noscript not allowed after script?

How can you explain that having a <noscript></noscript> block immediately
after a <script ...>...</script> block is an error?:
Line 59, column 9: document type does not allow element "NOSCRIPT" here;
missing one of "APPLET", "OBJECT", "MAP", "IFRAME", "BUTTON" start-tag
:Missing the start tag of anything but a script to allow a noscript? It
gives me the same error if I put the noscript tag pair inside or outside of
the script tag pair, but some browsers give me a JavaScript error if I put
it inside. So, what am I supposed to do? How is it an error?

By the way, how am I supposed to create an effect identical to
<table><tr><td background="./img/bg/something.gif">...</td><!-- ... ...
--></tr><!--... ... ...--></table> in "Valid HTML" without going toward the
side of replacing every HTML attribute with CSS and thus degrading my site
for users who have CSS support for some reason disabled or unavailable? And
why is that considdered to be an error when it displays properly en every
graphical browser I've tested my site with? [However odd, MSIE/5.x for
Classic Mac OS doesn't animate the gif unless the user clicks on it and
drags while keeping the mouse over the td's area.]


-- 
Thx, David B
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