(Non-Sequitur ahead. Proceed with Caution)

Tough Love v. Savage Love

Last week Bwana Dan wrote that Focus on the Family's Dobson 'beats up homos' like Dan.

Maybe. Homos, sapiens & others, do get beaten, but I suspect that the phrase 'beat up' is like the words 'gay' and 'bash,' words that have become unhinged from meaning.

So pull up your shirt (is that a spud gun in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?) & show us some skin. Show us the bruises.

I never realized what a bunch of whiny-ass-bitches Starbucks baristas were! Why do they give two shits if someone orders a cheaper version of a drink, then (gasp!) adds milk to it? Big whoop. It's not affecting their paycheck.

ah - that explains why, when I go to put a little dollop of half and half in my iced double espresso, there's little or none left in the carafe

serves Starbucks right for inventing these idiotic venti/grande drinks anyway - and then charging an arm and a leg for them

me, I like my espressos small and cheap - the way the Italians orignated it

Poor people should drink regular coffee and not use up all my half and half for their ghetto lattes.

Oh shit I didn't know they were on to me.

Man, reading that made me realize how glad I am I don't work in coffeeshops anymore. What a soul-sucking occupation. The thing is, you really do start to take all that stuff - who gets what kind of drink, what they put in it, blah blah blah - seriously. I feel sorry for those people.

my personal favorite is my ghetto mocha, which you can make at home: just add swiss miss to you coffee! ta-da!

bitches be coming into the restaraunt and ordering ice water to drink, asking for lemons on the side, then putting sweetener in the drink to make Lemonade when Lemonade is on the drink list. Fresh Squeezed! On top of that, they're usually white!

WTF?

this has to stop! someone, make it stop!

I used to make a NeoRx latte when i worked there - you take a coffee cup, put in the half and half, and do an air drop (about eigth to twelve inches) of poured coffee into the cup.

Foam every time.

And a lot cheaper - think it cost 25 cents.

Face it, when I can still get $1 coffee with free refills at the diner across the street next to Gasworks Park, ghetto lattes are just economics in action.

I can't decide which is more entertaining: the baristards who refer to the use of free half-and-half by paying customers as "stealing", or the customers who accuse other patrons of stealing "their" half-and-half. Imbeciles, the lot of them.

In a realistic market place, Starbucks is not going to lose any money on this proposition. If enough people "cheat" their market system, it increases their costs, and they will increase prices to match. The people who pay for it will be those who don't "cheat" the system.

I thought Bush banned economics and capitalism, silvertail! You're not allowed to talk about how capitalism works any more, unless it's to support Red no-bid contracts or Party Elites getting tax "breaks".

Oh right! Let me correct that, tax cuts pay for themselves.

A second look at this... It seems the person ordering is adding what 12oz of half and half to their drink? 12oz x ~30g/oz = 360g half and half at 20% fat = 72g fat. 72g fat x 9cal/g = ~650 cal, not including the milk sugars. Way to change your coffee beverage into the liquid equivalent of a burger and fries...

JFK's did.

Um, Starbucks coffee drinks are not priced in relation to cost. They are priced in relation to what people are willing to pay for them. If people are unwilling to pay another 50 cents or whatever, they will not be able to raise the price no matter whether it costs them another penny or another dollar.

So no, you are not stealing from people who don't cheat. You're stealing from Starbucks. The way you will hurt the people who don't cheat is when Starbucks takes the thermoses of milk away, and doles out only a couple of those diabolical little tubs.

This is almost as fascinating a subject as the question of how much ketchup you are allowed at McDonalds.....

Whiners will always be whiners but can they stop using the word "ghetto" as a synonym for "poor" or "fake"? That shit ain't right.

HAHA, I drink black coffee and get soy milk when ordering mixed drinks so this doesn't affect me.

That said, most small coffeeshops work around this by keeping the cream and half/half in the fridge behind the counter, and providing a small pouring tin with said cream with drinks. If Starbucks considered the ghetto latte a problem, they'd just change up how they provide cream and half/half accordingly. No sense in increasing costs and decreasing customers, when just moving the condiment in question behind the counter while making it available on request will work just fine.

Starbucks should definitely start offering these folks benefits - they need vacations!

Fun fact: allegedly, Starbucks already provides benefits to even their part timers. Not sure if those benefits include paid vacations, tho.

Ghetto latte, close cousin of the infamous MooLatte.

Though this one seems more authentically racist.

Guess Starbucks doesn't spring for political correctness training for their barristas.

Considering coffee companies, including Starbucks, purchase their coffee from countries in Africa, South America, etc for less than 5 cents a pound (or less) and then turn around and mark-up the cost a gazillion percent-can this argument even be a real one? Who cares? And if you care so much about fair/unfair, go ask your coffee farmers if they think it's fair that they can't put their kids through school (or even build a school in their village) because places like Starbucks rarely buy the coffee they use to make the drinks we buy at fair trade prices.

I know we aren’t discussing the ignorance of calling anything in Starbucks "ghetto", but can I just remind people that GHETTO is when you have to use socks for washcloths & sheets for curtains, not when you add too much creamer to your starbucks coffee. Christ- it’s as bad as when I hear white girls calling their Abercrombie hoodie "ghetto" because the zipper broke. Let’s get some phucking perspective. And man I do feel sorry for baristas if they actually give a shit enough to care what people do with their goddamn coffee. Find a new cause, jagoffs.

I think they're currently paying about $1 - $1.50 on the market, like everyone else. Shipping, storing, roasting, grinding, and brewing, not to mention things like rent and labor, add far more to the cost than the growing does.

Starbucks wants to get 5 or 6 bucks from every customer that walks through the door,thats why you pay 3.50 for a 10 cent cup of coffe. the price you pay has nothing to do with the underlying product,Starbucks is stealing from its customers.So you can guzzle all the half & half you want till your red faced and shit your pants and Starbucks wouldnt care they'd still make money.Stop being lazy or thinking your cool because you drink expensive coffee and make your own coffee at home. Wake UP Idiots.

I can't believe all this energy wasted on talking about Starbucks. The people who work there are real snobs. It's just coffee for ***st sakes! Don't get your panties in a bunch because i don't shop at Lord & Taylor!!!! I think their coffee is awful anyway. And to give any recognition to anything called 'ghetto' is insulting.
People should pay THIS much attention to something important... like illiteracy in our schools.

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Actually, even fair-trade coffee isn't very fair. More coffee companies need to encourage 'direct trade' which is where the company goes directly to the farmers and they buy the coffee at a higher price than the so-called fair trade price. as of right now, i think Intelligencia (a chicago based company) is the only company that does this (in fact, i think they are the ones who came up with the idea) and the main basis is to provide a more socially concious product.

also, why go to starbucks when independent coffee shops are so much cheaper and more socially concious? and the baristas tend to be a lot less jaded and snarky. i speak from experience as i AM a barista at a couple independent coffee shops.