The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Zara Baxter:

Elizabeth VomMarlowe: Do you suppose the plants will bear tomatoes without stakes of any kind?

We were lazy and didn't stake our grape tomatoes. The plants grew upwards, then bent under their own weight and sprawled cheerfully across our lawn, laying out hundreds of quasi-roots from the stems, which fixed them firmly into the soil. They took over an area about 3 metres square, and grew so many tomatoes that I ran out of chutney jars. My freezer is full of bright yellow tomato sauce.

I'd say that's a probable yes.

7. At least once in every gardener’s year comes the moment when you discover where the Really Big Slugs are hiding this time around. This will never, ever be happy news.

We just had rain, after about three months without. And the giant slugs appeared, as if by magic.

My very first thought was "Uh oh. They've been hiding somewhere in my garden for the last three months."

I don't know where. They've retreated to it again, no doubt, now the rain has gone again.

...but I must find them!

It worked fine with Opera, and like gaukler, I couldn't answer the political question.

I had to add in a fair swathe of subscriptions, too, since I subscribe to a lot of non-US publications.

Would have been nice to have space for comments on the survey, or an email address for same.

From a non-US viewpoint...

The trouble with catching Osama is that he is a Symbol of the War Against Terrorism (caps intended). Catching Osama implies to the many in the populace not following the details that the war on terrorism should therefore be over, and leads to such fiddling little questions as:

If you have Osama in custody, why is there still terrorism happening in Iraq?
(and Jakarta, and..)

If you have Osama in custody, do we really need a "war president" any more?

If you have Osama in custody, then do we finally have closure on 9/11?

Far, far safer to have Osama be, like Sauron, the bad guy you never see, and can always invoke.

Unless it looks like you're going to lose the election, of course, then all bets are off. Disclaimer: I've been too busy focusing on elections in my section of the world to keep up with the polls, but it doesn't look like a predicted Kerry landslide, more's the pity.

Now that you mention it, Tina, I think *I* was a bit overboard in my comments about The Australia Stories. I don't think I commented about Todd's suggestions to writers: everyone else was doing a swell job on that.

In my own defence, I did retract or modify the comments I think went a bit far later in the same thread, after additional evidence came to light. I think The Australia Stories still has flaws, but not for the reasons I initially thought. I'd say the same or similar if I was reviewing or critiquing the work.

I think if I'd written my same two comments on my blog, they would have looked far less inflammatory than they did in the context of this massive thread.

That gives me a feeling not completely unlike having a really strong wind blow up my skirt.

So I feel a little exposed, but that's the risk of joining in large venues.

I was thinking: "woman being kidnapped while attacked by slug"...

I swear that helmet has two antennae!

Oh dear, there goes my saturday.

Pet peeve: rendering line drawings as .jpg -- can't people *see* those little glitches that appear?

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