bbCodeWebEx Quick Start Guide

(click on any image to see a larger popup)

Description
When you right click on text in a text box, it provides a context menu that allows you to apply formatting in bbCode, vBulletin, HTML, XHTML, Markdown, and user defined (custom) tags.

As you can see, I have not yet figured out how to create a color wheel for font color, so it’s just a sub menu. (I’m working on it)

Settings
The settings page allows you to activate or deactivate menus.

You simply select or deselect the check boxes, and then click “save menu options.”

Since vBulletin is a superset of bbCode, the vBulletin menu is a submenu of bbCode menu, and if you deactivate bbCode, you deactivate vbulletin as well.

Custom Tags
If you click on the “custom tags” button, the custom tags page will popup, either as a new tab or as a window depending on your browser settings.

You can re order the tags by dragging and dropping the rows, but you cannot drag anything to the bottom row. You must drag to the 2nd row from the bottom, and then drag the bottom row up. (I’m working on it)

Once you have finished, click the “Save Tag Order” button.

To edit a tag, click, select a tag from the list, and it will populate the input boxes at the bottom of the page.

Make any changes you might want to the Menu Title and Menu Argument input boxes, and then click “Save Custom Tag”, and it will be updated in the list.

The two simplest, and most commonly used, tokens for making an argument to be used in a menu are are: (Other, more complex, tags, are described in the detailed documentation)

  • {{selection}}
  • {{clipboard}}

An example of the use of selection would be

<b><span style=”font-size: 100%; font-variant: small-caps;”>{{selection}}</span></b>

which makes the selected text bold and small caps.

An example of the use of clipboard would be:

<img src="{{clipboard}}">

Which takes the content of the clipboard, and pastes it into the html code for an image.

If you want to delete a tag, click on it, and it will populate the input boxes at the bottom of the page.

When you click the delete button, you will be asked to confirm, and then the custom tag will be deleted.

To create a tag, click on the “New Tag” button, and the “Menu ID” input box (you cannot change this value), and the “Parent Menu” input boxes will be filled in. (you cannot change this value either)

Enter a title for the sub menu and an argument, and then click “Save Custom Tag”, and it will be added to the bottom of the list.

To export your custom tags, click on the “Export Settings…” button, and you will be warned that things like unsaved new and edited tags will be deleted. If you are OK with that, click OK, and save the file, which will have the name “bbCode_WebEx_YYYY-MM-DD.json” will be saved to disk.

To import your custom tags, click on the “Import Settings…” button. You will be asked to confirm, because this will erase your existing tags, (Back up first) and then you can use your file dialog box to load a file.

Export and import files must/will be JSON array file format.

bbCodeWebEx Custom Tags & Advanced Use

Available codes:

(Note: these are case sensitive, and they can be used multiple times in a single menu.)

  • {{clipboard}}: This pastes in the current clipboard contents where it is placed.
  • {{selection}}: This pastes in the currently selected texts where it is placed.

Example: [url={{clipboard}}]{{selection}}[/url]
So if you copy a url, and select text, this would add a link to it for bbCode, and around the code words are double curly braces, “{}“.

Here is an example of using the tag more than once.

This right justifies an image, sizes it to 200 pixels wide, and adds a link to the fullsize image that pops up in blogger:

<a href="{{clipboard}}"><img src="{{clipboard}}" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" width="200"></a>

Nice picture, huh?

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.

JSON array format:

It is basically a text format (UTF-8 character set) that this extension uses to externally save data.

Here are the first three standard custom tags that come with the extension.

Note that the last one does NOT have a comma after the closing curly brace.

Theoretically, you could manually edit these, and if you wanted to combine two sets of custom tags, you could with a cut and paste, making sure that all of the closing closing braces are followed by a comma, except for the last one.

[
  {
    "menuId": "bbcwbx.custom.001",
    "menuTitle": "First custom menu",
    "parentId": "bbcwbx.custom",
    "menuArg": "Arg 1",
     "icons": ""
  },
  {
    "menuId": "bbcwbx.custom.002",
    "menuTitle": "Second custom menu",
    "parentId": "bbcwbx.custom",
    "menuArg": "Arg 2",
     "icons": ""
  },
  {
    "menuId": "bbcwbx.custom.003",
    "menuTitle": "Third custom menu",
    "parentId": "bbcwbx.custom",
    "menuArg": "Arg 3",
     "icons": ""
  }
]

The indents and the new lines here just for readability.

Qu’ils Mangent De La Brioche

The French police are seriously considering joining the gilets jaunes protesters because of how they have been treated:

The French government is desperately trying to keep its exhausted police force onside following weeks of violent protests demanding economic reforms, improved living standards and the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron.

On Wednesday, French officials met with police trade union leaders to work out a deal to soothe anger in law enforcement ranks regarding overwork, unpaid overtime and difficult working conditions, Le Monde reported.

………

Police have accumulated some 23 million hours of overtime that is yet to be paid. According to The Local France, police union leader Frédéric Lagache explained, “Faced with this irresponsibility [of the government], we are forced to be irresponsible in our actions.”

It really is remarkable just how badly Macron is screwing this all up.

I’m waiting for him to start a speech with, well, you know.

It’s Turtles All the Way Down

I read a very interesting review of Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou.

It’s about the Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the culture of what can only be called charismatic fraud at the now shuttered blood test firm.

It provides a lot of insight into what went wrong, and the review very ably provides a summary of what happened and why.

On the other hand, when one looks at a history of Silicon Valley startups, the only difference between them and Theranos is that Theranos was operating in the real world with a real product that depended on real chemistry and real physics.

I’m wondering if the real issue with the entire Theranos affair might not be how a blond in a black turtleneck managed to defraud a very large number of investors, but instead that this is simply business as usual.

When one looks at Silicon Valley Firms, with very few exceptions, the business models frequently seem to be predicated on regulatory arbitrage (cheating, see Uber, AirBnB, etc), or having no viable business plan (Uber again, and various startups whose founders made their money from being bought out), etc.

I refer to the above as, “Turtles all the way down“.

I’d really like to see a US Attorney go zero tolerance on this sort of crap.

Oh, the Horror!!!

The powers that be in the UK are freaking out over a proposal to set a minimum wage of £30,000 for immigrants admitted as “Highly Skilled”.

By way of perspective, at the current exchange rate, that translates is about $38,000 a year, or a bit over $18/hour, or about 3 bucks more than Bernie’s proposed minimum wage here in the US.

Econ 101: if you pay a decent wage, they will come:

Proposals for a minimum annual wage could see the UK without tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and teachers.

Industry leaders have stressed ‘high skills do not equal high pay’ as the government seeks to curb immigration after Brexit.

………

Mr Javid confirmed the Government would be scrapping the current 20,700 annual cap on ‘highly skilled migrants.’

It will now set a minimum salary for workers applying for five-year visas and they would need to be sponsored by a company.

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) have recommended a £30,000 threshold.

………

The starting salary for nurses, midwives and paramedics is £23,000. Junior doctors start at £27,000 while healthcare assistants are at £17,000.

Most scientific researchers also earn below the proposed threshold.

I think that I may have identified a significant problem in the UK:  They have set up an economy where the City of London (finance) is impoverishing the rest of the nation.

Tweet(s) of the Day

Some interesting context — McCaskill is railing on the left, after losing reelection on the same ballot that voters passed a minimum wage increase: https://t.co/g1UFnz6u8o https://t.co/JEHh6GX3uO

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) December 20, 2018

and this:

Interesting that McCaskill lost elecfion in a state where “right-to-work” was defeated by a two-to-one margin. https://t.co/vptLUxByvC

— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) December 20, 2018

Maybe Claire McKaskill lost her bid for reelection because she did not reflect the values of her state, but rather she reflected the values of the Wall Street banksters.

Why Are These Folks Not in Jail?

It appears that some schools are routinely fitting disabled students with shock belts.

This is evil beyond belief:

An international body entrusted with upholding human rights across the Americas has called for an immediate ban on the controversial use of electric shocks on severely disabled children in a school outside Boston.

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, is believed to be the only school in the world that routinely inflicts high-powered electric shocks as a form of punishment on vulnerable children and adults. About 47 of its students are currently subjected to the “treatment”, which involves individuals being zapped with electric currents far more powerful than those discharged by stun guns.

Disability rights campaigners have tried for decades to stop the practice, which the school’s administrators call “aversive therapy”. So far the institution has managed to fend off all opposition, arguing that electric shocks are an acceptable way of discouraging harmful habits.

Now the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued a rare formal notice known as “precautionary measures” that calls for immediate cessation of the electric shocks.

In a seven-page resolution, the Washington-based panel says that the practice poses a “serious impact on the rights” of the vulnerable children at the school, “particularly on their right to personal integrity which may be subjected to a form of torture”.

The commission cites the work in 2013 of the then UN monitor on torture, Juan Méndez, who found JRC’s electric shock technique was a potential violation of the UN convention against torture and other international laws. It also notes several federal agencies and professional groups have called for a ban on “aversive techniques” on grounds they can cause psychological trauma.

They are torturing students, and it must be stopped.

Fabulous!!!!

Canada’s top court has ruled in favour of denying accreditation to a Christian law school that banned students from having gay sex.

Friday’s ruling against Trinity Western University in British Columbia (BC) was closely watched by both religious freedom and gay rights advocates.

The university made students promise not to have extra-marital or gay sex.

The Supreme Court found that protecting LGBT students from discrimination trumped religious freedom.

………

Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia law societies denied the school accreditation, on the grounds that it required all students to sign a covenant binding them to a code of conduct which banned sex outside the confines of heterosexual marriage.

Specifically, it said that it could (would) expel students for gay sex.

Good on the court.

Your need to hate does not trump basic human rights.

A Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day

ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever has been eliminated as a proto-nation state/caliphate.

It is now a diffuse terrorist organization, and as such, the only remaining justifications for keeping 2-3000 (and probably more off the books) troops on the ground are promulgating regime change and doing the House of Saud’s dirty work in their hundreds of years long battle with Iran.

As such, I think that Trump’s announcement that they are pulling ground troops from Syria, effective immediately, is a good thing, even if is (probably) being done for the most base of reasons:

The United States will move quickly to withdraw all forces from Syria, the White House abruptly announced Wednesday, as President Trump defied warnings from his top advisers and upended plans for a continued mission against the Islamic State.

The move plunged U.S. allies into uncertainty and created the potential for greater regional instability even as it provided Russia and its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a chance to cement greater control over the country.

“Our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now, we won and that’s the way we want it,” Trump said in a video message on Twitter, an unusual format for the president. “That’s the way we want it, and that’s the way they want it,” he said, pointing to the sky in an apparent reference to American soldiers killed in Syria.

To quote John Kerry, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

The decision also delivers on the president’s repeated threat this year to pull out troops. Since before taking office, Trump has promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.

………

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, warned in a statement that the decision would benefit Russia and Iran, Assad’s other major patron.

I use the tears of the regime change Mousketeers to sweeten my coffee.

Of course, the wing of U.S. officialdom known as, “The Blob,” are doing their level best to prevent a sudden outbreak of peace:

President Donald Trump may have declared the so-called Islamic State “defeated,” sparking talk of a U.S. withdrawal from the former ISIS stronghold of northeastern Syria. But administration officials, several of whom were taken by surprise, indicated an effort was underway to stop or slow a pullout.

………

Yet the official added a harder-edged warning suggesting that military force against Iran in Syria remained an option: “Iran knows the U.S. stands ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests.”

OK, Mr. Anonymous Official, name 3 significant American interests in Syria, and you cannot use, “Iran’s there,” or, “Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud’s dick won’t suck itself.”

Linkage

‘Bohemian Chanukah’, a riff on Queen:

If It’s Too Dicey for a Literal Vampire………

Elon Musk’s self dealing between SpaceX and the Boring Company has alarmed even actual vampire,* and psychopath, Peter Thiel.

He is aggressively using SpaceX resources on his next big thing™:

Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging venture, the Boring Co., is being pulled into the billionaire entrepreneur’s controversial practice of spreading overlapping assets across his disparate technology firms.

On Tuesday, the Tesla Inc. TSLA -3.27% chief is set to unveil a test tunnel developed by the Boring Co., the first of what Mr. Musk imagines as a futuristic series of high-speed underground highways to alleviate traffic.

The entrance of the two-mile-long Boring test tunnel is being constructed in Hawthorne, Calif., at the headquarters of another Musk-controlled company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., partly by SpaceX employees using equipment purchased with SpaceX funds, people familiar with the matter said.

The arrangement alarmed some longtime investors in SpaceX, including its largest outside backer, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, some of the people said. The investors learned in recent months that despite the diversion of SpaceX resources and staffing to the fledgling Boring startup, it was Mr. Musk who was in line to receive almost all of any future profits, these people said.

The investors questioned SpaceX about why their investment dollars into a company ostensibly devoted to launching satellites and carrying humans to Mars were instead partly used to start a separate company that principally benefited Mr. Musk. When the Boring Co. was earlier this year spun into its own firm, more than 90% of the equity went to Mr. Musk and the rest to early employees, the company has said.

………

The SpaceX board never voted on devoting resources to Mr. Musk’s new venture.

………

The Boring Co.’s unusual inception is illustrative of how Mr. Musk defies the conventions of traditional corporate chieftains and sometimes supports his business empire by shuffling finances between companies.

“Defies the conventions of traditional corporate chieftains,” huh?

I think that technical term, of course, is fraud and embezzlement.

ToMAYto/ToMAHto, whatever, I guess, because these days, the motto is, “Let Bond Villains be Bond Villains.”

Listen to the cat, listen to the cat.

*I do mean this characterization of Thiel literally.  He is literally a vampire who wants to use the blood of the young to extend his lifespan.

Way to Go Beto!

After extensive documentation showing that Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s campaign repeatedly and egregiously violated the “No fossile fuel money” pledge, the Oil Change USA has dropped him from their list:

Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke has been removed from a pledge he signed to reject large donations from fossil fuel PACs and executives, following a recent Sludge investigation of federal campaign finance records.

Sludge reported on Dec. 10 that the congressman had accepted dozens of contributions of over $200 from oil and gas executives and had not reported refunding them. Oil Change USA, which led a coalition of environmental and democracy organizations to create the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, attempted to reach O’Rourke’s campaign and congressional office but did not hear back. Nor did Sludge.

David Turnbull, strategic communications director at Oil Change USA, told Sludge on Tuesday that the group had just removed O’Rourke’s name from the list of signers.
The pledge stipulates that in signing it, “a politician and their campaign will adopt a policy to not knowingly accept any contributions over $200 from the PACs, executives, or front groups of fossil fuel companies—companies whose primary business is the extraction, processing, distribution, or sale of oil, gas, or coal.”

It is interesting how this news has been greeted by his fans.

It appears that relating the facts makes me, and the dozens of journalists who went through FEC filings, Vladimir Putin’s butt boys.

I prefer my candidates to stand for something, thank you very much.

Fröhliche Weihnachten Motherf%$#er

Amazon workers in Germany have just gone on strike:

Workers at two Amazon distribution centers in Germany have gone on strike as part of a push for improved work conditions, leading to fears that Christmas orders may not arrive in time.

The German news agency dpa reported that workers in Leipzig in eastern Germany and Werne in western Germany went on strike early Monday.

The ver.di union representing the workers says Amazon employees receive lower wages than others in retail and mail-order jobs in Germany.

Merry Christmas, Jeff Bezos.

Pass the Popcorn

Malaysia has formally filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs for its role in the massive 1MDB scandal.

The scale of the scandal, and the Vampire Squid’s involvement in the scandal, is huge, and as such, it’s inconceivable that the most senior management at Goldman Sachs was unaware of what was going on.

All I want for New Years is Lloyd Blankfein frog-marched out of his office in handcuffs:

The breadth of Goldman Sachs ’ potential legal jeopardy in the 1MDB scandal keeps growing.

The U.S. Justice Department has already secured a plea agreement from the bank’s former chairman of its Southeast Asia business who said that evading compliance controls was part of the firm’s culture. The bank’s then-chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, attended meetings that the shadowy Malaysian financier at the heart of the scandal was also present on at least two occasions, according to reports.

………

Now, the Malaysian government has filed its own criminal charges against subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs (GS) in connection to the 1MDB scandal, the country’s attorney general said in a statement.

The attorney general also said that charges would be filed shortly against a former partner of the bank and ex-chairman of its Southeast Asia business, Tim Leissner, and another former Goldman Sachs banker, Roger Ng.

………


The spokesman later added: “Certain members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB lied to Goldman Sachs, outside counsel, and others about the use of proceeds from these transactions. 1MDB, whose CEO and board reported directly to the prime minister at the time, also provided written assurances to Goldman Sachs for each transaction that no intermediaries were involved. Under the Malaysian legal process, the firm was not afforded an opportunity to be heard prior to the filing of these charges against certain Goldman Sachs entities, which we intend to vigorously contest. These charges do not affect our ability to conduct our current business globally.”

(emphasis mine)

The technical term for this is, “Willfull blindness”.  They knew about the looting, but made sure not to look in the right direction.

In a November radio interview, Malaysia’s finance minister said the country would seek a $600 million refund on the fees it paid to Goldman Sachs for three bond offerings the bank underwrote in 2012 and 2013. Billions of dollars from those deals were allegedly siphoned off to private accounts and used to pay bribes, and were laundered through things like real-estate deals and Hollywood investments.
………

 At the center of the alleged fraud is Jho Low, a financier with no formal role in the fund who nevertheless effectively controlled it, and Leissner, who said in his plea statement that he evaded the bank’s compliance controls to help Low divert money and that such actions were part of the bank’s culture.

Goldman Sachs underwrote the bonds and reaped around $600 million in fees from the deals—equal to about 10% of the total issuance, which is an astronomical fee for what was putatively debt issued by a sovereign wealth fund.

Leissner pleaded guilty to his role in shifting money out of 1MDB and of bribing various government officials in order to pull off the fraud in November but has yet to be sentenced. Low has also been charged but his whereabouts are unclear.

Goldman Sachs needs to be “Arthur Andersoned”, and their corporate carcass needs to be hung from the ramparts as a warning to other malefactors.

Linkage

This is inspired:

I replaced the Amazon can you feel it commercial music with the theme from Winter Soldier pic.twitter.com/rXMcDGoWcJ

— Omar Najam (@OmarNajam) November 24, 2018

F%$# the Phone Company

After billions in subsidies, Verizon is engaging in massive layoffs, and studiously avoiding building up its fiber:

Verizon this week announced it would be trimming its workforce by more than 10,000 employees—despite repeatedly claiming the bevy of tax breaks and regulatory favors it has received in recent years would boost job creation and network investment.

According to a Verizon blog post, the company will be eliminating roughly 10,400 workers, or around 7 percent of its workforce, as part of what the telecom giant is calling a “voluntary separation program.” Under said program, Verizon says volunteers will receive “up to” 60 weeks’ salary, bonus and benefits “depending on length of service.”

Verizon insists the staff reductions are necessary to “optimize growth opportunities” related to next-gen 5G wireless, and to “better serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility.”
But the workforce reduction comes after repeated claims by the telecom giant that a rotating crop of regulatory favors and handouts—from last year’s attack on net neutrality to the Trump tax cut—would buoy both job creation and broadband investment, neither of which has actually happened.

The slowest and most expensive broadband in the developed world.

The solution is publicly owned and operated broadband.