function parseXML(str) {
  var xmlDoc;
  str = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><x xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">' + str + '</x>';
  // chrome, opera, mozilla, safari
  try {
    xmlDoc = (new  DOMParser()).parseFromString(str, 'text/xml')
  } catch (e) {
    try {
      xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLDOM'); xmlDoc.async = 'false'; xmlDoc.loadXML(str);
    } catch (e) { 
      xmlDoc = false;
    }
  }
  debug('document.adoptNode: ' + document.adoptNode + '\ndocument.importNode = ' + document.importNode);
  xmlDoc = (document.adoptNode 
           ? document.adoptNode(xmlDoc.documentElement)
           : (document.importNode 
             ? document.importNode(xmlDoc.documentElement, true)
             : xmlDoc.documentElement
             )
           );
  return xmlDoc;
}