This is a beautiful looking coffee review forum and coffee recipe repository. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
Author: Nathan Campbell
Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
A bunch of links – March 4, 2009
- Bible reading — in church
- Truth in labelling
- Idiot stuffs cat into bong
- Big Tent Atheism
What?
“With religion, I think atheists have the same dissonance going on. If they really think the world would be better off without religion, they shouldn’t hate religion and call believers fools.”
Green =/= Sustainable
In the comments on last night’s post – which is still generating discussion – I mentioned that I see a difference between “green” and “sustainable”.
Sustainable living is driven by common sense. Green living is driven by ideology.
Sustainable living will often cost less – economics are a factor. Green living will cost more it can require paying a premium to maintain ideological consistency.
This caused some confusion. Let me make some distinctions between the two:
Green
- Decisions that are green consider only the environmental impact.
- Green priorities exclude all else. The triumph other considerations on the basis of a higher moral order.
- Green ideology pursue a net gain for the environment – things becoming greener. More trees and undevelopment (eg removing human traces from nature).
- Green practices mean using as little as possible in terms of “natural resources”.
- “Plant more trees” is a green mantra.
Sustainable
- Sustainability is a philosophy of ensuring something can continue in the same manner in a reproducible or reusable fashion. Stuss’s example of using cloth nappies is a great example.
- Sustainability does not pursue a net gain for the environment – but no net loss. Building a lodging in a National Park is ok – provided there is not significant damage to the surroundings.
- Sustainable practices seek to replace what is used where possible.
- “Leaving only your footprints behind” is a sustainable mantra.
Coffee and the environment
Here’s an interesting coffee article with the following environmental and economical message:
“Last year, Britons spent about £750 million on coffee, but only a small fraction of this on espressos. Think of the huge amount of money that would be saved if the majority of coffee-bar patrons switched to espressos from cappuccinos. The country’s milk bill would fall and its carbon footprint would shrink too.”
Not only is coffee an excessive drain on water stocks – milk is bad too. This is all very well – except the same writer also describes the cappuccino experience (amongst others – including the corretto – a shot with alcohol)
“There is no doubt that the most popular variant is the cappuccino (“little hood”), at its best a glorious drink consisting of equal parts espresso, milk and foam. The experience of consuming a perfectly made cappuccino is sensual to the point of decadence.”
Two ways to consume
The debate goes on back here. It’s been a thoughtful – and helpful I think – discussion on the environment, hippies, and sustainability. Join in. If you like.
One of my objections to paying a premium to be green is that it seems like such a waste of money. For example, I don’t like that chickens live in terrible conditions in battery farms. But I like eggs. So I must buy eggs. Do I, when faced with this conundrum (and being unable to have my own chickens because we live in a townhouse):
a) Buy free range in the hope that this will stimulate the market for free range eggs and eventually remove the premium price we pay to soothe our conscience.
Or,
b) Save that money, buy the battery eggs and use the difference to pay for things I think matter more. Like giving money to support the work of my church.
I lean towards b. I think there are much better causes to resource. I like that the free market lets me make that decision, and doesn’t dictate the terms of my charity to me through levies and stupid taxes.
Which is why I don’t like emissions trading. Or the Green movement. They have no sympathy for that idea. They want their special interest to be everyone’s special interest. I have blogged about this before. In ranty fashion. Here. And Here. This little quote from sums up what the dissonance I feel when it comes to the central green argument:
“Apparently our biggest problems are land clearing, extinct bird species, salinity and greenhouse gas emissions… and that my friends is why I hate hippies.”
That’s a quote that has stood the test of time.
Anyway, I didn’t start this post to quote myself – but rather to quote this guy, from a really interesting blog I subscribed to today:
“My grocery bill from Safeway, where I buy Nestle products and pesticide infused produce is 50% cheaper than my bill from a socially conscious store like Whole Foods, Mother’s Market or PCC. While being committed to shopping in socially conscious ways, I am also committed to spending less. Savings on a grocery bill can be given to the Aid and Assistance Fund at church, go to help purchase backpacks for less fortunate students at my kids’ school, or be sent to my favorite non-profit organization in South Africa, Ithemba Lethu.“
Ahh McCain
I started following John McCain on Twitter. Today he’s talking about pork. Political pork. Does he not realise the election is over. And he lost. He no longer matters, surely.
Roebuck v Swanson – for real
The other day I ran a little comparison of the writing styles of Peter Roebuck and Will Swanton. The Herald has gone one better. They’ve got them head to head in a debate on the referral system.
“Batsmen growling about referrals ought to be taken as seriously as bankers complaining about bankruptcy. Now, suddenly, the poor dears fear they might occasionally be given out leg before wicket. Not the least attraction of referrals is that it will reduce the blight of pad play, a negative tactic introduced by Poms incapable of reading Sonny Ramadhin. For decades pads have been used as a second line of defence. Gentlemen, the game is up. Now these blokes will have to use their bats.” – Roebuck
Day three had howlers everywhere. By the players, mostly. South African captain Graeme Smith and wicketkeeper Mark Boucher did not have the faintest clue what they were doing. Boucher kept crossing his arms in front of his face – let’s go to the video – but he kept getting it wrong. He ended up looking like an A-grade, card-carrying twit. Rules that make great players look like A-grade, card-carrying twits should be avoided. The players are the game, not the ICC. – Swanton
Fair trade fail
This is why the Fair Trade coffee movement is doomed to fail.
There is no emphasis on a quality product.
DR Wakefield & Co is Britains leading Fair Trade Wholesaler. Here’s a quote from the CEO Simon Wakefield on tasting notes produced under the Cup of Excellence Program – which was set up to reward farmers for a quality product rather than quantity:
“It is clever marketing. But after the beans have been roasted, ground, kept on somebody’s kitchen shelf, made into coffee, and then milk and sugar have been added can you really tell me that you can taste a difference?”
Fairtrade instant here we come.
YouTube Tuesday: Photocopier Rage
If you’ve ever wanted to reenact the Office Space scene where they destroy a photocopier:
You’ll no doubt appreciate the frustration this second guy is feeling:
Shirt of the Day: T-Shirts of tomorrow
Glennz.com is having an election. You get to cast your vote(s) for his next round of T-Shirts. Here are some of my favourites:
MacGyver's Mailbox
Crash Test
Plastic Surgery
Payback
A bunch of links – March 3, 2009
- Are You a Christian Hipster? | conversantlife.com
- Dinner with the mob
- Laptopfriendlycafes.com Helps You Get Wi-Fi, Power, Coffee
- What I learned from reading the entire Bible.
- A U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith.
- The Recession-Proof Pantry
- Can We Hack the Planet to Stave Off Climate Change?
- Motivate Thyself with Home-Grown Posters
- Create Personalized Feeds with Feedweaver
- How Sideburns Got Their Name
- Origin of Hi-Tech Names
- Chance President Obama will read your letter? 1 in 4,000
- Top 10 Tools For Your Blog Or Web Site
- Bulk Upload And Host Images For Free At Imagebam
- Free PDF to Word Converter
- 10 Ways To Donate Your CPU Time To Science
- The “Greatest Waffle Recipe Ever” [Cooking]
- Doodling Increases Focus And Recall
Wow. I am. According to this definition:brbr”Christian hipsters don’t like megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism. They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart. In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic. They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it. They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen.”
Interesting account from a non practicing Jew who spent a year reading through the entire bible.
Profound
There must be 100 motivational posters that could be created from this image – your challenge is to make one. Send them to me at nm.campbell<at>gmail.com – and I’ll post them here.
He’s just not that into you…
Ever played that game with the flower where you peel off a petal at a time? Ever wondered just what effect you’re having on your loved one? Well, wonder no longer. If you’re setting your nearest and dearest’s heart a flutter you’ll know it with this heart monitor ring – perfect for any couple thinking about getting engaged. It’s a cheap engagement ring too – at $US39.95 – and you can instantly monitor the response to your proposal. Found here.
