Halloween week without chocolate is simply a crime. We must fill our quota! Luckily, I have the perfect solution..

After teasing you with this dessert the other week (and seeing you lose your mind over it) I figured I better deliver the goods. I set a lofty goal of making this chocolate pie as friendly to as many different dietary needs as I could. I always love a good challenge in the kitchen; it keeps me on the brink of crazy town.

In addition to being vegan, this pie is also gluten-free, grain-free, and nut-free. A Halloween miracle if you ask me!

It’s also free of self-control because it’s impossible to have any when this pie is near. Obviously.

Halloween chocolate quota fulfilled. Check, check, GULP.

After drowning myself in chocolate, I’m absolutely thrilled with the final result. Plus, now I have a freezer full of chocolate pie for a couple parties we’re hosting this week. [Eric said, “Well that’s if I don’t eat it all first!”]

And of course, let’s not forget HALLOWEEN. Adriana is going as a carrot to balance out the chocolate. I know…she’s going to hate me. But come on, a newborn carrot bunting costume? JUST STOP.

Tip: I had major trouble with the pie crust sticking to the dish in an early trial. Eric saved the day with his genius solution. It involves three strips of parchment paper placed on the base of the dish, and then you cover it with a piece of plastic wrap on top. This way you can pull out the entire pie using the parchment paper. It still takes some wiggling to pop it out, but this worked so much better than my other attempt. Thanks Eric for letting me sleep at night. Note: The pictures below don’t show the parchment strips because it was an earlier trial.

Ok enough chit chat. I’d say there’s still time to whip up a crazy decadent, show-stealing, rich chocolate pie. And it’s no-bake to boot. Thirty minutes of prep and a few hours in the freezer is all that stands in your way. Nothing scary about that!

PS- Don’t mind the long recipe – I learned a lot of tips as I made this pie so I wanted to be as helpful as I could when writing up the recipe.

PS – Looking for other Halloween recipes? You’re in luck – I have 3 pages of recipes

PPS – Don’t forget there is still time to enter The Oh She Glows Tea Shoppe giveaway!

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Technology can be pretty wonderful sometimes. Case in point: Warblr, an app that uses sound recognition tech and your phone's GPS signal to identify birdsongs. The application first pinpoints where you are (it'll debut in the United Kingdom), and...

When autumn comes around, we always look forward to seeing all the vibrant gold and red colors in natural landscapes. Here’s a small sample of the splendid photography that’s showing up in a fall foliage search on Flickr for this year.

Gunnison, Colorado.
“The clonal nature of aspen is never more apparent than in fall, when clones can be distinguished by their varied hues.” – Jeff Mitton

Algoma, Ontario, Canada.
“Looking down Landslide Valley and the blaze of fall colours. In 1926, Willard Isaiah Thayer (1872-1956) opens Hiawatha Lodge and Recreation Park in the Hiawatha Highlands, overlooking Landslide Valley. During the 1920’s Thayer develops the area around Crystal Falls and Landslide Valley as a tourist destination for: hiking / nature trails, camping, swimming, fishing and skiing. Thayer, a local entrepreneur, started Thayer Lumber Company in 1910, had various interests in forestry, saw milling, aggregate extraction (Landslide Valley), and tourism. Kinsmen Park was created by Thayer’s donation of land to the local Kinsmen Club. In the 1970’s the City of Sault Ste. Marie bought the rest of Thayer’s estate to create a conservation area.” – twurdemann

North Idaho.

North Elba, New York.
“Contrasting a great landscape with “good” light in the sky is the most obvious approach to landscape photography. This means the biggest amount of freedom in composition and the highest potential epicness, if the conditions are cooperative. However, I’ve excluded the sky more often in my photos lately and often like the results even more than the photos I take with the obvious way. This is a wonderful example of these tendencies. It will probably end up being my favourite composition from the Adirondacks, condensing the place to its essence. It’s a stand of colorful trees beside the Cascace Lakes right next to the road between Lake Placid and Keene.” – Jan Zwilling

Eastern Oregon.

Madawaska River, Burnstown, Ontario, Canada.

Shenandoah, Virginia.

Holyoke & Easthampton, MA

Enjoy, and share, more photography in the Colorful fall landscapes gallery.

File this Pets Universal compilation under "cute" and "headlines that made no sense before 2012." Read the rest

85% of domestic violence shelters work with women who have been GPS-tracked by their abusers; 75% have clients who were attacked with hidden mobile surveillance apps; cops routinely steal and share nude selfies from the phones of women pulled over in traffic stops, and NSA spies used agency's massive, illegal surveillance apparatus to stalk women they were sexually attracted to, a practice that was dubbed "LOVEINT." Read the rest

Adelaide wanted to dress up this year. Cc @baital & @fishheadned

Richard Berman -- called "Dr Evil" by both friends and enemies -- laid out the dirty tricks (PDF) needed to defeat environmental groups and labor activists to a Western Energy Alliance summit, and was so grossly offensive that one exec recorded him and leaked a transcript. Read the rest

The Trans Pacific Partnership is the latest in a series of secretly negotiated sweeping "trade deals" that allow companies to sue governments to repeal environmental and labor laws, expand Internet censorship and surveillance, and a host of other nasties. Read the rest

[via]

Problems experienced during a test flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo may have resulted in the death of one of its two crewmembers, according to early and unconfirmed reports surfacing on Twitter. Read the rest

"A Virginia Beach Circuit Court this week ruled that an individual in a criminal proceeding cannot be forced to divulge the passcode to his cellphone as it would violate the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. At the same time, the Court held that an individual can be compelled to give up his fingerprint to unlock Touch ID, or any fingerprint protected device for that matter." - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

I agree with Handler's statement. If men's nipples are OK with Instragram, then women's should be, too.

You scratch an itch to cause pain, which soothes the itch. Then your body releases serotonin to reduce the pain, and the itch flares up. Read the rest

10 reminders from the sugar industry to eat lots of healthful candy this Halloween!

The Wild Bunny made this excellent Minecraft Creeper apron.

After 100,000 Hungarians took to the street in opposition to a per-megabyte tax on their Internet usage, the autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban (whose election was characterized by outside observers as "free but not fair") was forced into a rare climbdown. Read the rest

Some thoughts on Jian Ghomeshi, about whom I feel entitled to opine because I was once a guest on his show — talking about the little fundraising thing I did last year which included RAINN, an interview which now in retrospect is sadly ironic.

(For those of you not up on this, Mr. Ghomeshi was a radio show host in Canada, who was let go by the CBC because of then-mysterious reasons. Mr. Ghomeshi took to Facebook to allege that he was fired because he participated in consensual BDSM play which was now being used against him by vengeful exes, and sued CBC for wrongful termination “breach of confidence and bad faith.” Since then a number of women have come forward to allege totally non-consensual abuse and/or harrassment at the hands of Mr. Ghomeshi.)

So, a numbered list.

1. There’s nothing wrong with consensual BDSM play; if that’s your thing and you can get other people to go along with it in a safe and consenting manner, then you kids have fun with that.

2. Suddenly smacking the hell out of someone and/or choking them without prior discussion or agreement is pretty much the opposite of consensual BDSM play, now, isn’t it. (Note: this is a rhetorical question. The answer is: Yes, it is the opposite.)

3. As a matter of law (to the extent that I know anything about Canadian/Ontario provincial law, which I don’t so I might be entirely wrong), Mr. Ghomeshi is innocent until proven guilty. Currently there is no criminal investigation against Mr. Ghomeshi. (Update, 8pm: Toronto police have opened an investigation.)

4. The procedurally laudable governmental presumption of innocence does not mean, however, that as a matter of opinion, one cannot believe the allegations against Mr. Ghomeshi. As a matter of personal opinion, I believe the women who are coming forward and saying that Mr. Ghomeshi attacked, abused and harassed them. I could be wrong, but I don’t really think that I am.

5. I think it’s possible that Mr. Ghomeshi deluded himself into thinking these attacks equated to consensual sexual play, which is both not an excuse at all, and a good argument for availing one’s self of educators in that particular field who can teach one how to do one’s play safely and to know what “consensual” actually means. However, I think it’s rather more likely that Mr. Ghomeshi, who is a full-fledged adult and someone with some evident facility for words, was in fact quite aware that what he was doing was not in the least consensual and relied on his position at the top of the Canadian cultural heap to protect him from the consequences of his actions, as indeed it appears to have done for a very long time.

6. If what is alleged against Mr. Ghomeshi is true, and to reiterate I rather strongly suspect that it is, then his being fired from the CBC is, bluntly, the least worst thing that could happen to him at this point. If the allegations are true, he deserves a stint in prison, full stop, end of sentence.

7. It was canny of Mr. Ghomeshi to try to frame his assaults in the context of BDSM, but also disingenuous and false. BDSM is not my thing, but I know a lot of people for whom it is. None of them would see what Mr. Ghomeshi did as something relating to their particular kink. Attacking someone without their consent isn’t about sexual gratification, it’s about the assertion of power — the ability to say “I can do this to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.” And sure, maybe Mr. Ghomeshi got a rise out of that, too. But at the end of the day choking a woman who is not consenting to the experience and saying it’s BDSM is akin to stabbing someone in a bar and claiming it was a martial arts test match. Again, BDSM isn’t my thing, but it’s a thing I know enough about to know that what Mr. Ghomeshi was doing wasn’t that.

8. The irony of the above point is that if it really was about BDSM (which it was not), then there was no reason for any of that to happen. What little I know about BDSM is that those who enjoy it are happy to share and to teach and to provide a safe space for that enthusiasm. Mr. Ghomeshi, I am certain, would not have lacked for willing, consenting partners — if this was really about consensual sexual exploration and enjoyment. But, again, I don’t really think it was ever about that.

9. I don’t know Mr. Ghomeshi other than through a very brief professional encounter. I don’t envy the people who do know him who are now learning about the allegations and who suspect that they are true. What do you do with a friend like that? Do you drop him? Do you maintain he is your friend but acknowledge what he’s done is wrong? Do you fight for your friend, right or wrong? One of Mr. Ghomeshi’s friends addressed this in a post of his own, which is worth reading. I don’t have any answers for this one. I know what I think I would want to do; I don’t know if it’s what I would do because I’ve never had to be in this situation. What I can say is that I hope I never am in this situation.

10. To reiterate, because it’s important: I believe the women who have come forward to allege assault and harassment. It’s been noted by other people better able to testify on the subject that one of the most radical things you can do when a woman speaks up about abuse and harassment is to believe her. Which initially seems like an incredible statement to someone like me, who is almost always believed by default when he chooses to speak up about something. I have that luxury. Not everyone does. It’s a fact I strongly suspect Mr. Ghomeshi knew, and used.

jabberwockypie:

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

capriceandwhimsy:

lycklighypokonder:

this picture is making me really angry

can someone more eloquent than I am please comment with a list of badass female warriors/soldiers in history because i know there have been quite a lot

Tomoe Gozen. 12th Century Japan. Concubine of Minamoto no Yoshinaka, and one of his most famous warriors, called a Demon in Battle and renowned as a swordswoman and archer. Was ordered to flee the final destruction of the Minamoto Clan at the end of the Genpei War by her Lord. While leaving the battlefield, encountered a group of enemy soldiers: rode straight into their formation, pulled their leader out of his saddle, pinned him against her horse, and took his head. She then vanishes from history, never to be heard from again.

Queen Boudicca. Britain, first Century AD. Queen of the Iceni tribe of Celts. After her daughters were raped and she was flogged and humiliated by Roman soldiers, led the Iceni and other tribes of Britain in revolt, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of Roman soldiers and a near-rout from the British peninsula. Was finally defeated by the Roman general Suetonius, and committed suicide to avoid capture. Is probably the only woman to have her statue in a city she burned to the ground (London).

Princess Zhao Pingyang. 7th Century China. Daughter of Emperor Gaozu. Raised an army on his behalf and led them into battle. Was given full military honors upon her death: one of the only women so honored in Medieval China.

——-

Queen Suryothai, 16th Century Siam (Thailand). Fought in single combat against a Burmese Viceroy, sacrificing herself to save the life of her husband and King.

——-

Aethelflaed of Mercia. 10th Century Britain. Well known for her skills as a tactician and for building many of the castles in Mercia that still stand to this day.

——-

Khawlah bint al-Azwar. 7th Century Arabia, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Once rallied a group of female prisoners into defeating their Byzantine captors using their tent poles. The namesake of the UAE’s first women’s military college.

——-

Finally, let me tell you about what the women were doing while the men were out in some cold, wet field, having their bodies hacked at with swords and axes. They weren’t sitting around a hearth gossiping with their friends. While the men were out fighting, the women were working the fields every day, bringing in the harvests, slaughtering animals, butchering, preserving meat, working their goddamn asses. off. They kept the houses secure. They repaired roofs and spun wool into thread and wove thread into cloth: difficult work today, backbreaking in medieval times. Often times, they did these things while pregnant or raising small children.

They faced disease, starvation, and the constant threat of having some band of raiders come in and rape, pillage, plunder, and slaughter them while their menfolk were off fighting in war. Medieval women, even those who did not fight, were hard, determined, and skilled experts in the arts of survival, farming, weaving, spinning, and motherhood who engaged in backbreaking labor that often killed them at a young age, and they deserve better than to have some adolescent-minded asshole sitting in his warm, comfortable first-world home rant about “feminine privilege.”

So fuck you, original poster. I hope you step on a LEGO.

Did my best to fix it

~Ozzie

You’d think someone who lives so detached from reality would give fantasy artists and writers more credit… 

- wincenworks

This pleases me.

“After my initial ugh-am-I-running-a-fever excitement at “Captain Marvel,” it hit me that there would be no Black Widow solo movie between now and 2018. The earliest one can pop up now is in the back half of 2019. It then hit me that there are going to be people — let’s call them Trollface Haters — that will try to pit the Carol Corps against Widow’s Warriors (I dunno, that’s the name I just pulled out) as if there was only one slot for a female lead and Carol snatched it away from Natasha. First of all, even if there really was a blank on a whiteboard in Marvel Studios meeting room with “(FEMALE LEAD)” under it, that doesn’t mean that attitude is right. Just as there’s room for multiple movies with white men right there in the title (“Ant-Man,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Doctor Strange,” “Thor: Ragnarok”), there should be room for multiple women and people of color in every phase of every cinematic universe. It should never be a question of Cap or Widow. The two represent vastly different types of leads who would carry drastically different movies; with her outer space origins and swagger, “Captain Marvel” will probably have more in common with the first “Iron Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” than it would ever have with “Black Widow.”

The way that I’ve seen anonymous askers on Tumblr and Twitter gremlins try to make fans choose between Captain Marvel and Black Widow reminds me of important advice Kelly Sue DeConnick gave a panel room a New York Comic Con.

“One of the things — and this is going to make me sound like I have a tinfoil hat, but it’s a fact — one of the things they will try to do is they will try to turn you against each other,” said DeConnick of the naysayers and misogynists of the world that constantly try to act as fandom gatekeepers. “That’s how they win. It’s this bullshit where they’re like, ‘Well, would Carol or Wonder Woman win?’ You guys, they’re both good guys. They wouldn’t fight, dumb ass — they would bury you.””

- Brett White, It’s Not a Question of “Captain Marvel” Vs. “Black Widow” (via fuckyeahblackwidow)

syfycity:

A great image with a philosophical tone.

“If we actually started calling bullying what it is and address it as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fat phobia and classism it would actually give children a better way to deal with the very same power dynamics they will face as adults, while also giving adults more responsibility to challenge the intolerance that is rooted within our society overall.”

-

- Amanda Levitt at Fat Body Politics (October 5th, 2012)

Hey! That’s me!

(via fatbodypolitics)

AlbanX writes The Australian Government has introduced a bill that would require telecommunications carriers and service providers to retain the non-content data of Australian citizens for two years so it can be accessed — without a warrant- by local law enforcement agencies. Despite tabling the draft legislation into parliament, the bill doesn't actually specify the types of data the Government wants retained. The proposal has received a huge amount of criticism from the telco industry, other members of parliament and privacy groups. (The Sydney Morning Herald has some audio of discussion about the law.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

samisbamboozled:

spookyscaryfrog:

I have headcanons about what vampires should be.

Pay them in blood to tell us what is at the bottom of the ocean.

[sephko]

shadraquarium:

zodar:

konkeydongcountry:

brook:

montypla:

Gamer gate has been trying to use Bayonetta as a rallying point, and criticism of it as proof of a “feminist agenda” in reviews

They’ve been trying to get Hideki Kamiya, creator of Bayonetta, to support them

Well, he tweeted this today.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

the salt is so fucking real

THE DEVASTATOR

flawless