Pollenatrix

Blog Find

There are a hell of a lot of blogs out there. I've just spent the last couple of hours surfing through garden-related blogs, and though you have to wade through a lot of unripe compost to find the good stuff, I did come across a few that are worth keeping track of. The name of the launch-pad for my evening exploration says it all: More Blogs Than You Have Time To Read.

That brings the number of blogs I check in on regularly up to 57. Fifty freaking seven!!! It would take me hours if I had to surf to each one of these sites every day to see if there's something new to read. But it doesn't. My secret? Well, not so secret, the early-adopter types latched on to it ages ago: RSS feeds and a news aggregator.

It sounds complicated, but it really isn't. Basically, you get something called a "news aggregator", which automatically scans the blogs you want to keep track of for new entries, and presents them to you all in one place. Sometimes it's just a synopsis of the new entry, sometimes it's the whole article, but there's always a link to it. Easy to scan, easy to read or ignore, without a whole lot of surfing.

The "news aggregator" is just a piece of software. Like your email, it can be something that resides on your computer -- for example, Microsoft Outlook. Here's an aggregator that you have to download and install -- it's good, but it costs money: NetNewsWire. Better yet is an aggregator that's online, like Hotmail, and free: Bloglines.

How do you tell the news aggregator thingy what sites to keep track of?? Well, the site has to have an RSS feed. Whoa, you say, what's an "RSS feed"? Scroll down the left column of this page, and below the list of photo albums you'll see a link called "Syndicate this site (XML)". Clicking on this starts to download a file, but we don't care about that; all you really need to know is the name of that file, which in my case is "http://offpollen.typepad.com/pollenatrix/index.rdf". That's my "RSS feed". Then you plunk this RSS feed address into the news aggregator (i.e. "subscribe"), and voila, it's now on the roster.

And you bloggers out there, who don't have an RSS feed on your sites.... ANNOYING!!! Imagine we're back in the 70's, and telephone answering machines have just been invented, and you don't have one yet. Hello!!! Go get one!! No one has the time to keep dialling your number until somebody picks up the phone...

By the way, here are a couple of my evening blog finds:

Horticultural, a personal blog written by an editor of the UK newspaper, The Guardian.

Garden + Living, nice pictures, good writing, but no rss feed... booo

And my all time favourite, Devil's Excrement. To quote the tag line, "In Spanish one word for orchid collector is quite fitting: "orquidiota" or "orchididiot" in English. I confess being one."

Boycott Esso

Exxon admits greenhouse gas increase

ExxonMobil ("Esso"), the world's biggest oil company, has been increasing its greenhouse gas emissions after supporting George Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty. The Texan oil firm, which is facing a consumer boycott in Europe over its stance on climate change, is now producing more than twice the CO2 pollution of a country such as Norway.

Bastards.

Not gone, not forgotten

The Sydney Morning Herald reports today: New Fern Could Fight Alzheimer's. Well, it's not exactly a new fern... the blue tassel fern (Huperzia dalhousieana) was last seen in the wild 26 years ago, and was thought to be extinct due to deforestation of its habitat in Australia.

Holly Field, who also has a degree in botany, said her husband (researcher Ashley Field) fell over when he saw the fern, overwhelmed that his long search for it had finally paid off.

"It would be a bit like seeing a dodo or something else that you thought was extinct, and there it is," she said.

More creatures...

And to continue on the theme of bizarre critter stories, check out this lump of weirdness that washed up on a beach in New Zealand:
Monster washes up near Farewell Spit

(click on picture for a larger version)

Bullwinkle Takes Flight

My uncles and grandfather were moose hunters in New Brunswick, and I grew up hearing stories of the bizarre agressive antics of bull moose in full rut. I've heard about a moose treeing my grandfather for a full day; moose charging moving locomotives head on, as well as cars on the highway; moose wandering into downtown Saint John, mistaking the foghorn for the calls of a lovesick female. But I've NEVER heard of anything like this!

Yes, that's a bull moose, hanging 50 feet up in some electrical cables. Workers were five miles away, using hydraulics to string up power lines, when the moose came across the swaying cables and decided to pick a fight. The line construction manager for City Electric in Anchorage explains:

Crews can lay up to five miles of line at a time before tightening it with a giant hydraulic winch, said Pickens. It's similar to stringing fishing line through the eyes of a fishing pole, he said. The line is pulled through leaders on the crossties at the top of the power poles and then winched tight with as much as 5,000 pounds of pressure, he said.

"As you're pulling, it constantly droops up and down," said Pickens. "My guess is that he was right in the middle of one of the sections when it got pulled up."

It's not uncommon for bull moose to challenge inanimate objects to a battle during the rut when testosterone has taken over. Most Alaskans have seen pictures of bull moose with swing sets, tire swings, lawn chairs and Christmas lights tangled in their antlers at this time of year....

"We've had them running down the main streets of Delta with shirts and pants hanging from their antlers after they get caught up in clotheslines"

 

Bullwinkle was lowered to the ground, but sadly, there's no happy ending to this one. He was unable to get himself untangled, and was so traumatized that there was little chance he'd survive a tranquilizer dart. His carcass is now gracing the freezer and plate of some local needy family, though everyone's wondering what happened to the trophy sized rack of antlers.

Read the full story here...

How far would YOU go to save the world?

Hmmm, there's a theme emerging here... this morning's favourite news item comes from The Grist Magazine ("Hard-hitting news, thought-provoking features, and inspiring profiles"). It talks about a randy young Swedish couple who are "going all the way" to raise money to save the planet through their paid-subscription Website, (cover your eyes, Granny, this ain't a work-friendly link) "Fuck for Forest":

Since this past winter, when Johansson and Ellingsen started the site (with seed money from the Norwegian government), Fuck for Forest has gained considerable notoriety in the European environmental community. In July, the group won both friends and enemies around the world after making a special appearance at Quart, an outdoor music festival in Kristiansand, Norway.

The couple climbed onstage during the performance of a band called (what else?) the Cumshots. "How far are you willing to go to save the world?" said Ellingsen, who then proceeded to go all the way for about 10 minutes in front of an audience of several thousand.

 

Naturally, this wildly successful publicity stunt sent the mainstream environmental groups scurrying to distance themselves from the pair (though, perhaps, not their money). However, one supporter makes this interesting point:

"We live in a world where public sex is considered far more controversial than wholesale ecological destruction."

Their Website bares (among other things) several grievances over the reaction to their stunt, including a complaint that they were thrown off the premises of the music festival on the last day by organizers who feared a repeat performance. I quote:

"We had done our Quart sex stunt; does the Quart festival believe that we need to fuck all the time?? Sometimes we just want to watch a nice concert and eat a waffle."

Ahhh. This made my day.

Sex Sells

Yes, when it comes to getting a message across, nothing beats sex. Even the environmentalists are harnessing the power of scantily clothed women "to transform the way paper is made and used in the U.S.".

Check out: Victoria's Dirty Secret

White Squirrel Wars

This postcard arrived the other day, proudly proclaiming Exeter, Ontario, to be the home of "The Lucky White Squirrel". I thought it was a joke; I've never heard of a white squirrel, let alone seen one. It took a couple of email exchanges with my buddy, and a little Google research, to convince me that she wasn't pulling my leg.

There really ARE white squirrels, and better yet, squirrel WARS are fought over which town has the most right to lay claim to them. How did I miss this?

Exeter is a small Ontario town waging a single-handed campaign against several towns south of the border, all Yankee pretenders. Its Website, www.whitesquirrels.ca, loudly proclaims its local rodent population to be "All Squirrel, All White, All Canadian". Roadside America, on the other hand, ("Your Online Guide to Offbeat Attractions) complains, "The town of Exeter, Ontario appears bent on total White Squirrel Supremacy".

Exeter's site demurely resists accusations of nefarious intent: "The goal of this web site is not to make a million dollars but help others cherish these White Wonders."

And maybe help Stedmans V&S department store unload the town's "largest collection of white squirrel souvenirs". Just a thought.

Roadside America? Roadkill America, more like it.

Yikes

"Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez."

Source: True Facts

Missing that Blaze of Glory

Friends here just returned from Canada, a marathon road trip from Ontario to the east coast in just five days -- through the land of fall colours. It's mid-October, and the trees are at the height of their glory in eastern Canada, and I have to admit -- I miss being there to see it. My friends very thoughtfully brought me home a handful of crimson maple leaves, which I promptly arranged in a quirky display around a tin of maple syrup at the centre of the dining room table.

The landscape here, both natural and human, is gloriously beautiful in many respects, but there really doesn't seem to be much in the way of fall colour. Yesterday, I noticed to my surprise that the trees along the boulevard on my street are maple trees. Leaves are starting to fall, but they're not red, or yellow, or orange... the leaves sort of turn brown and fall off, as though they just got tired and gave up. Why is that, I wondered? What's the difference?

This article in today's Toronto Star ("The Hues, The Hows, and The Whys") helps explain the phenomenon, though scientists admit that there hasn't been much research into the subject. Bavaria's fall weather -- grey skies and relatively mild temperatures -- seems to be the culprit.

"ALGONQUIN PARK—First clue. On one side of the road through Algonquin Park the maples glow red. On the other, they're on fire. The blazing side is the north, which gets more rays from a southward-creeping sun.

Second clue. Algonquin, one of the first spots in the province for the yearly transformation of fall foliage, is an elevated region often hit by the earliest cold snaps.

Third clue. Peel apart any two fallen red maple leaves that are stuck together. If one leaf shows green where it was attached, then the other shielded it from the sun.

The picture is Lake Massawipi in the Eastern Townships ("l'Estrie") in Quebec, near the place I spent my summers as a child.