[SUBMITTED]Stakes before Cheese?

[Bears Armed]

Okay, here as promised is a draft issue about potential trade-offs between the Cheese Exports and Wood-chipping industries. Its title is obviously adapted from the RL slogan “Guns before Butter”, and all of the slogans used in the second option are also derived from RL ones…

Second draft:

Stakes before Cheese?

[validity]Cheese not banned
[argument]With demand for @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ cheese in decline, both at home and on the export market, the dairy industry is being challenged by the timber industry over its continued use of some publicly-owned lands.

[option]"If the dairies can't sell as much cheese as they used to then obviously they don't need as much milk, neither," says timber industry lobbyist @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ "so the country doesn't need such large herds of dairy cattle in the first place… So why not turn the sections of the Red-backed @@ANIMAL@@ Hills that are currently assigned for grazing over to us, so that we can make better use of that land by turning it into forestry plantations, instead?"
[validity]no added limits
[effect]milkmaids are retraining as lumberjacks
[stats]Cheese Exports industry declines, Pizza Delivery industry declines slightly, Wood-chipping Industry increases, Furniture Restoration industry increases slightly, Most Pro-Market increases slightly, Most Subsidised Industry decreases slightly, Best Weather increases slightly

[option]"Nonsense!" retorts @@RANDOMNAME@@, the chairperson of the Cheese Marketing Board. "The wonderful cheeses from that district are an important aspect of our fair land's traditional cuisine, all we need is a big advertising campaign — well, and maybe some help from the treasury in paying for that — to remind folks of the fact and I'm sure that sales will rise again. I can just hear some of the possible slogans now: 'Go to work on Toasted Cheese', 'Eat a pound-a Cheese a week', 'Cheddar is good for you'. And it's not as though the existing plantations around there yield much useful timber, anyway, the soil's wrong for that, so in fact it would make more sense to let us add those sections to our pastures."
[validity]no added limits
[effect]posters on every billboard urge people to 'Keep Calm & Eat Some Cheese'
[stats]Cheese Exports industry increases, Pizza Delivery industry increases slightly, Wood-chipping Industry decreases, Furniture Restoration industry decreases slightly, Most Pro-Market decreases slightly, Most Subsidised Industry increases, Culture increases slightly, Taxation increases slightly

[option]"Accursed are the cheese-makers," interjects Violetist Grand Poobah @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ who has pushed her way into this meeting. "For verily cheese is an abomination in the nose of Violet! Kill it, kill it with fire!! And kill the sinners who produce it, too!!!"
[validity]Religion not banned
[effect]the smell of toasting cheese is commonly accompanied by the screams of burning cheese-makers
[stats]Cheese is banned; Cheese Exports industry collapses, Pizza Delivery industry probably collapses, Economic Freedoms/Most Pro-Market decrease, Black Market increases; Wood-chipping industry increases (not just because of improved access to land, but to fuel those fires…); Civil Rights drop significantly, Religiousness increases, Godlessness decreases; deaths attributed to ‘Ritual Sacrifice’ increase

Logs before Cheese?

[validity]Cheese not banned
[argument]With demand for @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ cheese in decline, both at home and on the export market, the dairy industry is being challenged by the timber industry over its use of some publicly-owned lands.

[option]“If the dairies can’t sell as much cheese as they used to then obviously they don’t need as much milk, neither,” says timber industry lobbyist @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ “so the country doesn’t need such large herds of dairy cattle in the first place… So why not turn the sections of the Red-backed @@ANIMAL@@ Hills that are currently assigned for grazing over to us, so that we can make better use of that land by turning it into forestry plantations, instead?”
[validity]no added limits
[effect]milkmaids are retraining as lumberjacks
[stats]Cheese Exports industry declines, Pizza Delivery industry declines slightly, Wood-chipping Industry increases, Furniture Restoration industry increases slightly, Most Pro-Market increases slightly, Most Subsidised Industry decreases slightly, Best Weather increases slightly

[option]“Nonsense!” retorts @@RANDOMNAME@@, the chairperson of the Cheese Marketing Board. “The wonderful cheeses from that area are an important aspect of our country’s traditional cuisine, all we need is a big advertising campaign — well, and maybe some help from the treasury in paying for that — to remind folks of the fact and I’m sure that sales will rise again. I can just hear some of the possible slogans now: 'Go to work on Toasted Cheese', 'Eat a pound-a Cheese a week', 'Cheddar is good for you'. And it’s not as though the existing plantations around there yield much useful timber, anyway, the soil’s wrong for that, so in fact it would make more sense to let us add those sections to our pastures.”
[validity]no added limits
[effect]posters on every billboard urge people to ‘Keep Calm & Eat Some Cheese’
[stats]Cheese Exports industry increases, Pizza Delivery industry increases slightly, Wood-chipping Industry decreases, Furniture Restoration industry decreases slightly, Most Pro-Market decreases slightly, Most Subsidised Industry increases, Culture increases slightly, Taxation increases slightly

[option]“Accursed are the cheese-makers,” interjects Violetist Grand Poobah @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ who has pushed her way into this meeting. “For cheese is an abomination in the nose of Violet! Kill it, kill it with fire!! And kill the sinners who produce it, too!!!”
[validity]Religion not banned
[effect]the smell of toasting cheese is commonly accompanied by the screams of burning cheese-makers
[stats]Cheese is banned; Cheese Exports industry collapses, Pizza Delivery industry probably collapses, Economic Freedoms/Most Pro-Market decrease, Black Market increases; Wood-chipping industry increases (not just because of improved access to land, but to fuel those fires…); Civil Rights drop significantly, Religiousness increases, Godlessness decreases; deaths attributed to ‘Ritual Sacrifice’ increase

[Sanctaria]

I really think you missed a Stakes and Cheese pun in the title there.

[Leppikania]

1. Use "straight quotes" instead of “smart quotes”.
2. Use apostrophes for subquotes.
3. Instead of "a pound a' cheese", use "a pound o' cheese".
4. Why would the religious freaks go away just because religion is banned?
5. Use [effect] not [effects].

[Sierra Lyricalia]

I will try to come up with a lumberjack song joke for option 2 1. I meant option one!!! Nothing so far, but I only just started.

Edit: wasn't paying attention, clearly.

[Bears Armed]

I really think you missed a Stakes and Cheese pun in the title there.

I'm not sure how I'd fit one in... but maybeso option three could include an attempt by the Violetist to gain the timber industry's support for her demands by pointing out that these would provide an extra market for their "stakes and chips"...

Use "straight quotes" instead of “smart quotes”.

I'll do that before submission, if it matters: the machine on which I originally typed this defaulted to the "smart" sort...

Use apostrophes for subquotes.

Fair point: changing it after I post this.

Instead of "a pound a' cheese", use "a pound o' cheese"

The RL slogan that I adapted used "a" (although, now that I've checked it, I see that that was actually as -a rather than a' as I'd originally written here) rather than "of", and I'd prefer to follow its style.

Why would the religious freaks go away just because religion is banned?

If it's been banned then, even if that Violetist could get into your office, wouldn't she have something more important that she'd be arguing about -- namely getting rid of that ban -- instead of just trying to ban cheese?

[Bears Armed]

I really think you missed a Stakes and Cheese pun in the title there.

You were right. Change made.
I've made a couple of minor changes to the text, too, and have posted the altered version as a new draft above.

Any more feedback?

[Bears Armed]

If there are no further comments then I plan to submit this in about 28 hours time.

[Bears Armed]

Two more words have been inserted (and are shown in green in the version of the second draft that's posted here), and it has been submitted.