May 29, 2006

Beer Bust at the Pilsner at 4 PM, Sunday, June 4th

Come meet my softball team, the Pilsner Pups. See photos here.

Also, if you're one of those people who likes an eVite, then get it here.

The fun starts at 4 PM on Sunday, June 4th at the Pilsner at 225 Church Street, near the intersection with Market Street. We'll have jello shots, a raffle, a beer bust and boys, boys, boys!!!

Your debauchery will help raise money for tournaments where we will represent San Francisco against other West Coast teams.

This weekend we were the last San Francisco team standing in our division before we lost to a Portland team. We plan on a rematch with them in their home town and are raising money to help us get there.

We are accepting, encouraging and extorting donations that we can raffle off. Send me a message if you want to donate a bottle of wine, sports equipment, naughty movies or other prizes.

If you are more of a spectator, that's okay too! Just show up and party with the Pups!

Cody Sisco
Manager, Pilsner Pups

Posted by cbsisco at 04:31 PM

March 25, 2006

Huge Pot Bust in the East Bay

This is a trip. Imagine marijuana cultivation was legal. Beyond just growing and selling buds of the plant, which would be enormously profitable by itself, how else might you profit off of stoners? How would you "add value" to your operation?

A crime ring of at least 12 east bay men, including former College Park High School students, figured that one out. Beyond professionalizing their pot growing operation, requiring employees to punch timecards and installing the latest technology in grow laps and air filtration, these men hit on a brilliant idea:

Pot candy.

Seriously, they made suckers, candy bars, and sodas with high amounts of THC. They even branded the products with names such as KeefKat, PotTarts and Toke-a-Cola.

Check it out:

CBS5 article and newscast

SFGate Article

Inside Bay Area article

Posted by cbsisco at 01:22 PM

January 10, 2006

Chris Evans

Posted by cbsisco at 10:54 AM

December 19, 2005

My Employer is the #9 Worst Thing To Happen in 2005

Unfortunately the writer wasn't able to make an articulate argument against the work BSR does. Those are fun to debate. Instead he notes that we sold books at our conference that criticize companies. Horrors!

Capitulating Capitalists: Top 10 Worst Moments for Free Enterprise in 2005
by Steven Milloy

Posted Dec 16, 2005
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/blog-detail.php?id=10909

We often think of large corporations as the embodiment of our system of free enterprise -- often they are, but increasingly they fall way short of the mark.

This annual list spotlights companies who have most egregiously abandoned their fiduciary and moral responsibilities to their shareholders and our free enterprise system, respectively, in favor of embracing the false and harmful social activist-promoted notion of “corporate social responsibility.”

Here are the Top 10 “low-lights” for 2005.

1. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo and the Goldman Sachs Group

All three financial service giants capitulated to pressure from anti-development environmental extremists and their left-wing institutional shareholder allies by allowing these external activists to dictate the companies’ lending and financing policies for energy and land-use projects in the developing world -- effectively blocking economic and social progress that would have benefited poverty stricken populations. JPM Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs went above-and-beyond the call of capitulation by announcing they also would lobby the Bush administration to adopt economically-suicidal, Kyoto Protocol-like global warming regulations. He is referring to the Equator Principles which try to help banks identify which projects are likely to be failures by highlighting the environmental and social impacts that are inextricable from financial outcomes.

2. Fidelity Investments

Three months after the Department of Labor warned organized labor not to use pension funds as a political weapon to prevent financial service companies from participating in the public debate over social security reform, Fidelity Investments continued to distance itself from the debate which could have benefited its shareholders and society at large. In its response to an inquiry by a labor activist as to whether Fidelity supported the pro-social security reform Cato Institute, Fidelity was all too eager to say that, not only did it stop supporting the Cato Institute, but it had contributed to groups that oppose social security reform like the Progressive Policy Institute and Brookings Institution.

3. New York Stock Exchange

In a surprise move, unprecedented in its 213-year history, the New York Stock Exchange canceled the listing of a company on the day the stock was to start trading on the Big Board. The listing of Life Sciences Research was not canceled because of any illegal, irregular or improper conduct by the company, but simply because animal rights extremists, who oppose all medical research with animals, had pressured the NYSE to not permit trading of the stock.

4. General Electric Co.

In jointly announcing its “Ecomagination” marketing program with the assistance of the environmental activist World Resources Institute, GE embraced the radical Green global warming agenda, even lobbying the Senate for Kyoto-like legislation. GE apparently hopes to boost its nuclear power business by promoting global warming alarmism -- GE apparently didn’t realize that its new eco-buddies are vehemently anti-nuclear. He doesn't realize that not everyone agrees on how to best tackle the global warming problem. There are plenty of environmentalists who would have a nuclear fuel waste problem than the massive social discocations and market disruptions caused by climate change.

5. Duke Energy Corp.

Another company to fall for global warming alarmism, this supplier of natural gas and electricity announced its support for a so-called “carbon tax” -- essentially a national sales tax designed to dissuade consumers from purchasing goods whose production, manufacture and distribution is made possible by, well, electricity and natural gas. He never read Redefining Progress' brief on eco-taxes.

6. Wal-Mart

Hoping to burnish its image and to appease labor unions and environmental activists, Wal-Mart called on Congress to increase the minimum wage and announced plans to invest $500 million in technologies to reduce greenhouse gases. As the Wall Street journal editorialized (October 26), “It's a shame that a company that offers a wonderfully wide selection of quality goods at low prices, and provides 1.3 million people in the U.S. with jobs, could have image problems. But Wal-Mart isn't going to solve them by trying to win over the liberal special interests ... that's a fool's errand.” In many cases, reducing greenhouse gas emissions means investing in energy efficiency, which reduces expenses on energy and fuel.

7. Business Roundtable

As members of Congress grilled oil company CEOs about their companies’ profits, passed a punitive windfall profits tax, and demanded that a pharmaceutical company surrender its patent rights for the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, not a peep in defense of profits or property rights was heard from the Business Roundtable, a trade group for CEOs. In an ironic exaltation of form-over-substance a week earlier, however, the BRT updated its Principles of Corporate Governance, supposedly to “build shareholder confidence and public trust in American business.” It's a topsy-turvy world when a free market extremist criticizes the Business Roundtable.

8. Citigroup

The bank announced in 2005 that it was partnering with a number of environmental activist groups to help it “understand environmental issues and their impact, and the concerns and priorities of our shareholders and broader community.” The move is more likely an effort to appease the activist groups who for years had launched scathing personal attacks on Citigroup and its CEO, Sanford Weill -- including, for example, a full-page ad in the International Herald Tribune featuring Weill’s photo while he was visiting his grandchildren in Europe. The ad’s headline blared: “Put a Face on Global Warming and Forest Destruction.” Citigroup's actions are part of a broad trend of financial services companies taking a closer look a the environmental impacts of their portfolio of investments.

9. Business for Social Responsibility

As many of the world’s largest corporations met at the annual Business for Social Responsibility meeting in November in Washington, D.C., BSR staff sold a slew of anti-business books, including: “Fast Food Nation” and “Don’t Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America” (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Yum! Brands are BSR members); “The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism”; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s “Crimes Against Nature : How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy”; and “Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients” (AstraZeneca plc, Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc and Johnson & Johnson are BSR members). This is just silly. We brought in a vendor to sell the books because that's not our business. We provide advisory services. One of the gems that we tell our clients is that paying attention to the outside world, which includes reading books, is good for business. Telling your boss or your employees only about the good news is a recipe for hubris. Remember Enron.

10. Microsoft

The software giant announced on December 7 that it would stop using PVC plastic as packaging due to alleged human health concerns. Although regulatory agencies that have ample scientific expertise have repeatedly concluded that PVC is safe, Microsoft, which has no known expertise on PVC, opted to succumb to pressure from a Greenpeace-inspired activist group that has long relied on junk science in campaigning to scare the public about PVC. Microsoft probably found a cheaper source of non-PVC plastic. In any case, why bother whining about this? Why say: "I want my PVC"?

Posted by cbsisco at 09:27 PM

December 01, 2005

Post-Gobble Day Laugh Out Loud Funny

Turkey Hilarity!

Posted by cbsisco at 10:15 PM

November 30, 2005

One Step Closer to the American Dream

The tenancy-in-common logjam at City Hall may be about to give way. Legislation that appears very close to being approved by the Board of Supervisors would modify the condominium conversion lotter so that half of the winners, 100 units, will be determined based on seniority rather than a random draw. As a resident in the oldest TIC still in the lottery, this means we would be all but guaranteed to start the conversion process in February. This will involve substantial investment of time working with the Department of Public Works and money upgrading the building and performing maintenance. But in the end, it will mean much more financial stability for Jay and I.

It's not a sure bet that the legislation will pass when it comes before the full board on Tuesday, December 6, 2005. But the compromise that has been reached with tenants advocates, which restricts the seniority pool to only buildings that have not evicted vulnerable tenants, has won us enough votes from the Board of Supervisors. So it's a step forward.

Unfortunately, there's some very wrong-headed legislation that has been introduced that would place a moratorium on condo conversions and and there is another piece of legislation that would require all conversion to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Both of those policies would introduce serious, significant and abusive hurdles into a process that already more convoluted than most people can understand.

So one step forward, and perhaps two steps back.

For the SF Examiner's coverage, which quotes Jay Fennelly, click here.

Posted by cbsisco at 02:19 PM

November 29, 2005

New Campaign to Shop at Locally Owned Stores

Resources for shop-local movements: (from the SF Chronicle)

Organizations

-- Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, www.livingeconomies.org: San Francisco umbrella group for independent local business networks around the country; provides resources and information on starting shop-local campaigns.

-- American Independent Business Alliance, www.amiba.net: Bozeman, Mont., consortium of local business alliances. Sponsors America Unchained, annual campaign to encourage shoppers to eschew chain stores for one day; this year it was on Nov. 19.

-- San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance, www.sfloma.org: New organization to promote locally owned independent businesses in San Francisco through education about their positive economic impact on the community.

-- San Francisco Made, www.sfmade.org: Nonprofit that promotes San Francisco manufacturers of consumer products.

-- Oakland Unwrapped, www.oaklandunwrapped.org: Nonprofit group being formed to support local stores in Oakland. Founder Erin Kilmer-Neel is seeking funding and hopes to start this spring with an e-commerce site featuring local merchants.

-- Institute for Local Self-Reliance, www.ilsr.org: Promotes sustainable communities. Its retail section is at .

Reports

-- Andersonvile study, www.andersonvillestudy.com: 2004 report by Civic Economics comparing the economic impact of 10 local businesses in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago versus their chain competitors. Links to other studies are at www.sfloma.org/studies.htm and www.livingeconomies.org/localfirst/studies.

-- Global Insight, www.globalinsight.com/walmart: For the other side of the story, this independently produced study financed by Wal-Mart says the giant retailer has helped drive down prices and its impact on small stores is offset by a net increase in jobs.

Events

-- Independent America, www.independentamerica.net: An 80-minute documentary that profiles mom-and-pop stores fighting big-box retailers and fast food chains. Bay Area premiere is Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. at Varnish Fine Art, 77 Natoma St., San Francisco.

-- San Francisco Shop Local Week, Dec. 5-10, and Shop Local Day, Dec. 10, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at Union Square. www.sfgov.org/sbc.

Source: Chronicle research

Posted by cbsisco at 10:24 PM

November 17, 2005

"The demand to become a eunuch was high"

Found text:

Never in China's 5000-year history did surgery become a significant part of traditional medicine and health care. The body was seen as an inviolable whole. Acupuncture was as invasive as it generally got. In Europe, doctors were experimenting with cadavers and then on the living to develop surgery, a new discipline of medicine.

Apart from Confucian restrictions on human vivisection, one theory about why surgery did not take off in China is that circumcision was not practised. Without this starting point, surgery had little to build on.

But eunuchs, who were employed by the emperors as their palace servants, bureaucrats and advisers, present a counterargument.
Castration was practised in China for at least 3000 years. By the time of the Manchu emperors, castration had become a profession. Keith Laidler in his The Last Empress writes how the genitals were washed in pepper water to partially anaesthetise them, the stomach and upper thighs were tightly bandaged to reduce blood flow and once the candidate was settled on a heated couch, the castrator would sever the penis and scrotum. A plug was inserted in the urethra and the lesion bandaged.

The patient was not allowed to drink for three days, after which the urethra was unplugged. If the patient could pass urine, the operation was a success. If not and the urethra had healed shut, the patient would die within days. The severed genitalia were never discarded, so that on their deaths, eunuchs could be buried whole.

Access to the palace often meant influence and great wealth. Many eunuchs became rich through bribe-taking and were able to afford mansions and country houses. Consequently, the demand to become a eunuch was high.

Posted by cbsisco at 11:08 AM

November 10, 2005

What the hell is CSR?

I have been working in this field for a while and I still have trouble describing what I do, why and what it all means.

The New York Times ran a special section on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)in conjunction with BSR's Annual Conference last week. This gives some insight into how companies are trying to communicate their efforts in this area. Click here to view the section.

On KQED's Forum this morning, there was a more balanced and critical discussion of CSR that brings some clarity and is a good introduction to the topic. You can listen to it on their web site.

Thu, Nov 10, 2005 -- 9:00 AM
Businesses and Social Responsibility
Forum discusses how companies and business schools develop corporate strategies to achieve social and financial goals.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:

Kellie McElhaney, executive director and adjunct assistant professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business
Kriss Deiglemeier, executive director at the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford's Graduate School of Business
Lloyd Kurtz, senior portfolio manager at Nelson Capital Management, a division of Wells Fargo
William Rosenzweig, co-founder and managing director of Great Spirit Ventures

After listening to the program, Jay and I had a discussion, which helped me understand the difficulties of communicating this type of work outside the field of CSR.

Cody: bruce babbitt is my hero

Jay: I thought he might be

I listed to the CSR thing on Forum this morning...pretty interesting

Cody: i'm going to download it tonight

Jay: they were talking about net impact a lot

it's too bad BSR didn't have someone on the panel.

Cody: yeah the Haas school has strong ties and an active Net Impact chapter

Jay: they had someone from stanford on as well

I have to reboot, brb.

Cody: i ordered his book

Cody: what did you think of the CSR thin?

thing?

Sent at 10:28 AM on Thursday

Jay: I'm understanding what it's all about a bit better

Sent at 10:35 AM on Thursday

Cody: what is your most significant new insight?

Sent at 11:09 AM on Thursday

Jay: not really an insight, but a better understanding of what it is...

on the program this morning they were talking about how hard it is to define

and everyone has their own definitions of CSR

and I think that's been part of my problem.

I like solid, single definitions :)

Cody: interesting, for some reason I was trying to define it for myself last night or this morning and thinking that the longer I've worked here the more nebulous the definition has become for me

Jay: yeah, it's much more of a very large collection of ideas and concepts

it's really hard to define succinctly

but listen to the program...one of the people had a really good definition

Sent at 11:18 AM on Thursday

Cody: it's easier to create slogans for CSR than a definition: creating positive change within corporations, helping corporations serve the common good, improving the bottom line for the company and society in general

Jay: yeah, and the definition given this morning sounded something like those.

part of the problem is that 'social' covers so much...

consumers, employees, vendors/suppliers, environmental

everyone has their own preconceived notion of 'social' unless it's clearly defined to be as broad as it really is in CSR

Cody: ahhh good point...i've never understood "social" to be as limiting as that, but it's definitely reflected in how a lot of people talk about and critique CSR

Jay: I think people with less 'social science' type education have a harder time understanding what 'social' really means

'social responsibility' was kind of meaningless for me for the first few months I'd heard it.

Cody: if i had one impact on common understanding of that term it would be to help people understand that "social" encompasses environmental and economic dimensions....maybe "corporate people responsibility" is a better word for that....CPR?

Jay: or global

Cody: hmmm

Jay: corporate global behavior.

Cody: But I like the CPR acronymn. ;)

Posted by cbsisco at 11:37 AM

November 09, 2005

All of Arnold's Initiatives Go Down in Flames

I have to admit it, I'm a voting junkie. You say "ELECTION," I say "smells good." Just the other day, Jay told me, paraphrasing from NPR:

"for the educated, voting is a Pavlovian response--we're programmed to feel responsibility for voting. It's not an instinct, it's not innate, we're taught that this is what is required of us as citizens."

That description fits me perfectly. I've been following the politics behind the raft of ballot measure that Californians faced this November, and while I strongly supported and opposed a number of them, my overall reaction was: Dude, this is not my job!

I'm all for certain aspects of direct democracy and I think large policy direction questions should go to the voters. For example, good ballot initiatives would read:

Should the death penalty exist in California?
Shall the income tax be gradually replaced by pollution taxes?
Shall the right to choose to marry another person be guaranteed to every individual?
Shall abortion be legal?

These are large policy questions that only the people of a sovreign state can answer for themselves. The ballot initiatives we were asked to pass were much more about how policies are implemented. Take the worst example, Proposition 80, the language for this initiative was so confusing that I'm sure most people had no idea what they were voting "no" about.

We've reached a point of disfunction in our state that the legislature stalemates with itself every year on a budget. Compromise and negotiation are hard to find. Something needs to change.

The election just a few days ago sent a clear signal to the Governor and the legislature: these are problems that elected officials must fix, not the general populace. The clear message: It's time for California's politicians to do their jobs!

Posted by cbsisco at 10:32 PM

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