using something along the lines of:
background:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhIwAhALMAAAAAADQ0NENDQ25ubouLi6ioqLa2ttPT0/Dw8P///wAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACwAAAAAIwAhAAAIpQABCBxIsCCAAAYTKlw4cECCAQwjMnSY4KHEiwQpVrSIUaLGjRw7Kvy4EYEAkSNBljyJ0iDJiiZbulQJk6XMhjQTxLyJk+ZOngBe6rTJU+jPojmTKqXZc6nTpAKFPp0qsMDUqyoHWsWKleBWrk8LfgV5AKjYnGXNakWrdi3NtG3HbjTQtmrOAnUByK2It+7eBH3j5iSQVy5cv3PzegWsuCDExmYDAgA7) no-repeat center center;}
is fine but I want to be able to provide graceful degradation (the css assertion is through javascript) when base64 is not available.
obviously, IE prior to v8 lacks this functionality so I could go by browser - but i d prefer to have it feature detected, if possible.
any ideas on how do go about doing it?