Hard News: Trams, drams and scams
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Nice work Russell, don't listen to killjoys like Robin.
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Nais,
Blessed are the cheesmakers....
You might also want to check out another South Island cheesemonger of note, former Otago Girls' High Geography teacher turned cheesemaker extraordianaire, Colin Dennison at ... Evansdale Cheese
They have an online order form for those of us living north of the Waitaki.
Their Farmhouse Brie is to die for.......
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Anyway, I don't know much about cheesemongers and blue veined cheeses but it seems to me that you should use your blog to also promote some healthy eating.
Check out this site www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com This site gives us the lowdown on what appears to me to be one of the best kept health secrets. This cheap natural oil is supposedly extremely rich in antioxidants and is transfat free too!
Assuming your post wasn't intended as advertorial, you might want to be a bit careful about believing everything you read. The Palm Oil Truth Foundation registered that domain through a proxy company, and is untraceable through the registration details. It is likely to be an astroturf project mounted by either processed food manufacturers in the US (who use loads of the stuff) or the Malaysian palm oil industry.
Palm oil is 50% saturated fat, and a WHO report found that consuming it increased the risk of cardiovascular disease. Because it's semisolid at room temperature, it may be a better option in spreads than hydrogenated oils that contain trans-fats - but it's used (in Australia anyway) in hydrogenated form for deep frying by fast food chains.
There are also serious concerns about habitat destruction where it's grown. Sourcewatch has an article on the £500,000 PR campaign the Malaysian industry group mounted last year to counter environmental objections.
It's not all bad: two studies have found it increased the levels of good cholesterol and reduced the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood. But it turns up in a lot of shit food. I'll have it in Korean noodles, but not in potato chips. And olive oil gives you most of the benefits claimed for palm oil without the saturated fat.
So, yeah, I'll stick with whisky and cheese for now ...
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merc,
And nothing counts for nothing if you ain't happy and cheese is a very happy food, no-one dies making it (usually) and I have never seen a sad cheese-eater.
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Looks like the idea of palm oil as the perfect biofuel is coming unstuck a bit too. From the NY Times last month:
Peat is an organic sponge that stores huge amounts of carbon, helping balance global emissions. Peatland is 90 percent water. But when it is drained, the Wetlands International scientists say, the stored carbon gases are released into the atmosphere.
To makes matters worse, once dried, peatland is often burned to clear ground for plantations. The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peatland in Indonesia releases 660 million ton of carbon a year into the atmosphere and that fires contributed 1.5 billion tons annually.
The total is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, the researchers said. “These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not counted before,” said Mr. Kaat. “It was a totally ignored problem.” For the moment Wetlands is backing the certification system for palm oil imports.
But some environmental groups say palm oil cannot be produced sustainably at reasonable prices. They say palm oil is now cheap because of poor environmental practices and labor abuses.
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I just did a bit of googling for sites that mentioned the Palm Oil Truth Foundation.
What came up quite a lot were well written blog comments (just like Robin from Connecticut's one above) that championed palm oil in a personal sounding way.
Check out this example. It's just gently urging one of the ingredients in a recipe to be swapped with palm oil.
It seems like someone is sowing some astroturf seeds.
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You can get some on the way home, Che.
Che? Che? Are you there?
if the potential dodginess is over... yes. back. ;)
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It seems like someone is sowing some astroturf seeds.
Yes. I note that's Robin's first post too. Care to reassure us, Robin?
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Robin's post looks remarkable like the spam that appears in my inbox. (Well the ones that don't use randomly generated sentences).
So is this one of the new forms of marketing?
Adding personal sounding messages to blogs. Still incredilbly obvious. -
A certain chirpy, personal style shows up here too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Palm_oil
Hi everibody, I liked this article and I added some information I collected while traveling in Congo Brazzaville, north, by the Shanga river, and added also pictures I took there. Bye, Tornasole 22:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
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Robin's post looks remarkable like the spam that appears in my inbox. (Well the ones that don't use randomly generated sentences).
So is this one of the new forms of marketing?This (spam posts/threads) is quite a problem on some other popular message boards I am on. Not sure how it happens but hope it doesn't catch on here.
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Regarding the extroadinary evaporation of single malt whiskeys...
I'm sure, that as Russell contends, it evaporates faster when friends are around... But even without friends visiting, it seems no matter how tightly I replace the cork or screw down the cap, a 750ml or 1l bottle of the stuff dissapears before its second week from purchase has passed (and sometimes not the first week).
And, as Russell aslo pointed out, at ~$100 a go, thats too rich for my budget on any regular basis... so Its duty free only for me.
Luckily, my tastes are still at the cheaper end... having been introduced to the pleasures by a wee lass from Islay, I still find Laphroaig (a whole 5 doors down from her parents house:), and Lagavulin very fulfilling.
Have you tried "Lord of the Isles"? It used to be on Whiskey Galore's pages but appears gone now? It was truely eye opening, and unbeleivably smooth, when I was offered a nip.
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I've heard of it, but not seen it.
Now that one of them seems to have found this blog, it may start to appearing all the time. -
I've heard of it, but not seen it.
Now that one of them seems to have found this blog, it may start to appearing all the time.The interesting thing is that "Robin" actually had to register and respond to the confirmation email.
His email address is robindraper@yahoo.com, which doesn't tell us much. If he'd made the link live by adding "http" we'd be able to add a no-follow tag that tells Google not to count it for PageRank.
Of course, I could just delete his post and his account, but it's kind of fun for now.
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merc,
Ah that would be the Angels share (the loss from bottle). As for the Robin, I suspect this is a new form of viral style marketing.
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The interesting thing is that "Robin" actually had to register and respond to the confirmation email.
That would only be five minutes at work. I have no idea what these making people are paid. But it could have been worthwhile for Robin. They probably did a search on blogs mentioning food or something and so may have no idea of the audience.
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I've bought that Shropshire Blue before from Kirk's fromagerie (it's not a proper little neighbourhood cheese shop, but it's a good equivalent) and: wow. I have a friend who's a cheesatarian (he's a vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables) an dbetween us we demolished it very quickly.
Delicious, and no orangutan's were harmed in the making of that cheese, which is more than I can say for "palm oil beef hooked".
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Aargh, rogue apostrophe! Please let me edit that before I get lynched by Jo.
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So is this one of the new forms of marketing?
Adding personal sounding messages to blogs. Still incredilbly obvious.For about a year now, the freelance site I get some of my work through has been heavy with job offers to do just this: go round discussion fora and add individually-written, human-generated promotional comments. Here's one at random from yesterday's mail-out:
Ghost Forum contributor requested...
I need some one to post 300 forums posts to skin care blogs or forums with my site's signatures. The forums must be related to skin industry and 3 posts on each forum. You will find forums by yourself and have to create username. Coder is required to show evidence of work done.
The pay rate for that? US$50. Total. Robin just made about 16c.
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merc,
That's fantastic! It explains Kiwiblog...I jest Mr. Farrar, I jest.
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The pay rate for that? US$50. Total. Robin just made about 16c.
Sod that!
Make US$50 a post and I'll consider it.Perhaps Product Compliance isn't so boring after all.
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Make US$50 a post and I'll consider it.
Would anyone else like to make an offer on some slightly-used integrity?
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That's fantastic! It explains Kiwiblog...I jest Mr. Farrar, I jest.
I don't mean to be mean, but I popped over for a look, opened the thread discussing the Turia blurt ... six or eight posts in, no Sonic or Phil U trolling (and not a lot of insight, humour or information either). So Murray starts demanding that they turn up. Sonic does. Normal service resumed thereafter. Jeez ... Some people don't seem to have anything to do if they have no one to snarl at.
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merc,
The psychology behind DPF and Kiwiblog et al has me completely flummoxed. However I did come across, The Online Disinhibition Effect by John Suler, http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/overview.html
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the peated whiskies started to all taste the same after a while. It gave me a renewed respect for Springbank, whose bottlles were rich and magnificent, and only lightly peated.
I can appreciate how that would quickly happen in side-by-side tasting, Russell. Mind you, "if all the same" meant they all tasted as good as a Caol Ila cask strength (as they might to my oikish palate), I'd have few complaints...
I think I've tried Springbank. Of the subtler malts - the sort that don't slap you about the chops, pull down your trousers and then pour a tanker-load of palm-oil over you while you're discombobulated - I very much liked a Glenfarclas sherry cask bottling I once tried. It made me happy. That's one of my "best kept health secrets". :-)
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