Month: April 2005

Descriptions of Allowed HTML
• A – Anchor, Hyperlink
• B – Bold Text
• BLOCKQUOTE – Long Quotation
• BR – Line Break
• CITE – Citations
• CODE – Program Code
• DD – Definition Data
• DIV – Document Division
• DL – Definition List
• DT – Definition Term
• EM – Emphasized Text
• I – Italicized Text
• IMG – Inline Image
• LI – List Item
• NAME – Name Element
• OL – Ordered (Numbered) List
• P – Normal Paragraph
• STRONG – Strong Emphasis
• STYLE – Style Element
• CLASS – Class Element
• TT – Teletype (Monospaced) Text
• UL – Unnumbered List

DIV – Document Division

<DIV [STYLE=”Style”] [CLASS=”Class”] [ALIGN=”Alignment”]>
Document Section
</DIV>

Specifies a document division. The most often used type of DIV is a ‘blockquote’.

Type:

Result:

Also see: DIV STYLE

A – Anchor, Hyperlink

<A HREF=”Target” [NAME=”Name”]>Anchor Text</A>

An Anchor, which is often reffered to as a ‘link’ or ‘hyperlink’ defines a word or other
construct in the document which acts a link to a resource (e.g. another HTML
file, or an image file, or an audio file), or another location in the current document.

Type:

Result:

Also see: A NAME

DL – Definition List

<DL>
<DT>Term 1<DD>Definition 1
<DT>Term 2<DD>Definition 2
…
</DL>

Presents a list of terms, and corresponding definitions for those terms. Note that while HTML 3.2 defines
the attribute element ‘COMPACT’, this element is deprecated in HTML 4.0. The element ‘COMPACT’ is not supported
by Scoop.

Type:

Result:

IMG – Inline Image

<IMG SRC=”URL” [ALT=”String”]
[HEIGHT=”Integer Height”] [WIDTH=”Integer Width”]
[ALIGN=”TOP | MIDDLE | BOTTOM | LEFT | RIGHT”] [BORDER=”Integer Border Width”]
[HSPACE=”Integer Horizontal Margin”] [VSPACE=”Integer Vertical Margin”]>

Includes an inline image into the document. Note that the only value which is mandatory is ‘SRC’.
However and ‘ALT’ element is strongly recommended. Height and Width values are also recommended as
including these values will result in a page which will display faster. By default, the positioning
of the image, i.e. ‘ALIGN’, is set to the bottom relative to the current text line. A value for ‘ALIGN’ is
not required. ‘BORDER’, ‘HSPACE’, and ‘VSPACE’ values all
are zero by default. If a border, horizontal space, or vertical space is not required, there is no need
to define these elements.

Type:

Result:

TT – Teletype (Monospaced) Text

<TT>Monospaced Text</TT>

Display text in a monospaced font. The font used is typically that font which is selected as the
default monospaced font in your browser preferences.

Type:

Result:

OL – Ordered (Numbered) List

<OL>
<LI> List Item 1
<LI> List Item 2
…
</OL>

Display information in the form of an ordered (numbered) list.

Type:

Result:

CITE – Citations

<CITE>Citation Text</CITE>

Display a citation or reference to other sources, such as a book title.
Typically a cite is displayed in italics, though some browsers may display cites differently.
For instance, some browsers use underlining or quotes around the citation.

Type:

Result:

CODE – Program Code

<CODE>Program Code Text</CODE>

Display program code. Typically a browser will display all text between ‘CODE’ tags
in a monospaced font. In this way a ‘CODE’ tag behaves much like a ‘TT’ tag.

Type:

Result:

I – Italicized Text

<I>Italicized Text</I>

Display text in italics.

Type:

Result:

UL – Unnumbered List

<UL>
<LI> List Item 1
<LI> List Item 2
…
</UL>

Display information in a list form (without numbering the items). Note that while HTML 3.2 defines
the elements ‘TYPE’, and ‘COMPACT’, these elements are deprecated in HTML 4.0, and are not
not supported by Scoop. All items will default to TYPE=”Circle”.

Type:

Result:

EM – Emphasized Text

<EM>Emphasized Text</EM>

Display emphasized text. The definition of what emphasis means may vary among browsers and browser platforms.

Type:

Result:

BR – Line Break

<BR>

Forces a line break (but not paragraph break) within a given block of text.

Type:

Result:

STRONG – Strong Emphasis

<STRONG>Strong Text</STRONG>

Displays strongly emphasized text. The definition of what strongly emphasized means may vary among browsers and browser platforms.

Type:

Result:

BLOCKQUOTE – Long Quotation

<BLOCKQUOTE>
Blockquote Text
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Displays a long, often copyrighted, quotation to be rendered as a block of its own
(in contrast to shorter quotations embedded into text paragraphs).

Type:

Result:

P – Normal Paragraph

<P>Paragraph Text</P>

Displays a normal paragraph. Note that the close paragraph tag e.g. </P>, will insert a line
feed into the document

Type:

Result:

B – Bold Text

<B>Bold Text</B>

Display bold text. Bold version of the current font face is used.

Type:

Result:

NAME – A Name Element

NAME=”Name”

Although the Anchor tag is normally used to link to a target which corresponds to another document,
the Anchor tag may also be used to link to a specified point in the same document. For long
Diaries, or Diaries where the author may want to use, say, a table of contents, using the NAME element
of the Anchor tag allows the author to define such an Anchor.

Example:

Table of Contents
<P><A href=”#section1″>Introduction</A></P>
<P><A href=”#section2″>Some background</A></P>
<P><A href=”#section2.1″>On a more personal note</A></P>
…the rest of the table of contents…
…the document body…
<P><A name=”section1″>Introduction</A></P>
…section 1…
<P><A name=”section2″>Some background</A></P>
…section 2…
<P><A name=”section2.1″>On a more personal note</A></P>
…section 2.1…

The top of this Diary defines the name ‘TOP’.

Type:

Result:

STYLE – DIV Style Element

STYLE=”Name1:Value1; … NameN:ValueN;”

Complete Diaries or sections of Diaries or Comments can be enclosed within a DIV tag.
Because the STYLE element can be used in a DIV tag, that portion of text will be formatted to
display using that ‘name:value;” data which is included in the STYLE element.

Because this topic requires some knowledge of inline styles, cascading style sheets,
and because of the sheer number of possible ‘name:value;’ pairs,
I have left most of how this is done as an excercise for the reader.

The best way to find information about what a ‘name:value;’ pair does, the possible values for
a given ‘name:value;’ pair, etc, is by searching Google.
For example, search
HTML font-size.

I have included a modified ‘STYLE’ element name values which define the DIV STYLE I have used in this Diary.
The following changes were made such that the DIV would display differently within its enclosure.

Old ‘font-size’ Value ‘font-size:12px;’

— New ‘font-size’ Value ‘font-size:18px;’

Old ‘font-weight’ Value ‘font-weight:normal;’

— New ‘font-weight’ Value ‘font-weight:normal;’

Old ‘background-color’ Value ‘background-color:#fda;’

— New ‘background-color’ Value ‘background-color:blue;’

Old ‘border-color’ Value ‘border-color:#aaa;’

— New ‘border-color’ Value ‘border-color:red;’

Old ‘border-width’ Value ‘border-width:1px;’ (all)

— New ‘border-width’ Value ‘border-width:1px 2px 3px 4px;’ (top, right, bottom, left)

Old ‘padding’ Value ‘padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px;’ (top, right, bottom, left)

— New ‘padding’ Value ‘padding:20px;’ (all)

Type:

Result:

Further Reference

w3c.org
HTML 3.2 Reference Specification
Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples
Cascading Style Sheets
STYLE Element and Creating Inline Styles

Mr. Bolton has proved himself a fighter, fiercely committed to a bedrock American nationalism.

Seemingly untroubled by self doubt, Mr. Bolton, whom former Senator Jesse Helms once called “the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon,” has never shied from a dispute nor hesitated to shatter a consensus. In his office he displays a grenade designating him as “Truest Reaganaut,” a telling gift from former colleagues at the United States Agency for International Development.

From his battle, as a Justice Department official, for the doomed Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork to his dramatic declaration to poll workers tabulating presidential ballots in Florida in 2000 – “I’m with the Bush-Cheney team and I’m here to stop the count” – Mr. Bolton has proved himself a fighter, fiercely committed to a bedrock American nationalism.

[……………..]

When you hear people describe him as abrasive, you think, ‘That sounds like John Bolton,’ ” said [former classmate Ed] Wroe, an attorney in Idaho. “He didn’t worry about what people thought of him.”

Dr. Bruce K. Krueger, his Yale roommate for five years and now a physiologist at the University of Maryland medical school, recalls Mr. Bolton as a far more pleasant character. “He might say something provocative – everyone else in the room might disagree with it – but he’d have something solid and well-reasoned to back it up.”

He wins … plaudits [from James Baker and Dick Cheney] partly because of an extreme work style that sometimes has him firing off e-mail messages to subordinates from home at 4 a.m. before arriving at the office at 6. In his current job, he has required staff members to stand – along with him – at morning meetings, to discourage long-winded discussions.

“When you go in to brief John Bolton, as I found out early, you better be prepared,” said Thomas M. Boyd, who was Mr. Bolton’s deputy when he was assistant attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department and who remains a friend. “He’s kind of like an appellate judge. He will read everything. If you have holes in your argument, he won’t work with you.”

He has also impressed superiors with his dogged pursuit of goals he believes in. As assistant secretary of state in the administration of the elder George Bush, he took on the task of repealing a United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism, long resented by Israel and its American supporters.

“He’s tough and he’s relentless and he’s very logical,” said Frank J. Donatelli, a Republican consultant who has worked with Mr. Bolton both in government and party operations. “But I’ve never observed any kind of abusive behavior.”

Raised in a working-class row house neighborhood in southwest Baltimore called Yale Heights – a far cry from the university where he would earn undergraduate and law degrees – Mr. Bolton won a scholarship to McDonogh, then an all-male military school.

That modest background is a key to his personality, some associates say. “He didn’t come from money,” said Mr. Boyd, his former subordinate. “Sometimes when you push the rock up the hill, you’re hungrier. You have more of a drive to succeed.”

[A]ssociates describe Mr. Bolton as an avid reader, particularly of history and biography, and a political junkie. They describe him as a very private person who is devoted to his wife, Gretchen, a financial planner, and their daughter, Jennifer, who now attends Yale. When mother and daughter head off on ski trips, he stays behind.

“He can appear to be very stern,” said Mr. Boyd, his former Justice Department colleague. “I think that’s a product of his reserve. He’s got a great sense of humor, a great cackle of a laugh – but he has to trust you.”

The drive and ideological certainty that admirers believe make Mr. Bolton effective strike his critics as excessive. Avis T. Bohlen, who worked under Mr. Bolton as assistant secretary of state for arms control, said she agreed with several of his initiatives, including scuttling a protocol to the international ban on biological weapons. But she thought the United States should work with European allies to find a better approach to preventing biological weapons. Mr. Bolton did not.

“He was absolutely clear that he didn’t want any more arms control agreements,” Ms. Bohlen said. “He didn’t want any negotiating bodies. He just cut it off. It was one more area where we lost support and respect in the world.”

In handling disagreements, too, Ms. Bohlen said, Mr. Bolton sometimes went over the line. “What I find unfortunate is that he had a tendency to go after the little guys,” she said. “I think Bolton is a bully.”

Bolton’s Civl War. There is much worth contemplating in Sonni Efron’s LAT review today of John Bolton’s being dropped behind enemy lines in the State Department: that Bolton proved himself so untrustworthy that Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage appointed a full time minder to watch him and required that all his speeches be vetted; that foreign officials had to be told to not accept that Bolton’s pronouncements represented Bush administration policy towards Iran and North Korea; that Condoleezza Rice has personally called Senate Republicans to say Bolton would be carefully “scripted” at the UN and that if “he goes off the reservation, he’s out”; that one key reason Bolton got the UN nomination is because Rice wouldn’t accept Bolton as her deputy secretary but thought she could manage him in a position less to do with policy than following instructions; and this:

Some U.S. officials complained that Bolton’s undiplomatic style sometimes backfired, harming U.S. interests.

A U.S. government nonproliferation expert said that in the fall of 2003, Bolton insisted on taking a harsh line against Iran at the board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.S. mission in Vienna, where the agency is based, had been assigned a key task: winning a board vote referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council for action to restrain its nuclear programs.

But energy agency board members from other countries refused to go along. Nevertheless, Bolton instructed the U.S. mission at the agency not to compromise on any of the changes sought by other countries to a draft resolution, the official assigned to “mind” Bolton said.

“Next thing I know, our ambassador … is calling the secretary or Armitage and saying, ‘What the hell are you guys doing? You’re going to send this train over the cliff!’ ” the official said.

Bolton was overruled.

Bolton was distraught at what he considered a soft-line policy on Iran, and sought to have [his chief of staff Frederick] Fleitz travel to Vienna to sit in on a luncheon meeting of energy agency ambassadors, the official said. But the trip was seen as an attempt by Bolton to keep an eye on the U.S. ambassador there, and was nixed as “highly inappropriate.”

The senior State Department official declined to comment on specifics of the Iran policy flap, calling it an example of the “malevolent gossip” surrounding Bolton’s nomination.

Reading between the lines, it’s pretty clear that key Bush administration officials, including Rice, acknowledge there are serious reasons to not have confidence in Bolton in the role of parlaying and representing Bush administration policy at the UN. The multiple accounts of bureaucratic warfare gathered here also add to the suspicion that when Bolton sought the US names from the NSA transcripts he obtained, it was in his role as fighting a guerrilla war against US officials inside the Bush administration, rather than in pursuing external national security matters. More to come, as Steve Clemons alerts us that the NSA has recommended release of those intercepts.

Posted by Laura at May 1, 2005 10:05 AM

That Iraq legal advice in full (slight return)


By Rafael Behr / Politics 06:11pm

LINK TO ORIGINAL DOCUMENT

Another public service brought to you by the Observer blog. We read all of the Attorney General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq war so you don’t have to.

Digested, it boils down as follows.

Advice of 7 March 2003

1. You asked me whether or not you can invade Iraq without getting a new resolution from UN Security Council. I’ve asked around a bit. This is what I reckon. … more below

2. It’s ok to have a war with someone if:

(a) they started it

(b) there’s a humanitarian catastrophe, but it has to be a really, really bad one.

(c) the Security Council says you can.

3.The Americans say you should be able to go to war to preempt trouble; that isn’t in the rules yet.

4. that humanitarian catastrophe thing is a bit flaky, don’t use it now.

5. Maybe the Security Council has actually already given you permission.

6. Some people say that the resolution you got last year, 1441, counts as permission because it revives the old Gulf War resolution.

7. There was a ceasefire at the end of the Gulf War, but with conditions.

8. We’ve bombed Iraq since then a couple of times and got away with it.

9. The US says we didn’t even need resolution 1441, but they’re on their own on that one.

10. Resolution 1441 is ambiguous.

11. Ambiguous enough that we might get away with it.

12. But it’ll be tricky.

13. Resolution 1441 might also say that the Security Council has to decide.

14. There are two arguments:

(i) you can do it anyway.

(ii) you can only do it if the Security Council explicitly says you can.

15. The first argument says you would still need to talk to the Security Council, but, as long as Iraq has been misbehaving, you’re ok. You don’t need a new resolution.

16. The second argument says: nice try, but the Security Council will decide who’s been misbehaving thank you very much.

17. So who decides that Iraq is misbehaving?

18. Under 1441 the definition of misbehaviour is pretty broad. Result!

19. It would help if Blix and El-Baradei slammed Saddam.

20. All that wrangling with the French was supposed to deal with this, wasn’t it?

21. Who knows, the Security Council might come round.

22. But don’t count on it. Bloody French!

23. We know that they know that we know that they know we might be able to go to war anyway, but they know that we know that they know that we know that we’re not sure.

24. So a new resolution would be handy.

25. The old ones seem to mean whatever you want them to mean.

Summary

26. Resolution 1441 is a fudge.

27. Ideally, we want a new one.

28. But the US may be right in saying that we don’t need one.

29. As long as Blix and El-Baradei deliver the goods.

30. We got away with it in Kosovo.

31. If we try for a second resolution and get vetoed, we’re screwed.

32. We should think about what the International Criminal Court would say.

33. But not too much, as long as our forces don’t do anything stupid.

34. We should think about what British courts would say.

35. And the UN General Assembly.

36. If we do it, we can’t go around saying that regime change is the goal. Disarmament is our story and we should stick to it.

Advice of 17 March 2003

Oh, go on then.

Tommy Chong is in a tight spot, man. To hear him discuss it, you’d almost think he’s describing the plot of one of the skits he used to do with his partner, Cheech Marin. But for a comedian who manages to find humor even in the nine-month prison term he recently served for selling bongs, his new legal woes aren’t exactly cracking him up. Forced, he says, by the terms of his parole to quit a stage production called “The Marijuana-Logues,” and uncomfortable with rejoining the cast even after his parole is over in July, Chong is now being sued by the show’s producers for breach of contract.

As the hippy half of Cheech and Chong, a bizarro stoned Abbot and Costello, Chong became a pop pot icon along with Marin upon the release of their eponymous 1971 debut. The album of skits and songs included the classics “Dave”—with Marin as a dealer on the lam, begging his blitzed roommate to unlock the door for him—and “Cruising with Pedro de Pacas,” which also plumbs the theme of dumb druggies dodging cops. But the real-life law caught up with the real-life Chong two years ago for having invested in a business that sells bongs online. On parole now, he tells NEWSWEEK that he can’t do “The Marijuana-Logues” legally until he gets off probation. Still, even after his probation expires, he says, “I don’t feel comfortable because I’m trying to get my record expunged. I’d still be thumbing my nose at the government [that] just finished putting me in jail.”
MSGOP

Citizens Kane and Their Progress

     The New York Times killed a magazine story about Wikinews by Matthew Yeomans, who promptly posted the piece online. [Susan’s note: He edited it from what he submitted to the NYT.] Read it here.

THE BIRTH OF WIKINEWS

Mainstream media is at its lowest point in over three decades, forced to fend off charges of plagiarism, cronyism, fabrication and political bias. Can anything be done to stop the rot? The folks behind Wikipedia think they have the answer. … Read it all.

President Bush is urging the Senate to take up a bill passed by the House this week that makes it a federal crime — complete with possible fines and jail sentences — for doctors or other adults to help patients under 18 evade parental-notification requirements by crossing state lines for an abortion.

—

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council and father of three daughters, said in an interview that the bill was one of his group’s top priorities for the year and called it “a recognition of parental authority.”

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, countered that the bill is “a bureaucratic nightmare” and is part of a multi-track strategy by conservatives that includes packing the judiciary with judges sympathetic to their views.

The bill, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, passed the House on Wednesday night by 270 to 157, with 216 Republicans in favor and 145 Democrats against. Crossing party lines were 54 Democrats who supported the bill and 11 Republicans who opposed it. The bill makes an exception if the abortion is necessary to save the life of the minor. The House passed similar bills in 1998, 1999 and 2002, but none passed the Senate.

The House bill has a provision, not in the Senate version, that requires an out-of-state abortion provider to notify one parent with three exceptions: if the patient shows documentation that she has exercised a judicial bypass provision; if she signs a statement saying she is a victim of neglect, or physical or sexual abuse, by a parent; or if her life is in danger.

“It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way.”

—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005