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Did he mention the part about DU being hacked by Russia in November if Trump wins?
Many of you suggested that we run an additional fund drive during the year,
EarlG (22,031 posts)
DU updates and announcements
Hello DU!
I have a few updates and housekeeping items you may or may not be interested in. The updates are happening today (Monday). Don't worry -- no downtime is required. Please read on for the scoop.
POP-UP FUND DRIVE
During our last fund drive (the Hearts fund drive in February) we let you know that like a lot of independent sites, DU has been going through some financial struggles recently. Many of you suggested that we run an additional fund drive during the year, and so we are going to give it a try.
Starting today, we'll be running our new "Tip Jar" fund drive. We don't want to be overly annoying, so to begin with there will just be a small banner at the top of every page, a reminder at the bottom of every thread, and the fund drive will just run from Monday-Friday. All we're asking you to do is kick into our "Tip Jar" with a one-time contribution.
The fund drive asks you to show your appreciation for DU, but DU wouldn't be the community it is without its members, and so we also wanted to recognize the DUers who YOU think make this community special. As a bonus for contributing during the Tip Jar fund drive, you'll be able to leave "kudos" for another member. This is going to be pretty low-key -- we're not going to send out notifications or leave hearts on people's posts like we do in February. But when I announce the end of the fund drive on Friday, I'll recognize the DU members who received the most kudos, for their contributions to the community.
EDITORIALS & OTHER ARTICLES
By popular demand, we're restoring Editorials & Other Articles to DU's "Main Forums" section. Starting today, it will appear just below Latest Breaking News in the navigation sidebar, and will also appear in the Main Forums section on the All Forums page. The forum will once again be hosted by the Main Forum Hosts.
TAB TEXT
This is a very minor update, but starting Monday the "Subs" and "Posts" tabs are going to say "My Subs" and "My Posts" just to make things a bit clearer.
TWITTER EMBEDDING
Given all the shenanigans over at x.com, we've received a number of questions about what will happen with tweet embedding on DU. As of right now, tweet embedding still works as it always has done, provided that you use "twitter.com" in your URL, and not "x.com"
x.com URLs do not currently work to embed tweets on DU, and getting them to work could be a lot more complicated than it might seem. So as of now, nothing has changed -- we're continuing to allow embeds with the twitter.com URL until x.com officially prevents that from happening, and after that we'll have to see what happens.
"THREADS" EMBEDDING
We are making embeds from Meta's Threads platform available, starting today. This will work the same way as other embedded content on DU -- simply paste the URL of the Thread into your post, and the embed will appear on preview. It only requires the first part of the URL, so we recommend previewing before you post, so you can remove any unnecessary characters.
Threads embedding seems a little "jankier" than tweet embedding, by which I mean that during testing, we noticed that sometimes it might take an additional page refresh to make the content appear. Unfortunately we don't have control over this, but hopefully it won't be too much of a problem.
We do not yet have a Threads "indicator" like we do for YouTube videos and tweets on the Latest/Greatest pages and in forums, but if posts containing Threads ever become as prevalent as those other two platforms, we'll create one. Speaking of which...
YOUTUBE/TWEET INDICATORS
It came to our attention recently that many DU Star Members might not know that there is an option to see at a glance which OPs contain YouTube videos, and which contain tweets. These can be particularly useful if you *don't* want to click on OPs that have videos or tweets in them.
These indicators are handled by an option on your Account Settings page. When turned on, little blue boxes appear next to the thread titles of OPs which contain tweets, and/or little red boxes appear for OPs containing a video, like this:
This setting is supposed to be turned on for all Star Members by default, but we think it might not be. So at some point (not this Monday though) we are going to remedy that. However, if you want to turn them on manually now, you can, by going to your Account Settings (My DU > Account Settings) page. Scroll down to the section titled "Social media integration" and set "Show tweet indicator" and "Show video indicator" to "Yes."
MAILING LIST
If you're not already on the DU mailing list, you can now sign up via the form on our Contact page. Right now, mailing list subscribers get a weekly "Week In Review" email from me, highlighting the most recommended threads of the week, but should we ever need to notify you of emergency downtime or problems with DU, being on the mailing list will ensure that you stay updated.
OTHER UPDATES
Although our major database project is now over, work continues behind the scenes on security updates and other essential items as we head into the second half of this election year. Aside from that, we are finally almost back in development mode (hence the updates above). I plan to start a "feature request" thread this week to take some suggestions on what you think we should work on next. And we have our own ideas for some future improvements either later this year or going into next year. But for now...
Thanks for reading!
EarlG, on behalf of Elad -- The DU Administrators
https://www.democraticunderground.com/101314173
Scores of Iranian women posted videos of themselves celebrating the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday — openly dancing on his “dirty grave” after he oversaw a brutal crackdown on 2022 protests against the Islamic “morality police.”
Raisi, a reviled leader known as the “Butcher of Tehran,” died when his helicopter crashed in a remote region of the country Sunday.
While the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, announced five days of public mourning in the wake of the 63-year-old’s death, a slew of women took to social media to share clips of themselves throwing back drinks and otherwise cheering his demise.
“We freely dance and celebrate on your dirty grave,” one woman, Mersedeh Shahinkar, tweeted.
Truckload contract rates (VCRPM1) continue to show strong elevation in relation to spot rates excluding estimated fuel costs above $1.20 a gallon (NTIL12). This historic spread — currently about 30% versus about 12% in 2019 — suggests there is an extraordinary amount of potential disparity among rates in the truckload market that could leave several shippers without a truck when the market inevitably shifts.
Contract or long-term rates are generally negotiated on an annual basis between shipper and transportation service provider.
In an erratic capacity environment, these rates are subject to midterm renegotiation, both higher and lower. This is where the term “paper rates” originates, because they are as thin as paper in terms of reliability.
On the spot
Spot rates are negotiated on an ad hoc or transactional basis and are typically only good for a matter of days.
The spot market is a place where shippers look to source capacity when they either do not have a contract carrier or their existing carriers do not have availability. In loose capacity environments — such as the current one — it can also be a place to get immediate cost savings or try other carriers to deepen their lists of potential providers.
From the carrier perspective, the spot market is a place to fill gaps in their networks — aka backhauls — or haul more profitable freight. The former is more the use case in a market like the one that we are currently in, though there is always this potential.
But Clark, who will lead the Fever against the Sparks on Friday at Crypto.com Arena, also stands out for who she’s not. In a league in which approximately 70% of the players are Black, nearly a third identify as LGBTQ and most come from urban environments, Clark is white, straight and from Iowa.
And that sets her apart even more than her shooting skills.
“We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity,” said Hill, now a contributing writer at the Atlantic and host of the “Jemele Hill is Unbothered” podcast. “While so many people are happy for Caitlin’s success — including the players; this has had such an enormous impact on the game — there is a part of it that is a little problematic because of what it says about the worth and the marketability of the players who are already there.”
Nicole Melton, co-director of the Laboratory for Inclusion and Diversity in Sport at the University of Massachusetts, agrees.
“Cailtin fits a very comfortable narrative for a lot of people in the United States,” she said. “She comes from the heartland. She’s an amazing talent. She’s also a white, straight woman, right? There’s not a lot of things that would make people feel uncomfortable with that person being successful.”
“You can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see. They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.” Asked about Wilson’s comments, Clark chose to deflect the criticism and talk instead about the big picture. “There’s opportunities for every single player in women’s basketball,” she said. “The more opportunities we can give across the board, that’s what’s going to elevate women’s basketball.”
...It is difficult to find, but heard the part of his idiotic speech where he called MAGA Republicans "erectionists".
I think they also found some huge deposit put in Nevada or Utah a while back as well.
