The holiday season is upon us, and our source of cocoa is going on strike. I hope the US Strategic Chocolate Reserve is well stocked, or Santa will go into withdrawal this Christmas eve.
(We ‘podmas celebrants have no worries, at least, unless the herring supplies are depleted.)
cocoa: like blood diamonds in Sierra Leone and Liberia – a fuel for violence in the Ivory Coast.
Let’s send the Writer’s Guild to harvest the cocoa. Then, we’ll get our chock’lit, and maybe we’ll also prevent Dukes of Hazzard II.
Why am I having flashbacks to Dr. Zoidberg on Futurama talking about anchovies?
“That stench! That horrible delicious stench!” Arrr nom nom nom nom!
Gotta have the Chocy’s! Dang it!
Good news! Congress is looking into the Televangelists’ Finances! Yay!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_re_us/televangelists_finances
tikistitch: “maybe we’ll also prevent Dukes of Hazzard II”
Too late: Dukes of Hazzard II
The official drink for ‘podmas celebrants is grog, isn’t it?
Herring should be a big thing in Minnesota, though? That is the yule-appetizer of choice in Scandinavia after all.
I keep my chocolate drawer well stocked for just such emergencies.
Dark chocolate, of course.
Fair trade, organically grown.
No chocolate sweat shops. I support the worker’s strike and hope they get better treatment.
When the herring run out don’t squid turn to cannibalism?
Or is that reserved for the Unspeakable Holidays.
I have one cocoa plant in my house, and it’s nowhere big enough to flower, and would require manual or gnat (!) fertilization, as well as another cocoa plant, because they’re not self-fertile.
Cocoa plants are nifty. The flowers, and thus the fruit, grows right out of the trunk, and they make pods that are like big stinky citrus fruit (it’s no durian, but still…), and the seeds inside each segment get pretty big as they mature.
I am not looking forward to chocolate prices going up. I love chocolate, and I will have my cry in the corner as a selfish consumer before coming out of it and looking at the bigger picture. After all, I am not cocoa for corruption.
Sweet Jesus, no chocolate!!!!
You’ve hit on the one thing that may see me praying to a higher being.
(Clutches head, kneels on floor, screams to the sky “Gooooooddddddd Nooooooooooooo”)
When the herring run out don’t squid turn to cannibalism?
They eat the Dutch, who have ingested so much pickled Herring that they take on the Herring flavor.
“Sweet Jesus, no chocolate!!!!”
Speaking of Jesus and chocolate… whatever happened to Chocolate Jesus? Maybe he can sacrifice himself for the cause. I’ve heard tell he’s good at that whole self-sacrifice thing. (and he even said “take and eat; this is my body that I give to you”!)
;)
Chcocolate Jesus ( aka The Candy Christ)
http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/jesii/230/
Actually, I was thinking of this guy: http://www.theproposition.com/wp/chocolate-saints-sweet-jesus/
There’s chocolate saints now too! (Mmmmm… holy…)
I have to think that this means that it would be unlikely to affect Christmas.
Hmmmm
Between now and then I’m gonna buy up tons and tons of Mars Bars then, come the shortage, I shall sell them to the desperate hoards at massive profit. I shall be the Chocolate Magnate of the World. All chocaholics shall bow at my feet. My plans for world domination are nigh.
Bwaa Haaa Haaa Haaa Haa (ok, evil laugh, you get the drift)
Well I won’t be buying an chocolate, I don’t want to cross any picket lines so to speak.
Good thing I have 2 cases of french vanilla hot cocoa mix on hand already – enough to get me through to spring.
Tom Waits – Chocolate Jesus
The strike is only going on for a few days so don’t panic.
It seems that the cocoa farming involves a lot of child labour/slavery, and because of the low price, many parents can’t afford to let the kids go to school.
Fair Trade and Chocolate
You can apply for Asylum in Switzerland if you want. We have plenty of chocolate on stock. Unfortunately the asylum laws are tough here and they probably won’t accept that you are prosecuted by your government (which is a condition to be granted asylum in Switzerland) even if you are an US atheist.
If the humanitarian crisis worsens, I might consider sending you a care package.
Ah, but how will this impact the supply of chocolate covered herring?
A PERSONAL CHOICE
When one looks at the achievements of Science, so far, in explaining the world, and the areas where there are still big question marks, one can look at it from two different, and in my view, perfectly acceptable perspectives:
The big question marks, I would say, are :
Why are the laws of nature what they are ? Is there a natural explanation ?
– Is there a natural theory that explains the constants of nature, can we reduce the numbers of free parameters to less, will a theory of quantum gravity show that the Big Bang was a purely natural phenomena ?
– How did the first live replicators come about on this planet. Again, does it have purely natural explanation ? In others words, is life a purely emergent property of matter and energy ?
– Is consciousness a purely emergent property of matter and energy ?
How many future nobel prizes will be won in trying to answer these questions ? LOTS !!!!
Philosophically, one can also ask the more general question, does what we know and do not know today indicate that the God hypothesis is justified ?
From an Atheist perspective :
there are still big question marks, but science has so far, always found natural explanations for the unexplained, so I believe that it will find natural explanations for all the above mentionned problems, so no, I do not see evidence that supports the God hypothesis. I do not see a need to make this hypothesis and it just complicates matters.
From a Theist perspective :
there are still big question marks, and science will continue to find explanations for the unexplained. When I look at the unexplained as a whole (and not of course, the individual problems which does not make sense as I also believe that there are some fundamental aspects of nature that we do not know, as of yet, and for which one will find natural explanations), I cannot decide, in a purely rational way, if there is, or not, a God. But then, why do I want to believe that there is a God ? Does this have, also, a purely rational explanation, or is there something more ? Isn’t that, the indication, for me, that there is a God ? Everytime I strip myself truly from any religious prejudice, why do I still want to see the universe that way ?
Please note, that, by definition, the Atheist believes that there is a perfectly rational and natural explanation for the fact that the Theist feels this need to believe in God. In most cases, he is right because a lot is based on ignorance. But believe me, I have met true Theists that have an extremely precise and detailed understanding of Science and I could not find any rational explanation, and certainly not ignorance.
This has been for me, the solution to the Christopher Hitchens Gambit : give me one example that, an Atheist can’t do, that a Theist can do :
“to feel the need to believe in God. ”
An Atheist, does not believe in God, therefore believes that the need to believe in God has a rational explanation. The theist sees it the other way around. There is always a Biais, one way, or another.
Tell me what you guys think …
(hopefully I won’t get cruxified by neither camp immediately)
sorry, my previous post was to be supposed to go in another thread.
Stupid, why did I put it here…
Good for them. The people who provide cocoa work under hideous conditions for very little reward: it’s about time they struck. My hope is for a speedy resolution to the strike with an utter win for the workers. And if that results in my paying an extra 2 cents per bar for chocolate, I’ll survive somehow.
Who knew that Ivory Coast was the OPEC of the chocolate world? Anyway – screw Santa. I’ll be in withdrawal by tomorrow if my chocolate supply dries up. Fortunately, it’s a renewable resource, and I’ll gladly pay more if it means fair conditions for the workers.
Don’t you see, it’s those damn secular-progressives and their War on Christmas.
Them the ones that dun it.
MAJeff wrote:
We used to have that flavor but now the amount of herring that can be catched has been significantly reduced (by 41%) to a mere 40 000 tonnes. If that keeps up we can’t even find a fish stand selling herring next year :/
So a cocoa strike right after we find out that bad hop harvests are threating to hurt beer production for up to three years…blood will flow in the streets if we don’t get a handle on this shit!
On second thought, perhaps this is just the set of hardships we need to get America really mad. Perhaps a lack of tasty brews and Dove bars will cause a rigid spine to form in the soft, fleshy hollow that houses the cartilage of democrat vertebrates.
Save The Earth
It is the only planet with chocolate.
“cocoa: like blood diamonds in Sierra Leone and Liberia – a fuel for violence in the Ivory Coast.”
Yes get the world’s best dark choclate from Caribbean people that really care and make sure everyone gets a fair break.
http://www.grenadachocolate.com/
If we can invade Iraq for non-existent WMDs, surely this calls for a full-scale invasion!