Here’s another reason to hate Valentine’s Day: that box of chocolates may be keeping a dictator in power or a child laborer enslaved. That’s what some advocacy groups want you to believe, anyway.Reuters reports that a few nonprofits have made it their mission to make “blood chocolate” the next “blood diamond.” They point to places like Ivory Coast, where they say the cocoa trade is helping prop up “the pariah regime” of President Laurent Gbagbo, as proof that global chocolate consumption is keeping some very unsavory people in power. They’re encouraging shoppers to skip the Kisses and instead “send a ‘valentine’ ” to Hershey Co., encouraging the Pennsylvania company not to buy cocoa that has been tainted by repressive governments or child labor.-slate

www.michaelpageart.com

Koch Industries is the country’s second-largest privately run company, but billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch once chose to stay on the sidelines of Washington politics, preferring to fund think tanks than to think up electoral strategy. That has all changed over the last few years, and now they’re using their deep pockets to make sure they have a seat at the table, particularly in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Koch Industries and its employees are the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the committee. Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-founded advocacy group, was instrumental in helping several Republicans get elected, and now most of the new GOP lawmakers on the panel have vowed to oppose President Obama’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. Even the panel’s new chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, who had long been criticized by conservatives for his middle-ground approach to environmental issues, is now forcefully pushing to limit the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency.-slate

The Empire Wears No Clothes is also available on iTunes:

Buy on iTunes

There was a problem if you recently tried to download the full album from this site. This is now be fixed. To download the full album in one zip file, click the “album” link at the top of the Music page.

Let us know what you think of the album!

The Wall is an open blog for every pawn to use themselves. Post an entry about anything that’s bothering you. Anything that you like. Good music you’ve heard. A review of APR’s debut album The Empire Wears No Clothes. Comments on this site’s design. People you like. People you don’t like. Whatever is on your mind right now.

All you need to do is register for an account and use the >POST link at the bottom of the site. You can register for a new account by clicking the >LOGIN link. Your post will be reviewed before it goes live to make sure you’re not trying to sell something, but this isn’t about censorship so say anything you want. Just show respect to others if you expect any respect back.