Year: 2009

CSS “display: inline-block” in IE7

The CSS property “display: inline-block” only works in IE7 when it is applied to selectors that are displayed natively inline. For example, if you have an <h tag that needs to display as an inline-block you need to wrap the text with a span. This should be done with the span inside the h tag because valid XHTML doesn’t allow native block elements to reside inside native inline elements; e.g.

<h1><span class=”ie-block”>My Inline Headline</span></h1>

This is all over the Internet in various forms. There are many more complicated examples of using inline-blocks in IE. Just thought I’d post this simple note about it.

Failure, the Republican agenda

I listened to CSPAN for a couple hours this morning. I was appalled that for about 45 minutes Congressmen (Yes, men. No women.) were “debating” the passage of a bill honoring the Pittsburg Steelers. It felt like these elected representatives were making a joke of the current economic situation. Instead of spending their time, energy, intelligence…and our money, on making progress on real problems, they were making a farce of the legislative system.

I guess it was no worse than most of the Republican input on the economic stimulus debate. Republicans passed inscrutable bank bail outs prior to Obama’s inauguration, but now oppose creating jobs while moving the country toward energy independence and lower health care costs. It seems that number one on the Republican agenda is causing Obama and the Democrats to fail. At least in the debates I’ve heard on CSPAN, there has been a lot of criticism by Republicans, but no constructive alternatives. The Bush administration created the current crisis and it seems as if the Republican party has decided their best chance of regaining power is to facilitate a deepening crisis and more pain for citizens over the next four years.

I wish there was a minimum requirement of CSPAN viewing in order to vote in the U.S. Then more citizens would see for themselves what is going on, rather than getting a summary from their favorite commentator.

Is this justice?

What seems like a fair punishment for someone who comes onto another person’s property, forces the property owner to drag their dog from their home and tie it to a post, and proceeds to shoot the pet three times while the family looks on? It seems obvious that the person who did this either had murderous intent or was completely deranged or both. I would expect him to receive a life sentence, if he was not committed immediately to a mental institution for treatment.

I also have to wonder about the dog owner who went along with tying their dog to a post. I can’t imagine allowing something like that to happen to my pet without first being shot myself, but I don’t have any dependents other than my dog, and who knows how my bravery would hold up unarmed, against an angry man’s rifle.

The crime was committed in Felt, Idaho, in late 2007, by a Teton County Sheriff’s deputy. After pleading guilty last week, the deputy, Joseph Guitierrez, was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Seems like a light sentence given the brutality of his actions. But wait, 25 days of his sentence were suspended, and he has been assigned to a sheriff’s inmate labor detail for the other five. Sounds like he will spend a total of zero days in jail. He does have to pay a whopping $100 fine and serve a six-month UNSUPERVISED probation. If he completes probation successfully the crime may be removed from his record. Is it possible to unsuccessfully complete an unsupervised probation?

Is this justice? Apparently it is … in Teton Valley, Idaho, and not just in the mind of Judge Colin Luke. There is a poll on the home page of the local paper asking people if they are satisfied with the outcome of this case. It appears that this is not an important issue to Teton Valley News readers because there are only a few votes, but shockingly 71% have voted “Yes,” they are satisfied with the outcome of the case. They believe that $100 and 40 hours of work is fair punishment for this barbarity.