New in The Chocolate Room.

Fleur de Sel Caramels. I now have fleur de sel caramels. I don’t make these caramels myself, but I know someone who does, a woman from Holland who makes them really well. We trade chocolate for caramels. Fleur de sel is a type of sea salt. It looks like snow flakes. Fleur de sel is the top layer of newly crystallized sea salt. Most of it comes from Brittany in France, where it is hand harvested. The stuff is expensive, but a little bit goes a long way. I also have unsalted caramels.

Barack Obama. Shortly after he was elected president, Barack Obama told a reporter that his favorite candy was fleur de sel caramels, and immediately, demand for this candy skyrocketed. Before Obama was elected president, nobody ever asked me for fleur de sel caramels. Now everybody wants them. Ronald Reagan did the same thing for Jelly Bellies. Jelly Bellies used to be made in a small factory near the Oakland airport. After Reagan was elected president and it became known that Jelly Bellies were his favorite candy, sales took off. Over 3 tons of Jelly Bellies were sent to the White House for Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981. The Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield has the best factory tour in the bay area, and it’s free. It’s a great place to take families with kids.

My Nibiru Rent Discount

Remember Nibiru? That’s the phantom planet inhabited by Jewish space reptiles that people thought was going to crash into the Earth on December 21, the date that the Mayan calendar came to an end. In my September tenant newsletter I said that if Nibiru crashed into the Earth in December, all my tenants could take 10% off their January rent. Well, December has come and gone, and alas, the Earth I still here, so there will be no Nibiru rent discount. Too bad. To be honest, I’m not really sorry about this. If Nibiru had crashed into the Earth, the Earth would have been destroyed, which would have significantly reduced the market value of my rental properties. Of course, I have insurance on my properties, but I don’t know if my policies cover the complete destruction of the Earth. Besides, even if my insurance does cover the end of the world, how would I collect?

Were these people serious? Yes. Millions of people around the Earth were anxiously anticipating the arrival of Nibiru on December 21. At last count, there are 300 books on the market about Nibiru. In addition, there are literally millions of web sites about Nibiru. The true believers haven’t given up. Most of them now say that they just got the date wrong, but that Nibiru is still coming, only somewhat later than originally predicted. Even though December 21 has come and gone, companies making Nibiru shelters are still receiving new orders. A fully furnished Nibiru shelter can cost over $100,000, payable in advance.


Is Barack Obama a Shape-Shifting Space Lizard? Yes! At least according to the ‘experts’ on Nibiru. According to David Icke,  the world’s best-known ‘expert’ on space reptiles, Queen Elizabeth II and George W. Bush are among the many politically powerful space reptiles who secretly control the world. Who knew? David Icke has written many books on the subject of space reptiles, most of which can be purchased from Amazon. Numerous web sites now also claim that Pope Benedict recently unveiled a ‘reptilian Jesus sculpture’ at the Vatican for devout Catholics to worship. These people believe that the pope secretly controls the space reptiles on Nibiru by means of his ‘pope scope’. For more information about this whacky theory, go to You Tube and type in ‘Vatican reptilian Jesus.’

Why did the Mayans get it wrong? They didn’t! The Mayans did not predict that the Earth would end in 2012. There are over 3,000,000 Mayans living in Mexico and Guatemala right now, and none of them were getting ready for the world to end. December 21, 2012 was just the ending date of their calendar. Nothing more. All calendars have a starting and ending date. For example, the calendar on my office wall has an ending date of December 31, 2013. The calendar on your wall probably has the same ending date. That doesn’t mean that the company that made my wall calendar expects the world to end on December 31, 2013.

Why didn’t Nibiru crash into the Earth?
I have always been a firm believer in Occam’s Razor, which states that the most obvious solution to any problem is usually the correct one. The most obvious explanation for why Nibiru didn’t crash into the Earth and why nobody has ever seen Nibiru is that Nibiru doesn’t exist. If a planet was actually heading towards the Earth, you wouldn’t need a ‘pope scope’ to see it.  It would be plainly visible, not just to astronomers, but to everyone. For at least a month before its arrival, a planet headed towards the Earth would be the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon.