I’ve been working on the “Two Chinooks” print, which is one of the deliverables for the Mandatory Failure: Schlock Mercenary Book 18 project, and I’ve found it very relaxing.

Here’s a progress shot.

I haven’t finished painting Rage Chinook’s smoke-cloak, and the background needs a lot of attention once the painting is done, but I’m quite happy with the way this is turning out.

I finished painting the two Chinooks a couple of weeks ago, and have been busy layering stuff behind them for assorted desktop wallpapers and for the promised 8″x10″ print. Absent those layers, this is what the Goddess of Earth, Wind, and Plumbing looks like before and then after her temper-tantrum…

I’d write more about this project, but I have another project to write about, so I’m gonna move on to that update next.

I did not expect an immersion blender to become a kitchen essential for me, but that’s where I am now. I originally thought it’d be great for making milkshakes, but then I figured out water-in-oil emulsions, and realized that homemade mayonnaise is a million times better¹ than what comes in the jar.

Summarizing: the immersion blender turns the very technical and tedious process of emulsification into something that is so simple I got it right the first time, and haven’t failed at it yet. Here, then, is a very basic recipe for homemade mayo:

Basic Homemade Mayonnaise

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon mustard
• 1 cup avocado oil

Equipment

• An immersion blender with its own blending cup
• Measuring spoons & measuring cup
• A fridge-friendly container for the finished product

Instructions

1. Put everything except the oil in the blender cup.
2. Gently pour the oil atop the other stuff, and then wait a moment for things to separate. It’s very important for the oil to be on top.
3. Gently sink the blender head to the bottom of the cup, positioning it like a dome over the egg, tipping it on the way down to get the air out.
4. Blend at high speed, keeping the blender head at the bottom of the cup. Slowly lift it, and allow yourself to be amazed as it makes your mixture into mayo on the way up.
5. That’s it! Scrape it into a container and put it in the refrigerator. It’ll keep for about a week

You may be asking if you can use something other than avocado oil. You can, but I recommend starting with avocado oil because I want your first batch of mayo to taste good. Olive oil will, for organic chemistry reasons I don’t fully understand, respond poorly to the emulsion process, giving the mayo a flavor I describe as “sawdust adjacent.”

You may also be asking how this even works. Traditionally, mayonnaise is made by vigorously whisking the eggs and the watery stuff while slowly adding oil. Adding the oil too quickly will cause things to fail, and the failure mode of mayonnaise is that it separates, and the oil floats back to the top. The immersion blender, coupled with its special made-to-fit cup, solves this problem by drawing the oil down into the blend. This is why you start at the bottom and gradually lift. You’re “slowly adding oil” by slowly giving the blender head traction on the oil above it.

Emulsification is Magic

Emulsification is when two immiscible (“not mixable”) liquids get mixed with the help of something else. In the case of mayonnaise you are mixing water and oil by giving the tiny droplets of watery ingredients (the vinegar and the lemon juice) a nice coating of egg proteins.

Fun fact! Butter is also a water-in-oil emulsification. By weight it’s about 80% milk fat (cream), 20% water, and maybe a couple of percentage points of milk proteins, sugars, and “bad at math.” This may seem like useless information, but if you’re looking for a dairy-free recipe substitute for butter, you can substitute almost any other water-in-oil emulsification. The tl;dr— Yes, you can use mayo instead of butter in recipes.

Cow-milk products are pretty complex things. There is a LOT going un under (udder?) the hood, and I’ve found that the best way to swap out a milk product is to swap in something similarly complex. Mayo can be pretty bland (it is literally used in comedy routines as a stand-in for “so bland”) but if you increase the complexity a bit it’ll do just fine as a stand-in for butter.

Sandra is allergic to dairy, mustard, wheat, and yeast, but she loves Hollandaise sauce on Eggs Benedict—a dish which, if prepared traditionally, is the Yahtzee in the game of “Sandra can’t eat this.” We prepare it non-traditionally by taking a nice Hollandaise recipe and swapping out the butter for homemade no-mustard mayo. Then we serve the sauce and the eggs on a bed of wild rice, which, if I’m being completely honest, is a healthier and tastier option than an English muffin.

Dairy-Free Hollandaise

Ingredients

• 5 egg yolks (set aside or discard the egg whites²)
• 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons finely minced shallots
• 1/2 cup homemade no-mustard mayo
  • OR sure you can just use a stick of softened butter instead of the mayo, but then it’s not dairy-free, obviously.

Equipment

• Immersion blender & blender cup
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Knife & board for mincing the shallots
• 1 pint canning jar with ring and lid
• A small hand-whisk or maybe just a fork that will fit into that canning jar
• Sous vide bath, because let’s do this the easy way

Instructions

1. Separate the eggs, and put the yolks in the blender cup. What you do with the egg whites is your business², but they don’t go in your Hollandaise sauce.
2. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and minced shallots. Don’t be lazy and expect the immersion blender to mince the shallots for you. It’s not a food processor. Cut them up fine using your knife!
3. Add the homemade mayo.
4. Blend with the immersion blender. You’re not trying to emulsify, so just blend away. The mix should end up yellow and a little runny.
5. Pour the pre-Hollandaise into the pint jar, and put the lid on loosely.
6. Put the jar into the sous vide. The water level should be below the lid, but above the level of the stuff in the jar.
7. Run the sous vide at 160°F for 90 minutes.
   —90 minutes later…
8. Remove the jar (carefully, it’ll be hot) and remove the lid. Whisk the contents vigorously, then (and I cannot stress this enough) shove that whisk into your mouth and slurp the delicious Hollandaise from it. Then put it into the sink, NOT back into the jar. No, not even if you live alone.
9. Lid the jar and put it into the fridge. It should keep for at least a week, assuming your whisk was clean.

When the time comes to serve the sauce, it’ll work well cold on sandwiches, or you can microwave a little bit of it for Eggs Benedict.

The Plot Thickens, AKA “I See What You Did There”

19th-century French chef Antonin Carême famously declared (in a book that got lots of traction) that there are five sauces mères or “Mother Sauces”: Espagnole, Velouté, Béchamel, Tomate, and Hollandaise. All other sauces are sauces petit, variations on the basics.

Of Carême’s five mother sauces, four are thickened with roux (butter and flour)³, while the fifth is a water-in-oil emulsion. My inner taxonomist screams, because that’s really just TWO basic sauces, so maybe the system should have been sauces mère et père, or just “saucy parents⁴.”

The point here is that an ultra-simplified water-in-oil emulsion is literally THE MOTHER OF ALL MAYONNAISE⁵.

Let me restate this more usefully: once you reduce water-in-oil emulsification to water, oil, and a binding agent, you can make any emulsified sauce you want to. In mayonnaise, the vinegar and lemon juice are “water,” the avocado oil is (SURPRISE!) “oil”, and the egg is the binding agent. The salt and mustard are irrelevant to the emulsification (provided you don’t add so much that they become relevant.)

You can make flavored mayo by messing around in the “irrelevant” column. Mother said it’s okay, really! For instance, you can make a nice Southwest seafood taco sauce by replacing the lemon and the vinegar with lime juice, using a dash of Cholula instead of mustard, and throwing in some cilantro. Did you want “spicy mayo” for sushi? Use rice vinegar and maybe two tablespoons of Sriracha instead of lemon juice, then toss in some minced ginger. As long as the general ratio of “watery” to “oily” stays the same, your mixture will emulsify deliciously.

Metrics For Science

The measurements in my recipes are all Imperial, which is problematic for two reasons:

1. Imperial. Ugh.
2. Milliliters are better than rounding to fractions of cups and spoons.

I’d switch to metric, but that would mean buying a bunch of kitchen stuff and learning new things, so it’s a project for a more ambitious day. Still, I recognize that if you really want to get fancy with your oil-in-water emulsifications, you’ll find that the metric system provides more consistent (especially with regards to the consistency of the sauce, hah!) results.

I’ve found a workaround, though, and that’s by using the lines on the immersion blender cup. My watery ingredients for a proven emulsion come halfway up to the 3-ounce line. The egg takes me up to the 3 ounce line, and I’m using 8 ounces of oil. This means my ratio of water to emulsifier to oil is 1.5 : 1.5 : 8. When I start messing around with other ingredients, I keep that ratio in mind, and use the lines on the blender cup to help me get the ratio correct. I also use it to keep track of what I did in case I need to change things on the next pass.

Would metric measurements be better? YES THEY WOULD please leave off with the pestering of the cartoonist and go update all the gear in your own dang kitchen.

But start by getting an immersion blender, because homemade mayo is, as I stated at the top of this essay, a million times better¹ than what comes out of a store-bought jar.

— notes —

¹ “A million times better” is sloppy math, but that didn’t stop me from using it twice. Fine. Let’s instead say that homemade mayonnaise is the thing casting the mayo-from-a-jar shadow on the wall of Plato’s Cave & Delicatessen.

² Now that you know how to make The Mother of All Mayo, those egg whites might be the elemental emulsifier for some (sorry-not-sorry) very saucy experimentation. You could also use them for an egg-white omelette, or perhaps a nice meringue.

³ Since roux is butter and flour, and butter is a water-in-oil emulsion, it should be possible to make a no-dairy/no-wheat roux using mayonnaise and corn starch and why are you looking at me like that?

⁴ My taxonomical howling is about a hundred and fifty years too late to get this bit of wordplay into all the best cookbooks. And even if I could yell back in time I’d be yelling in English, and I’m not a chef, so I don’t think Carême would listen to me.

⁵ Water-in-oil emulsion is also the mother of butter, and the mother of a long list of non-edible things, including industrial lubricants and hand lotions… although I suppose you could make your own hand lotion from edible ingredients and this is why I am not and never should be a chef.

The Final Jeopardy clue for November 12, 2024.

The post Final Jeopardy Today November 12, 2024 – Question, Answer, Wages & Winner appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

UPDATE NOV. 13, 2024: While Deadline said on X that a previous version of the publication’s article “incorrectly stated Lupita Nyong’o had also joined the cast of Nolan’s next film,” The Hollywood Reporter is now saying that Nyong’o has indeed been tapped to play in undisclosed character in the movie. Original article: Anne Hathaway and Zendaya […]

The post Lupita Nyong’o Joins Anne Hathaway & Zendaya in Cast of Christopher Nolan’s Next Movie appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

All solutions for the November 12 episode.

The post Wheel of Fortune Bonus Puzzle Answer Today for November 2024 appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

The internet has been buzzing with excitement over what many fans initially thought was an official Agent Venom trailer from Sony. The clip, featuring Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson transforming into Agent Venom, quickly went viral and sparked discussions about a possible new Venom movie. Fans seem to be excited about the prospect of seeing […]

The post Why Fans Think Sony’s Agent Venom Trailer Is Real appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

Управляющий совет проекта Fedora утвердил придание сборке Fedora KDE Desktop Spin статуса базовой редакции дистрибутива, идентичной по уровню поддержки с Fedora Workstation. Таким образом, начиная с Fedora 42 варианты дистрибутива с GNOME и KDE будут иметь идентичный статус и станут преподноситься на равных. Среди прочего, Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition получит аналогичный уровень маркетингового продвижения и будет иметь такое же представление на сайте fedoraproject.org. Специфичные для KDE серьёзные проблемы будут рассматриваться как блокирующие релиз, так же, как ранее блокировали релиз серьёзные проблемы в GNOME.

My latest short story is out in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. When I first started writing short stories, back in the 90s, F&SF was one of the ‘big three’ that I really wanted to get a story in to cross off my bucket list. The big three were Asimov’s, F&SF, and Analog. […]

Here’s a thing I keep noticing, and it drives me nuts. In Italy, a ship captain is arrested for bringing immigrants to shore after rescuing from them near death at sea: The number of migrants reaching Italy’s shores has drastically diminished – just 2,800 so far this year – and the country is now led […]

Over the years I’ve seen some writers who took the full time plunge express strong imposter syndrome and a sense of shame when going back to a day job. Sometimes it kills their desire to write because they feel like a failure. I don’t think biographies of writers emphasize how many famous writers had day […]

I had the honor of being the Guest of Honor at the science fiction convention Capricon in Chicago just a little over a week ago...

We are joined by U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who says Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Facing accusations of antisemitism from Israeli and U.S. officials, Albanese is in New York to present her report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” which finds that Israel’s genocide is founded on “ideological hatred” and “dehumanization” and “enabled through the various organs of the state,” and recommends that Israel be unseated from the United Nations over its conduct. She argues that Israel’s attacks on U.N. employees, including the killings of at least 230 U.N. staff in Gaza, its flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions and international law and the unique status of “the first settler-colonial genocide to be ever litigated before [an international] court” justify this unprecedented measure. Israel’s continued impunity, Albanese warns, “is the nail in the coffin of the U.N. Charter.”

At Least 95 Palestinians Are Killed in One Day as Israel Intensifies Attacks on Northern Gaza, Israeli Forces Detain, Beat and Brand Palestinians After Deadly West Bank Raid, Israel’s Assault on Lebanon Destroys or Damages One-Quarter of All Buildings Near Border, Peace Activists Celebrate as Barclays Sells Shares of Israeli Weapons Maker Elbit Systems, In Arizona, Kamala Harris Promotes Women’s Rights; Donald Trump Says Liz Cheney Should Be Shot, Bill Clinton Sparks Outrage After Saying Israel Was “Forced” to Kill Civilians in Gaza, Death Toll from Flash Flooding in Spain Soars to 158, Papua New Guinea to Boycott U.N. Climate Talks After Calling Out “Empty Talk” of Polluters, North Korea Test-Fires ICBM, Sends 10,000 Troops to Join Russian Forces Near Ukraine, “I Have a Death Squad”: Philippines Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte Admits to Extrajudicial Killings, Botswana’s President Concedes in Ruling Party’s First Defeat Since Decolonization, Brazil: Two Ex-Cops Who Confessed to Killing Marielle Franco Get Long Prison Terms

Harris and Trump in Swing State of Pennsylvania on Last Day of Campaigning Before Election, Protesters Center Abortion Rights in Preelection Women’s March to White House, Israel’s Genocidal Assault on Northern Gaza Continues as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA, Progressive Reps Warn U.S. Involvement in Middle East Unlawful as Pentagon Sends More Arms to Israel, “No Votes for Genocide”: Protesters in NYC Decry U.S. Support for Israel Ahead of Nov. 5, King Felipe Taunted by Angry Crowds as He Visits Flood-Stricken Valencia, Int’l Biodiversity Conference Ends with New Indigenous U.N. Body, No Deal on Financing, Moldova’s EU-Aligned President Maia Sandu Wins Second Term, Prosecutors in Republic of Georgia Investigating Election Fraud After Disputed Polls, More Accounts from Sudan of Rape Being Used as Weapon of War, Genocide, Bad Bunny Performs at Rally for Puerto Rico’s Center-Left, Third-Party Coalition Alianza, Ex-Cop Brett Hankison Found Guilty of Violating Breonna Taylor’s Civil Rights, Faces Life in Prison, Pioneering Music Producer Quincy Jones Has Died at 91

All eyes are on Michigan as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battle over undecided voters in the crucial swing state, including many of the state’s 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters who reject both the Republican and Democratic parties’ stance on Israel and Palestine. We speak to Dearborn, Michigan’s Lebanese American Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who is the first Arab and Muslim mayor of the city, about many of his constituents’ loss of support for the Democratic Party and how the Arab American vote could impact the presidential election. Hammoud, like many Dearborn residents, has lost extended family to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, and describes the climate in the city as “a blanket of grief.” Having called for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, he refused to meet with Trump last week, but has also declined to endorse Harris. Hammoud calls on voters to not sit out the election entirely, but to “vote their moral conscience, and says the citizens of Dearborn are “willing to put people over party, first and foremost.”

Harris and Trump Make Final Pitches in What Could Be One of Closest Elections in Modern U.S. History, PA Judge Allows Elon Musk to Go Ahead with $1M Daily Giveaway Scheme for Swing State Voters, Israel Kills 70+ People in Gaza over Past Day, Launches More Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, Aid Entering Gaza at Just 6% of Pre-Genocide Deliveries as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA, “Not the End of the Semester”: State Dept. Says Too Early to “Grade” Israel on North Gaza Actions, At Least 4 West Bank Palestinians Killed as Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Deadly Attacks, Death Toll from Israeli Assault on Lebanon Tops 3,000 After More Deadly Strikes This Week, Syria Blasts Israeli Airstrikes Near Damascus, Which Killed at Least 2 People, Putin Hosts Pyongyang Officials as NATO Calls North Korean Troops in Ukraine War an “Escalation”, White Ex-Cop Found Guilty of Murder in Andre Hill Shooting, Two Ohio Officers Charged with Reckless Homicide in Killing of Frank Tyson, Boeing Workers Approve New Contract with 43% Raises Over 4 Years, Ending Costly Weekslong Strike

Ari Berman, the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, details how pro-Trump forces may try to throw out the results of the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins, with a focus on the swing state of Georgia, the “epicenter” of Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. “It’s very dangerous to imagine what people who don’t believe in free and fair elections can do when given the power to oversee those very elections,” says Berman.

As Latino voters are a key voting bloc in the 2024 presidential election in battleground states like Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania, they have been targeted by a rise in Spanish-language misinformation. Most of the false messaging disparages Kamala Harris and supports Donald Trump, says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino USA, which investigated the phenomenon in a new episode called “The Misinformation Web.” She interviewed some of the content creators in this “blob” of online vitriol and says there is almost no effective content moderation online, nor many reliable fact-checking sources in Spanish to counter the lies.

Donald Trump Wins Presidency After Kamala Harris Underperforms in Swing States, Republicans Win Senate Majority for First Time Since 2020, House of Representatives Remains Up for Grabs as Vote Counting Continues, Voters in 7 States Approve Abortion Rights Measures; 3 Others Fail, Protests Erupt Across Israel After Netanyahu Fires War Chief Yoav Gallant, Palestinians Condemn Biden’s Support for Israeli Military as Assault on Gaza Continues, Israeli Raids on Occupied West Bank Kill 8, Wound Child and Photojournalist, Israeli Strike on Residential Building Kills 20 in Beirut Suburb, NGOs Ask U.N. Human Rights Council to Probe Israel’s Assault on Lebanon, U.K. Authorities Drop Terrorism Charges for Retired Academic Who Advocated for Palestinian Rights, Rudy Giuliani Empties Prized Possessions from Manhattan Home Following $148M Defamation Judgment

Donald Trump has been reelected president of the United States. Ahead of Kamala Harris’s expected concession speech, we speak to professors Carol Anderson and Michele Goodwin to discuss Harris’s historic campaign — and historic loss. “The Confederacy won,” says Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University. “It paints a picture of what Americans are willing to embrace,” says Goodwin, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown and an expert on healthcare law, who warns of the public health dangers of a second Trump administration and discusses the election’s implications for reproductive rights.

Donald Trump’s performance in the 2024 election surpassed expectations, with the candidate winning the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia and picking up larger shares of more diverse segments of the electorate, including Black and Latino male voters. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, says the blame lies squarely on the Harris campaign, which refused to differentiate itself from unpopular incumbent President Joe Biden. “The problem here is with the leadership of the Democratic Party,” adds John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation. Nichols and Taylor discuss how Democrats “demobilized” young voters and grassroots organizers, to their electoral detriment. “Donald Trump, as a president who has very few guardrails, has the potential to take horrific actions,” says Nichols. For those seeking to oppose him, says Taylor, “There’s a lot of rebuilding that has to be done.”

Kamala Harris Concedes to Trump as Data Show Majority of U.S. Voting Groups Swung Right, Democrats Lose Montana Senate Seat, Hold On to Nevada & Michigan as Fate of House Remains Unknown, Puerto Rico’s Third-Party Leftist Alliance Appears to Narrowly Lose Governorship to Trump Ally, Elon Musk Becomes Even Richer After Trump Win; Trump Reportedly Taps Brian Hook for State Dept., Special Counsel Jack Smith Winds Down Cases Against Trump, Who May Also Avoid NY and GA Trials, Immigrants Waiting Near U.S. Border Could Face Even More Treacherous Conditions with Trump in Power, Israeli Strikes Kill 27 Palestinians; Military Says It Won’t Let Northern Gaza Residents Return, 40 Killed as Israel Bombs Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley and City of Baalbek, North Korean Troops Enter Combat in Russia as Moscow and Pyongyang Agree to Mutual Defense Pact, German Coalition Government Collapses After Olaf Scholz Fires Finance Minister, Toxic Smog Shrouds Pakistan’s Punjab, Leaving Hundreds Hospitalized with Respiratory Ailments, Thousands Ordered to Evacuate Southern California Wildfires, Hurricane Rafael Collapses Cuba’s Power Grid, Made Vulnerable by U.S.-Led Embargo

With former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, we speak with Pakistani author and columnist Fatima Bhutto. Bhutto is an award-winning author and writes a monthly column for Zeteo on world affairs. She criticizes Kamala Harris’s campaign for relying heavily on celebrity endorsements and vague appeals to “joy” while silencing dissent on Gaza as the Biden administration continues backing Israel. “You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy,” says Bhutto.

Trump Taps Campaign Co-Chair Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff as His Electoral College Tally Hits 301, House Control Undecided with Republicans Leading Dems, Expanding Senate Control, “Project 2025 Is the Agenda”: Trump Allies Gleefully Flaunt Far-Right Plans in Wake of Election, Judge Tosses Program That Would Allow Undocumented Spouses to Stay in U.S. During Legal Process, “We Are the Solution”: New Yorkers Vow to Fight Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Israel Attacks Another School Shelter, Killing 12 Palestinians, as North Gaza Remains on Precipice, Israel Acquires 25 Boeing Fighter Jets, Paid For by U.S. as Part of “Aid” Package, Spain Rejects Arms Ships Headed for Israel; Canadian Palestinians Sue Trudeau Gov’t over Genocide, New York Activists to Launch Hunger Strike for Gaza Outside U.N., Joining Global Protest Movement, Israel Kills More Civilians in Attacks on Lebanon, Levels Historic Structures, U.N. Report Finds Wealthy Nations Have Given a Pittance Toward Climate Finance Pledges, Unprecedented Wildfires in Bolivia Scorch 75,000 Acres of National Park, Mozambique Police Kill 5, Wound Scores in Latest Crackdown on Protests over Contested Election, Australia Poised to Restrict Social Media Use for Children Under 16

Ex-ICE Dir. Thomas Homan, Trump’s Pick for “Border Czar,” Says U.S.-Born Children Could Be Deported, Trump Poised to Sweep Swing States; Democrat Gallego Defeats Trump Ally Kari Lake in AZ Senate Race, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Not Resigning Before Biden Leaves Office, FBI Probes Racist Text Message Campaign Against Black Americans Referencing Slavery, Israel Kills Dozens of Members of the Same Family in Jabaliya as Genocidal Attacks Continue, Israel Kills at Least 4 More Palestinian Journalists in Gaza, Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Lebanon, Including 10 Paramedics, Kremlin Denies Reports of Trump-Putin Call as Ukraine and Russia Both Launch Drone Strikes, COP29 Kicks Off in Azerbaijan; Summit Leader Secretly Filmed Negotiating Fossil Fuel Deals, Greta Thunberg Shuns COP29, Calls for Protests Against Azerbaijan Human Rights Abuses, Amsterdam Police Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protesters After Israeli Hooligans Wreak Havoc in City, Haiti’s Interim PM Ousted by Transitional Council as Violence, Humanitarian Crisis Worsens, Train Station Blast Kills 26 in Pakistan; Thousands Rally to Demand Release of Former PM Imran Khan

The FBI is investigating a spate of racist text messages targeting Black Americans in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory last week. The texts were reported in states including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, addressing recipients as young as 13 by name and telling them they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation” and other messages referencing slavery. For more, we speak with Robert Greene II, a history professor at Claflin University, South Carolina’s first and oldest historically Black university in Orangeburg, where many students were targeted. “Initially when I heard about the texts, I thought it was a bit of a hoax, but … it quickly became clear that this wasn’t just a Claflin problem, it was a national issue, as well,” says Greene. We also speak with Wisdom Cole, senior national director of advocacy for the NAACP, who says “this is only the beginning,” with a second Trump administration expected to attack civil rights and embolden hate groups.

Thousands attended a Palestine Festival of Literature event about “America and the War on Palestine” at the historic Riverside Church in New York Sunday, featuring conversations about U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses. The literary festival, known as PalFest, aims to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle through arts and letters. The acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates moderated the conversations, including one featuring the Palestinian human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat. “This is about all of us,” says Erakat. “The fact that Palestinian children have been evaporated, beheaded, killed in NICU, their NICU system, rotted in NICU beds, right? And their parents have had to collect their flesh to weigh it in rice bags in order to bury them, right? At this point, there should have been mercy.”

Israel Fails to Meet 30-Day U.S. Deadline to End Starvation Campaign in Northern Gaza , Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs as Defense Minister Rules Out Ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel’s Smotrich Lauds Trump’s Victory, Orders Preparations to Illegally Annex West Bank, GOP to Retake House Majority, Cementing Party’s Control Over All Branches of U.S. Government, Trump to Nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Trump Taps Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Trump Nominates SD Gov. Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary, Trump Selects Foreign Policy Hawk GOP Rep. Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser, Ex-VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to Head Pentagon Transition Despite Mishandling Sexual Assault Report, White Nationalist Anti-Immigrant Adviser Stephen Miller to Return to Trump White House , Trump Taps Former Rep. Lee Zeldin to Lead EPA, Considers Moving the Agency from D.C., Trump Refuses to Sign Presidential Transition Ethics Agreement as Required by Law, House GOP Bill Would Grant President Power to Target Nonprofit Organizations, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé Sworn In as Haiti’s Prime Minister, Promises New Elections, Firefighters Battle Blazes Across the Northeast as the U.S. Faces Record Drought, 2024 Was a “Master Class in Climate Destruction”: U.N. Issues Dire Warning at COP29, Dutch Court Overrules Landmark Decision That Required Shell to Accelerate Emissions Cuts

Read A Big Spicy Mayo No No

Customer: "I need your help! I'm looking for [brand] of spicy mayo!"
Me: "It can be found on aisle nine, top shelf in the middle."
Customer: "I know! I was just there! The label said it should be there, but it's not! You haven't put them where they should be!"

Read A Big Spicy Mayo No No

Read The Customer Used “Call Corporate”: It Was Not Very Effective

Customer: "Well if you're not going to be doing [possibly illegal thing] for me then I suppose I will just need to call your Corporate office!"
Me: *Not skipping a beat.* "Well, actually I think you’d be better off contacting Jane Lastname at the regional office; here’s her card."

Read The Customer Used “Call Corporate”: It Was Not Very Effective

The Hon'ble Madras High Court in the case of Asir Automobiles (P.) Ltd. v. Assistant Commissioner (ST), Tuticorin [Writ Petition (MD) No. 3785 to 3789 of 2024 dated July 24, 2024] held that when the Assessee had reversed credit availed on the supplies that were returned for which the supplier had is

The Hon'ble Madras High Court in the case of M/s S.R.S. Construction v. The State Tax Officer (Data Analytics) [Writ Petition (MD) Nos. 16214 & 16276 of 2024 dated July 19, 2024] set aside the orders which have been signed by the same officer in dual capacity, holding that such orders are liable to

The Hon'ble Karnataka High Court in the case of Hitachi Energy India Ltd. v. State of Karnataka and Ors. [Writ Petition No. 14111 of 2024 dated July 02, 2024] allowed the writ petition and further affirmed that the date of provisional acknowledgment for appeal filed would be considered as the date o

The Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of M/s Sanjay Sales India v. Principal Commissioner of Department of Trade and Taxes, Government of NCT, Delhi [Writ Petition (Civil) No. 10234 of 2024 dated July 26, 2024] held that the application for the cancellation of the GST registration cannot be denie

The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of The Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes v. M/s Shankara Infrastructure Materials Ltd. [arising out of SLP (Civil) No. 5504 of 2022 dated October 14, 2024] granted leave and allowed appeal, wherein M/s. Shankara Infrastructure Materials Ltd. ("the Resp

LG has introduced a new stretchable display that can expand by 50% from its original size. This innovative technology allows the screen to grow from 12 inches to 18 inches with a simple pull. The display is designed to endure up

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Redeem Codes for Garena Free Fire Max on November 13, 2024: Gain an advantage over your opponents or enhance your character's appearance with these codes, offering in-game items for free. Acquire weapons, skins, diamonds, and more through these codes. Garena Free Fire

In a surprising twist, Elon Musk is joining the Trump administration: not to advise on artificial intelligence or space innovation, but to lead an ambitious new project focused on government efficiency. Alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk will head up the Department

A few months ago, we asked a trivia question about Steve Jackson Games titles. For this installment, we're starting with the easier version of an obvious question because, in my opinion, the other version of it is a bit trickier . . .

Our database has thousands of items running across the past, present, and future of our company. The question for this post is two-fold:

• What is the last item alphabetically that is currently available for sale, and . . .

• What is the last item alphabetically that is a complete game and currently available for sale?

For those who may want a hint, here's a clue in ROT13 format: Gur gjb vgrzf ner pybfryl eryngrq . . .

If you want to chat about your guesses, feel free to do so on the forums. Answers will come sometime in the future!

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: Do More With Less?

GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations lets you add more flavor and power to GURPS abilities by making them less-than-ideal in some circumstances, or giving them a vulnerable point. In addition to an authoritative compilation of limitations, it also includes new options and insight to make limitations come to life . . . and perhaps provides a way to get the few extra points you need to make your ability awesome! It's just a download away from Warehouse 23!

November 5 is Election Day. I'll get back to that in a minute.

But first . . . Once upon a time I did not believe in conspiracy theories. That's why I enjoyed creating Illuminati and INWO. They showed the world through the eyes of a few complete nutballs, and it was a fun place to visit.

Things have changed, and not in a good way. The Internet made it easy for the nutballs to find each other and set up an echo chamber, and a tragic number of people found the simplicity of a Great Evil Conspiracy to be very attractive, compared to the messy complexities of the real world.

Also, some people REALLY ARE awful, and the net let THEM get together, too.

So now I really do believe in one conspiracy theory. If we were to diagram it as an INWO card layout, it would look like this . . .

At the center we have the Illuminati, of course. If we have to pick an analog from the game the Gnomes of Zurich are closest, though the power-mad Bavarians run a close second. At any rate, the real Illuminati here are a loose, but busy, cabal of billionaires who range from "very conservative" through "extremist," plus more than a few of those complete nutballs we were talking about. Between them, they have trillions of dollars to buy everything from individual votes to Supreme Court decisions. And they do.

Surrounding the billionaires are their high-level puppets. I'd assign those slots to:

• Donald Trump. He, in turn, controls the (Fanatic, Violent, Criminal, zero Power but high Transferrable Power) MAGAs. He thinks he controls the Republicans, but they are only paying lip service to him; they are clients of the billionaires.

• The Republican Party. The once-patriotic GOP has become a creature of the billionaires' whims. Yes, there are some decent Republicans left, but just by accepting the party's label they owe their positions to corruption. The Republicans, in turn, control the House of Representatives (still narrowly).

• The Supreme Court. You read the newspapers, right? Enough said. This pickup took decades for the Gnomes to achieve, and it's been worth every penny.

• Russia. Putin himself is part of the billionaire's club. The country, nukes and all, is his personal fiefdom.

We could extend this out to another level of extremists (hello NRA! Hello Cycle Gangs!) and puppets who won't admit who pulls their strings (hello, hello, Big Media!) but you get the idea.

Yep, I believe in one conspiracy now, and that's the one. No flat earth. No faked moon landings. Just a few people with a sizeable proportion of the world's wealth and the conviction that it makes them superior to the masses. And a lot of useful idiots, permitted to think they are free right up until they stop being useful.

After this election, you could be their property. It's the Golden Rule . . . When you have all the gold, you make all the rules.

So, getting back to the election. It's very important that you vote. You can't vote against the Illuminati who are trying to suck America dry. All you can do is vote against their tools. At this stage of the game that is ALL you can do, but it's a start.

Please vote for Kamala Harris. Please vote for the Democratic candidates for state and national offices. Even if you feel that the Democratic platform is terrible. Because if the Democrats win, you'll at least be guaranteed another vote in four years. If the Illuminati win, it's game over.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Weapons For A Bygone Era

Add spice to your Victorian and Wild West campaigns with GURPS High-Tech: Adventure Guns. This catalog describes iconic and unusual firearms from the mid-19th and early-20th centuries, plus new rules and historical insight to make the era come alive. Don your 10-gallon hat or steampunk goggles, and download it today from Warehouse 23!

Imagine, if you will: an entire wargame, with strategic depth and intriguing possibilities . . . and the rules fit on one page.

If you're a long-time fan of Steve Jackson Games (or you saw the Daily Illuminator post from a couple of weeks ago), you know where we're going with this. One-Page Bulge – originally released in 1980 – did exactly what its title suggests, with Steve Jackson flexing his inimitable game-design skills to deliver a Battle of the Bulge wargame where the rules fit on one sheet of 8.5" × 11" double-sided paper.

This classic game is back with a new edition: One-Page Bulge Second Edition – in time for the 80th anniversary of the pivotal battle itself!

Thanks to Kickstarter (and fans like you), this updated version funded in 40 minutes! In honor of that success, we're providing a few more details about what makes it worth checking out.

One-Page Bulge Second Edition is being updated by Steve Jackson and wargame designer Dana Lombardy – two Hall of Fame designers working together to bring this classic game to a modern era. Find their behind-the-scenes insight about the new version on YouTube!

Some highlights of this edition include:

• New Random Event cards, with exciting events to represent unexpected battlefield surprises.
• A full-color mounted map.
• High-quality components, with two styles of counter sets to choose from (or get them both!).

According to GURPS Fourth Edition, which has an even better predictive track record than Illuminati if you pick your data points carefully, we're going to hit a milestone at midnight between December 31 and January 1:

The world will reach tech level 9! (Which is no doubt why so much Apple and Tesla stuff is being discounted right now.)

All our incomes will go up 50%!

I can hardly wait.

Thanks to Alden Loveshade for the tip.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Oops, All The Pyramids!

Imagine it: over 100 issues of Pyramid – nearly 5,000 pages of gaming goodness – covering all manner of genres, power levels, and possibilities – in a bundle at a fantastic price. Your imagination must be amazing, because Pyramid Volume 3 Bundle exists and awaits your download! All 122 issues from that era are in one package, a complete collection of GURPS goodness. Download this trove from Warehouse 23!

The best annual livestream about the worst video game ever made is back for 2024! 

• Munchkin Gift Pack
• Knightmare Chess
• Munchkin Starfinder: I Want It All!
• The Awful Green Things From Outer Space
• GURPS Girl Genius Sourcebook & Roleplaying Game

We recently asked a two-part trivia question: What is the last Steve Jackson Games item alphabetically we're currently still selling, and what is the last Steve Jackson Games item alphabetically that is a complete game we're currently still selling?

The (coded) hint was that the two items were closely related. Fans of Steve Jackson Games are probably quite familiar with the complete game – and any sense of suspense was no doubt thwarted by the images included with this post. It's none other than the super-selling Zombie Dice Horde Edition (though give yourself a pat on the back for any variation of Zombie Dice).

And the last still-for-sale item of any flavor? That'd be the Zombie Dice Pint Glass – still on Warehouse 23!

We're hope you didn't strain your braaiiiinnss too hard on that one, and perhaps we'll do this again in the not-too-distant future!

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: Colosseum To Believe 'Em

If the real world's got you down, consider an exciting new career as a gladiator! GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators presents all the details you need to add this era to your historical adventures . . . or mine it for ideas to include in other campaigns! With historical insight, rules, weapons, character options, and more, it's never been easier to bring gladiatorial glamour to your game. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

Over the next few weeks and months, you'll see social media posts discussing how companies cannot offer holiday bonuses or will have to cut employees due to Trump's tariffs (proposed or enacted).

Some of these stories may be fiction or cautionary tales that illustrate the price the average American pays for a politician's decision.

But I can 100% tell you this is a reality many business owners in the manufacturing sector now face.

If you aren't aware of how tariffs work, it's relatively simple. The company importing the goods from a foreign country pays the fee. If a company has to pay 20%, 60%, or 200% more to bring that item into the United States, who ultimately bears that cost? The American people.

Over the last few days, I have been talking at length with my factory representatives, figuring out how much of an item I need to order now to offset any expanded costs later. In addition, we are looking at where we can move manufacturing to outside of China (hard mode, not a lot of places outside of China or Europe produce boardgame components at the scale our industry uses).

I've been speaking with my shipping representatives about the increasing freight costs we expect to see with a rise in tariffs. We're already paying extreme freight prices, which will only go up as demand increases. The last time tariffs were levied on Chinese manufactured goods, freight costs went up.

Now I am in a position that forces me to examine how much we may need to raise prices if the most extreme of the proposed tariffs goes into effect.

I'm also trying to do right by my staff. But I can only do so much, you know? How long can business owners incur these costs, protect our staff, and not have consumers pay through the nose? Can I accept breaking even for the time being to keep my people employed and our games affordable? But what happens when the company starts losing money?

Many CEOs and business owners are staring down this reality right now. This isn't just a theoretical exercise. We have to plan for the worst.

So, what do I plan to do about this? I will be even more present in my local and state business associations that have direct links to policy makers in D.C. I will take every opportunity to speak directly to those who have a say in this new administration about why this isn't good for the economy. I'm just a tiny player in the world of manufacturing. But I do know the power of my voice. And more importantly, I know the power your voice holds as well.

You can start putting pressure on your elected (or newly elected) officials by writing, calling, or contacting them through their open channels (many of them love social media). Tell them you do not want these proposed tariffs, and let them know how these cost increases will impact you. Hold them to their promises. Make your voice heard. 

We are all in this together. 

– Meredith Placko

Warehouse 23 News: A Great Deal Of Adventure!

Excitement is in the cards with the Decks of Destiny for The Fantasy Trip. This collection of resources and reference material contains adversaries, rumors, combat options, and more to make your games of TFT fast and furious. Download this set today from Warehouse 23!