further inquiries.

*ducks shoulders and slinks off*

*then comes back*

Where is the photograph of this supposed Mighty Musaceae? And how do you know its dead? Was there an autopsy? Was it natural causes, misadventure, or foul play? I’d question the presence of any non-air-rifled rats or runnybabbits at the scene.

No, wait. A memory just surfaced. Wasn’t Badger growing a banananana plant? Or was that a dream?

Not to deflect from the banana demise thread but – notice the slashes in my current Nom-De-Idiot in this post and the previous two? I did not put them there.

Is there a Java-Foo or HTML spell at work here?

See – they’re multiplying. I may be in trouble here.

Comedian Stan Stankos: “My biggest mistake was that I married a trophy-wife…you know, last place.”

I suppose I’d better come clean (so to speak).

Several years ago I spotted a tray of baby banana plants at a supermarket checkout. They were little finger size.

I bought one, almost as a joke and, as horticultural jokes tend to, it had the last laugh, winding-up as a five foot tall plant with a fragile main stem, that we had, somehow, to move down to Badger House from London, without breaking.

We managed it. It was fine.

A few weeks ago, I moved it out of the morning room (where it had taken up residence and was, I gather, building a nice little crack-dealing business for itself), put it on the patio for five minutes while I moved some stuff around in the room… during which hiatus the breeze struck.

Mercifully, bananas throw up new shoots from the bottom and I have two new ones growing from the stump.

But the really impressive trunk lies on the pyre – part of my next bonfire.

I’d sacrifice a virgin but we don’t have any around here, I’m told.

WordPress hates punctuation marks in usernames, McGoo. Every time you post with an apostrophe in, you’ll get another slash. Which isn’t nearly as happy as an angel getting its wings but is, as far as I can tell, completely harmless.

Two new banana shoots, B? Oh fuck. I mean, oh swell. I just love the way your horticultural fecundity eats whole rooms.

Main Entry: fe·cund
Pronunciation: ˈfe-kənd, ˈfē-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin fecundus — more at feminine
Date: 15th century
1 : fruitful in offspring or vegetation : prolific
2 : intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree

That’s not what I thought it meant.

I worked in a greenhouse many years ago. It was a large, industrial thing, 3 huge greenhouses connected. We had an automated venting system, but ours used thermostats and motors. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use it, because the little cranks along its hundred-foot length didn’t raise the vent at the same rate, resulting in spectacular breakage. As the junior (and least decrepit) employee, it was my job to crawl around the outside of a structure made of glass, in the middle of Maine winter, to perform repairs. I used the manual openers whenever possible.

While it was a commercial-level greenhouse run by a municipality, there was an oasis of tropical plants donated by a benefactor (who has, in a strange twist of fate, become my current landlord), where I liked to spend my lunch breaks, listening to the artificial waterfall while sitting under the…

dunh, dunh, DUNNNH!

Giant Banana.

That is a My-T-Fine greenhouse, Uncle B. I’m jealous.

And thanx for the link, Stoaty.

Hm. Long, pointless, rambling anecdote.

I have become my grandfather.

Good grief, Lizardbrain! Did it fruit?

BTW, great blues. I guess the solo has to be played on a custom PRS? 😉

Yuppie blooze on a yuppie gittar.

Yeah, it did fruit. And then we cut it down, because they’ll only fruit once. The other shoots grew up, but never had a chance to fruit before the city contracted out its flower-growing and razed the greenhouses.

Even though I used to work in a music store many more years ago, I don’t know nothin’ about PRS guitars, even after clustying it. All I gotz a couple of saxophones. One o’ those’ll have to do for now.

Thanks, Weas-El. (Y’know my superman name for ya is gramatically wrong, dontcha?)

I was afraid my PC was sticking those slashmarks in.

Yep. Fecund=fertile, etc. What you said, Pup. I first ran in to that word about 30 years ago in the novel “Whistle”, which is all about WW2 and soldiers learning to go down on women. Is that TMI?

I thought I remembered that Badger was growing a banana tree.

Badger – will the banana sprouts do better in the greenhouse?

* Damn. That typed nicely. The greenhouse. I may need one just for bragging rights. Harrumph!*

Weird. Somebody seems to have read my “Weasel’s a gurl!” post over on my blog, then out-clicked on the link to AHSA.

Oh well. No accounting for some tasteses.

Hey, Weasel! Did that article about Flash help any? Didja get the Running Weasel to work like you wanted? Can I learn anyting neat by just buggin’ ya?

And then we cut it down, because they’ll only fruit once.

My education continues at Weasels! I didn’t know that. Is that true of all ‘nanner-trees, or just those?

The U of W. University of Weasel. I’m getting a Bachelor of Stoat degree – a BS, as it were.

Nanners aren’t actually trees. They’re more closely related to grasses, although they aren’t quite that, either.

Here’s a good link with a quick rundown of banana history and culture:

The Palm Shop

And I had to break this comment in two, so it wouldn’t have to wait until Lady S. awakes to be rescued from the clutches of Akismet.

Here’s another link with a more detailed description:

UGA/banana

Class is adjourned until I get enough caffeine into my brain to make sense.

Nice greenhouse. It is rather Nissen Huttish (I know first hand what they look like; there’s one still intact where I walk the hound). Hey, if they were good enough for the Allies, then they’re good enough to base a greenhouse design off.
What do you plan to grow in there? What’s the gravel for? To protect the foundation?
I’ve had some Musa×paradisiaca (Fwench Plantain) seeds on my propagator for several months now, but so far they must be still dormant or non-viable or something because they haven’t sprouted.

I have a feeling that will solve the problem, EW1(SG). Or at least make it more accessible. I mean, there are whole websites that are built of nothing but Flash elements, and they’re surely visible with IE. But I started reading it and…had to crawl off for a nap.

Sometimes, code goes in my eyeballs and turns immediately into “blah blah blah blah.”

That doesn’t look so bad. I know practically nothing about Musaceae, but there’re still a lot of leaves on that bad boy, which – if bananas are anything like other plants – means nodes for fresh shoots to develop from.
How long did it take to grow it to that size (i.e. a couple of inches to several feet)? Which supermarket was it from? It wasn’t the one where that fat-tongued wanker – whose name I’ve temporarily forgotten; Jamie something or other – hangs around at, and solicits people to buy certain ingredients before following them home, cooking said ingredients for them and uttering cretinous phrases like ‘Gor, look at that!’ and ‘Larverly jabbley!’ and ‘Pukka!’
Oh, and hey look! A compost bin. Farout.

Hey, if anyone wants to help us bash a bunch of 9/11 truthers, including the douchebag German Talis who beat up a girl in a wheelchair last week, they are trying to defend themselves over at rightpundits. Thier drivel is quite paranoid and hilarious. Here is a link to the thread, http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=1390

Oooeeee…that’s some pure crazy, right there.

I think the banana suffered shock, Gibby – those leaves you see in the picture started withering petty badly within a day or so but, yes, you’re right, it’s trying to make a comeback.

Believe it or not, I bought the infant from Homebase. As to when… maybe six or seven years ago? For all that time it was in a South facing room, unheated in winter and only fed and watered when I was back to do it (which sometimes meant three week intervals, even at the height of Summer.

Think of it as an experiment in plant torture.

And what will I be growing? Not sure yet, but strawberries and tomatoes, for sure, and I’m starting a pineapple today. Then there will be my forest of cacti… umm… a few million cuttings and a few dozen seed trays, maybe some spuds for the Xmas feast.

Excuse me. I think I’d better go and order another one 😉

That is a very attractive garden bench/nook area shown in the ‘nanner plant photos. Is it the Badger Country Estate, or the in-town place?

I am soooo jealous. Been wanting a greenhouse for years. But since this isn’t likely to be my terminal abode, can’t bother with it.

Very very nice greenhouse. Wowza.

Thank you for answering that question, Weas.

I’m unusually clueless at times, which is probably hard for y’all to believe. I had no idea how to tactfully ask what Badger’s giant banana was or how it got broken. (the mind conjures all manner of comical ideas)

So we’ve now established that it is indeed a plant (whew, the alternatives were awful – like on the Drew Carey Show).

Sorry about your banana Badger. That sucks. Keep us posted on the patient’s prognosis.

It’s Badger House, McGoo. The bench came with the property. Along with the rabbits!

Thanks for the kind words, lauraw.

Poor Weasel, she’s fallen among gardeners 😉

That patio is actually kind of crap, McGoo. We’ll probably have it dug up at some point. The brick around it isn’t bad, but the surface is that fake cast stone tile stuff and the position is a little awkward.

The main house, including the kitchen, is old. But there’s an extension out the back that was built in the ’70s (before the house went on the List and became sacred). They did a nice job, to be fair — we didn’t know which exactly parts were new until the old coots told us — but there isn’t an equal sacredness to all parts of Badger House.

Except for the greenhouse! Now that is sacred territory!

No weasels allowed in there, I can tell you! 😉

I would have guessed the opposite Weasel. The large tile-like slabs look even and very well constructed, while the bricks in the background look a bit rough. I’ll take that bench if you’re throwing it away! 🙂

Ya gotta figure things are gonna wiggle around for a while after you two get settled in (soon!). You are gonna have soooo much fun, Weaz & Badger. It is your destiny.

You are gonna have soooo much fun, Weaz & Badger. It is your destiny.

Three times I read that, and each time it came out

It is your density.

EW – you may be percolated and not know it.

Badger/Bananaphone!!

Beautiful greenhouse.

Thank you for nice information