text:
- Business Services
- Nonprofit Services
- Software
- Industries
- Information Center
Order $99/year North Dakota registered agent service online for immediate access to our address and state forms. Same-day document scanning. No hidden fees.
Your business must appoint a North Dakota registered agent to receive documents in legal matters, including notice of lawsuit. Our reliable registered agent service fulfills this requirement. You get:
Most likely you came across the term registered agent while filing documents to form a new North Dakota business or register an out-of-state business to do business in North Dakota. Depending on what form you are filing, it might have shown one of these synonyms for the appointment: registered office, resident agent, statutory agent, or agent for service of process. This page explains your options for appointing a registered agent and what to expect.
All foreign and domestic business entities in North Dakota are required to have a registered agent.
This is how the entire process works:
Located in nearby Fargo, ND!
You may elect an individual or a company to serve as your North Dakota registered agent:
Hiring us to serve as your registered agent provides the following benefits:
North Dakota allows you to appoint a consenting individual to serve as your registered agent so long as they meet all of the following requirements:
Appointing a registered agent that fails in their duties can lead to costly consequences for your business. Missing a time-sensitive legal document can result in legal actions proceeding against your business without your knowledge. A court may rule a default judgment. The state may dissolve your business following administrative protocol. Have peace of mind about the North Dakota registered agent you appoint by hiring our reliable service.
Appoint us as your registered agent when you incorporate your business or form your LLC. Sign up for registered agent service and file using the state forms and instructions in your online account. The forms are pre-filled signed as required by the state.
Appoint us as your agent when you apply for a certificate of authority to transact business in a new state. Sign up for registered agent service and file using the forms and instructions in your online account. The forms are pre-filled and signed as required by the state.
Changing your registered agent to us is easy. Order service and we immediately provide instructions and pre-populated change of agent forms in your account.
Your North Dakota registered agent is your company's appointee to receive documents in legal matters. For example, if your business is ever sued, a sheriff or process server will hand-deliver service of process (notice of lawsuit) to the registered agent and receive the agent's signature of receipt.
Typically documents delivered to the registered agent are hand-delivered to the agent at the street address provided, require signature upon delivery, and are time-sensitive (e.g. you have limited time to respond to notice of lawsuit). It is the registered agent's duty to be available during normal business hours to reliably receiving documents and forward them to the appropriate company personnel.
The physical street address where the registered agent is located is called the registered office. It is here that the registered agent should be available during normal business hours to sign for documents. In addition, other official government and legal documents (such as notice of annual report) will be mailed to the registered office.
Service of process is the procedure of giving legal notice to a party, usually a defendant. Typically, notices are accompanied by court documents, such as summons or a lawsuit. Service of process is delivered to the registered agent. If you are served with a lawsuit, you will have limited time to respond so it is important that you have a reliable agent.
The state fees to file the change of agent are as follows:
North Dakota requires businesses to have a principal executive office, which must be a street address. A PO box alone is not acceptable. Unlike the registered office however, the principal executive office can have an out-of-state address.
A commercial registered agent (such as us) is an individual or organization that has been approved by the state to serve businesses as a commercial registered agent. If you list a commercial registered agent on your documents, you will list only the name of the commercial agent, not its address.
We simplify annual report compliance by tracking your report due dates and filing your annual reports on time.


text:
Agriculture and Food FSMA Compliance Solutions
FSMA compliance solutions from SGS – a comprehensive range of services to help you comply with the requirements of FSMA.
The US FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is the most sweeping reform of US food safety laws in 70 years. It applies to covered facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for humans or animal food. Produce farms, US importers, shippers, receivers, loaders and carriers who transport food in the United States are also subject to FSMA. If your operation falls within this scope, then it must comply with all applicable elements of the regulation.
We can help you ensure compliance across your food facilities and supply chain with a range of FSMA certification, audit, testing, supplier verification, training and technical services.
We provide FSMA Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP) Certification – the third-party accredited certification recognized by FDA. Available to foreign suppliers, it is a prerequisite for VQIP, which allows expedited entry of food to the US.
We also provide FSMA Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) certification, which is an accredited program, and unlike VQIP, it is not regulated by FSMA rules. It applies to facilities outside the US and serves for supplier verification purposes, helping companies demonstrate compliance with FSMA.
We offer FSMA preventive controls, importer compliance and intentional adulteration (food defense) audits. These audits can be used as pre-assessments, gap audits or supplier audits and are streamlined to reduce the need for multiple audits.
Through our global network of food labs, we can help you comply with the environmental monitoring, water testing, supply chain and allergen management requirements of FSMA. With a variety of FSMA testing protocols and expertise, we provide a one-stop-shop for all your food and animal feed testing needs.
Supplier Verification and Approval
Transparency-One is the FSMA compliance platform that facilitates the FSMA compliance journey by automating supplier verification and approval. We help you track your high-risk ingredients to the source, providing supplier information and document management, reporting and approvals services.
Our comprehensive new FSMA training program helps you and your employees understand and comply with the complex new rules. We provide training for manufacturers and suppliers of human and animal foods, food importers, and fresh produce growers and farms. Our courses are available face-to-face or online.
Technical Support
If you own or operate a US facility, or are an importer covered by FSMA rules, there are auditing, risk assessment, testing, labeling, supply chain management, training and other requirements that apply to you. Our wide range of FSMA technical support services makes your journey toward compliance easier.
To find out more about our FSMA solutions, contact us today.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Historians might be split on whether Robin Hood really existed, but director Ridley Scott believes that the iconic character was real.
"Kevin Costner's was fun, leaning more heavily on the clowning of Robin Hood," Ridley, who directed Russell Crowe in the new version of "Robin Hood," recently told MTV News.
"On this one, I wanted to go more real, because I really believe he existed," he explained. "The ones to date always treated Robin Hood like a myth, part of a fairy story."
The director, who also worked with Russell in 2000's "Gladiator," said he dropped all the cliche images associated with story.
"I never liked the green tights," Ridley said. "I didn't like the feather in the hat. It didn't work for me. Even as a kid, it was not my idea of Robin Hood."
Ridley's take on "Robin Hood" opens in theaters on Friday.
Read Access' Scott "Movie" Mantz's review of the film, HERE!
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Summer Movies 2010
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood Dads
PLAY IT NOW: 'Robin Hood' Invades The 2010 Cannes Film Festival
PLAY IT NOW: Russell Crowe: 'I Pushed Myself Really Hard' For 'Robin Hood'
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Russell Crowe - 'Robin Hood' - News - Kevin Costner - TV


text:
Getting started on using network watcher in C#
Azure Network sample for managing network watcher -
- Create Network Watcher
- Manage packet capture – track traffic to and from a virtual machine Create a VM Start a packet capture Stop a packet capture Get a packet capture Delete a packet capture
- Verify IP flow – verify if traffic is allowed to or from a virtual machine Get the IP address of a NIC on a virtual machine Test IP flow on the NIC
- Analyze next hop – get the next hop type and IP address for a virtual machine
- Retrieve network topology for a resource group
- Analyze Virtual Machine Security by examining effective network security rules applied to a VM Get security group view for the VM
- Configure Network Security Group Flow Logs Get flow log settings Enable NSG flow log Disable NSG flow log
- Delete network watcher
Running this Sample
To run this sample:
Set the environment variable
AZURE_AUTH_LOCATION with the full path for an auth file. See how to create an auth file.
git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/network-dotnet-use-new-watcher.git
cd network-dotnet-use-new-watcher
dotnet build
More information
Azure Management Libraries for C# Azure .Net Developer Center If you don't have a Microsoft Azure subscription you can get a FREE trial account here
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact firstname.lastname@example.com with any additional questions or comments.


text:
CART: Items will be taken out of stock when added to the cart. Items that appear sold out may be reserved. Carts will be emptied after 30 minutes. Please check back to see if this item is purchased.
No results found for your search.
Check your spelling or try another term.


text: Puzzles Palace powered by Arkadium logout x These games are brought to you by Arkadium, the creators behind the world's most played games. Are you a Publisher? If you are looking to drive engagement, loyalty and revenue through a fully managed gaming portal, we want to hear from you. Learn more. Are you a Brand? The world's largest brands turn to us when they need to create superior word, card and casual games or reach the millions of people that play those games. Learn more. About Arkadium Our Privacy Policy All Games Word Card Arcade Puzzles Strategy Quizzes More Game › Puzzles › Junior Sudoku x You have logged out Login again Junior Sudoku x Your game was paused due to inactivity x We noticed that you are using an ad blocker. We believe that games should be free for everyone to enjoy, and ads help us achieve this goal. We take all measures to ensure that the ads shown on this site are secure. In order to continue playing, please enable ads to appear on this site. For ad blocker disabling instructions, click here. You May Also Like… Screenshots Game Description Junior Sudoku features graphics instead of numbers in a 6 x 6 grid containing icon clues. The object of the puzzle is to fill all the empty squares, so that the icons appear exactly once in each row, column and 2 x 3 box. Privacy and Cookie Policy. x Ok x General Data Protection Regulation In order to comply with Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are updating our privacy policy to give you even more transparency into the data that we collect. Please review the items below to continue to enjoy the Games Arena: I'd like to compete by posting my nickname and scores to the leaderboard. I'd like to receive occasional emails about new games and special events. Log me out Let's start playing If at any time, you would like to access or erase your data from our records, please contact us via email at firstname.lastname@example.com or via the Contact Us form on our website. We have recently updated our Privacy Policy to include additional rights that California residents may have. Click here to learn more. By using this site, you agree to Arkadium's Privacy and Cookie Policy. Accept


text:
Season review: Kazakhstan
Tuesday 13 November 2012
Article summary
Swashbuckling FC Shakhter Karagandy retained the title, FC Astana lifted the Kazakh Cup and there were also reasons to be positive for FC Irtysh Pavlodar and FC Taraz.
Article top media content
Article body
Russian coach Viktor Kumykov strengthened the backbone of his 2011 title-winning side with his footballing philosophy intact as FC Shakhter Karagandy captured their second consecutive league crown with a game to spare.
Champions: FC Shakhter Karagandy
Prior to 2011, Shakhter had never tasted title success and drew critics for their effective, if unspectacular playing style without troubling the upper echelons of the Kazakh Premier League. That all changed following the appointment of Russian tactician Kumykov, whose arrival yielded a more adventurous approach. This season, Kumykov's principles bore fruit as Shakhter topped the scoring charts with 48 goals in 26 matches, while conceding just 15.
Cup final: FC Astana 2-0 FC Irtysh Pavlodar
Goals from Kairat Nurdauletov and Tanat Nusserbayev ensured that Astana prevailed 2-0 to lift the Kazakh Cup for the second time in the club's history. Astana, who finished fifth in the table, five points behind their final opponents, took advantage five minutes in as captain Nurdauletov rose to head in a free-kick. Irtysh were under pressure for long spells but kept the scoreline tight until eight minutes from the end, when Kethevoama Foxi crossed for Nusserbayev to turn in Astana's second.
European places*
FC Shakhter Karagandy – UEFA Champions League qualifying round
FC Irtysh Pavlodar – UEFA Europa League qualifying round
FC Aktobe – UEFA Europa League qualifying round
FC Astana – UEFA Europa League qualifying round
*Subject to confirmation from UEFA
Player of the Year: Ulugbek Bakayev (FC Irtysh Pavlodar)
Uzbekistan striker Bakayev finished top scorer for the third season running. The feat is even more extraordinary when you consider that he has featured for three different clubs in that time. The 33-year-old also has an uncanny knack of scoring at important times; his absence was felt in the Kazakh Cup final.
One to watch: Dmitriy Shomko (FC Irtysh Pavlodar)
The 22-year-old has garnered a reputation as a solid, dependable full-back, producing exemplary performances throughout the season. He was the man for the big occasion, and was rewarded with a call-up to Kazakhstan's national team before his glistening season was cut short by injury.
Surprise package: FC Taraz
Perennial mid-table finishers, Serbian coach Ljupko Petrović's uninhibited approach and carefully nurtured reputation for probing, patient football, brought them fourth place. Despite having a small squad at his disposal, Petrović collected some memorable scalps and, most importantly, rekindled belief among the supporters as 11,000 flocked to see their home encounter with FC Ordabasy Shymkent, the club's highest attendance for 16 years.
Leading scorer: Ulugbek Bakayev, FC Irtysh Pavlodar (14)
Relegated: FC Sunkar Kaskelen, FC Okzhetpes Kokshetau
Promoted: FC Ile-Saulet, FC Vostok Oskemen
Number: 8
The number of successive seasons Aktobe have finished in the top three. In that time, they have won four league titles under the wily stewardship of Vladimir Mukhanov.
"We were often criticised for playing boring football. But today no one can compete with us at the top. We scored more and conceded fewer than anybody else."
Shakhter coach Viktor Kumykov


text:
Membership of CMI pays for itself many times over, not only in monetary terms but also the incalculable effect it has on your career.
Join us and you can benefit from a comprehensive range of products and services designed to develop you into a more efficient manager, capable of making a greater impact within your organisation.
Please note, if you are already a member you will need to login to view or update your account details.
Please answer the following questions so that we can determine the type of membership most suitable to you. Alternatively, call us on +44 (0) 1536 207307 or email: firstname.lastname@example.com
01536 207307 firstname.lastname@example.com
As a former CMI member, or previous CMI qualification student, You will need to use one of the following methods to allow us to reinstate your membership:
Please quote the promotional code of '', to ensure your discount is applied.
In order to join CMI you will need to complete our online registration form.
The process takes between 5 and 10 minutes and you will need to have your payment details (credit/debit card or bank account details) to hand in order to complete your application.
Gain recognition for enhancing your knowledge, understanding and practice of management. Display your post nominal as a commitment to continuous professional development and accomplishment as a manager.
For managers who want to sharpen their professional edge and enhance their effectiveness, membership offers access to qualifications, courses, mentoring and unrivalled support resources. You can also achieve the ultimate management accolade, Chartered Manager status.
Independent research proves that individuals with professional qualifications and membership stand to earn an additional £152,000 throughout their career. You'll also be part of an extensive management community, opening doors for career progression.
Membership equips you to meet daily management challenges in a professional, proficient way. Improving performance and effectiveness at managing people and projects will raise your confidence and ultimately, status in your organisation.
You will receive both the weekly Insights and monthly Membership Matters newsletters, keeping you updated on key management issues.
You can manage your communication preferences in the My Account section.


text:
"Brecht at Night" by Mati Unt [BTBA 2010 Fiction Longlist]
Over the next two days, we'll be highlighting a book a day from the Best Translated Book Award fiction longlist. Click here for all past write-ups.
Brecht at Night by Mati Unt. Translated from the Estonian by Eric Dickens. (Estonia, Dalkey Archive)
Below is a guest post from Bill Marx — the man behind PRI's World Books — about another BTBA 2010 title. Almost there . . . Almost time to announce the finalists . . .
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
There will also be singing
About the dark times.
Bertolt Brecht, Svendborg Poems
But can an artist who has absorbed some of the dark times sing of them? Questions of political opportunism, as well as the twisted prerogatives of creative egotism, drive the late Estonian writer Mati Unt's postmodern historical novel Brecht at Night. Unt isn't concerned about how playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht sang about the rise of Hitler and Stalin or the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Instead, Unt examines, via an arch vaudevillesque irony, the narcissistic machinations of Brecht in the year 1940, when, fleeing Nazi Germany, he and his entourage of wife, mistresses and children end up in Finland, the guests of playwright Hella Wuolijoki, a rich Communist sympathizer with Estonian roots. It is the portrait of the artist as a determinedly abstracted man, aside from his paranoid fear that Hitler has sent out assassins to kill him.
Unt's Brecht is primarily concerned with making it to America, not attempting to make sense of the gathering forces of the night, which would touch on his uneasy relationship with the Soviet Union, Stalin, and Communism. The general impression left by the book is that it isn't fear of censorship so much as a pervasive inner decay that holds Brecht back from dealing with reality: The worse thing for a writer is not, Brecht thinks, having to keep your mouth shut. Its a lot worse when you have nothing to say via that mouth.
Sadistically, Unt, a narrative kibitzer in the book, surrounds Brecht with realities that should have given the writer plenty to talk about. He provides excerpts from non-fiction accounts (newspaper articles, academic studies) of the horrendous happening in Europe, with a grim emphasis on the Soviet Unions thuggish hijacking of Estonia. He also provides potted biographies of Brecht's friends and lovers, showing how they were used and abused by Brecht and by history, camp followers betrayed or left on their own to survive.
All of this could have been heavy-handed Brecht the selfish artist slapped around, over and over, in a circumscribed barrel. At his best, however, Unt brings sardonic humor to the dark proceedings, perhaps tapping on his own feelings about being an artist (playwright, novelist, director) bottled up by the Soviet Union. Unt's Brecht chooses to see the world through Marxian rules, Hegelian hocus-pocus: The covert theme of the book is, of course, dialectics, Brechts greatest love. That streamlined notion of Brecht's vision isn't entirely fair, as least to his poetry, which at the time made use of ambiguity and skepticism, a satire that made full use of mockery. Still, the characters intellectual triangulation amusingly seems to free him from looking too deeply at the demands of the here-and-now, aside from the sexual and secretarial demands he makes on the women in his life. (Unt draws on John Fuegi's biography The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht, which details the authors swinish treatment of women.) Occasionally the author tries to wake Brecht up via an impish surrealism, such as having a very un-dialectical frog pop up in his room to give him a scare.
Unt includes a memorably funny chapter about a real-life Estonian government who served as a stooge for the Soviets named M Unt (no relation to the author). The guy counts down his acts of repression before his bosses murder him: Lithuania has been accepted as part of the Soviet Union (3rd August). There's still time to go before my death.
Still, it is difficult to keep the inventive black humor coming, and by mid-point Brecht at Night increasingly shoves the title artist aside to chronicle the lethal facts of Soviet domination. The books imagination gives way to presentation; it suggests that Unt lost interest in drawing (and re-drawing) ironic attention to Brecht's disinterest in reality, his obsession with bourgeois comfort during a time of chaos. If Unt had included more of the un-dialectical consciousness that informs the (anti)lyrics in Svendborg Poems the books exploration of the amoral writer-in-exile would have been richer and more compelling. Unt has a considerable reputation as a stage artist but there is surprisingly little dramatic conflict in the book. His Brecht devolves into a didactic puppet.
Unt's other novels available in English, Things in the Night and Diary of a Blood Donor, tap on rich veins of fantasy (apocalyptic meltdown, vampirism) to evoke the brutal truths about the somnambulism of life under (or after) the domination of the Soviet Union. In Brecht at Night the author speaks openly and powerfully about the crimes of authoritarian barbarity, the degradation of creativity and morality, the slippery slope of self-involvement. But one misses his customary wildness, his imaginative gusto, as he goes about it.
"Landscape with Dog and Other Stories" by Ersi Sotiropoulos [BTBA 2010 Fiction Longlist]


text:
Domestic Chicken
Domestic Chicken
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Taxonomic Name: Gallus gallus
Range: Domesticated form found worldwide except on Antarctica, wild junglefowl (Gallus gallus) are from Southeast Asia.
Habitat: Wild form found in thick secondary forest near more open areas for feeding.
Physical Characteristics: Varies by breed.
Longevity: Average 15 years.
Social Structure: Separate dominance hierarchies for males and female - the original "pecking order"!
Active Time: Diurnal
Diet: Wild - Insects, grains, fruits, seeds.
Zoo - Commercial chicken feed
Zoo - Commercial chicken feed
Bahavior: Male chickens are called roosters and females are called hens. Roosters don't crow only at dawn, they start in the morning, but they continue throughout the day to claim their territory against other roosters. They spend their day scratching at the ground searching for food. Chickens have gizzards that hold pieces of sand and stone to help them digest their food. Rather heavy bodied, they can only fly short distances and prefer to roost up of the ground. Their hearing is better than their sense of smell.
Reproduction: Hens lay eggs whether or not they've been bred by a male. Only eggs laid by mated hens can hatch into chicks. As gallinaceous birds like pheasants and quail, their young hatch out able to walk, feed, and drink for themselves. After being incubated for 21 days, a chick first breaks into the air sac at the large end of the shell using a small, pointy "egg tooth" on the tip of their beak. This egg tooth falls off the beak after a couple of days after hatching. It applies pressure to the shell with the egg tooth, forcing it to crack. This moment is called "pipping". The chick starts to rotate itself inside the egg, enlarging the crack, and eventually uses it feet to force the end off of the shell. While inside the egg, the chick breaths through an umbilicus connected to a network of blood vessels within the lining of the egg shell. Once the chick breaks into the air sac before beginning to pip, it begins breathing through its lungs. The yolk and albumen (egg white) provides food for the growing chick.
Interesting Facts:
- Bantam breeds are small. The word bantam is used to designate a small variety, much like the word pygmy or dwarf.
- Domestication of the chicken dates back to at least 2000 B.C., that's over 4,000 years ago.
- There are more chickens on Earth than people (6 billion).
- 2005 is the Year of the Rooster on the Chinese calendar, a symbol of success, health, and strength.
Relationship With Humans: The red jungle fowl from Thailand is thought to be main ancestor of the domestic chicken. As soon as people began to farm, they recognized the usefulness of keeping chickens for both eggs and meat.


text:
- This event has passed.
Early Bird Service
January 19 @ 8:00 am - 8:45 am
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 8:00 am on Sunday, repeating until March 8, 2020
This is a short service (about 40 minutes) with the same message to be delivered at our 10 a.m. service. Compared to our later service, this service is more contemplative in nature, designed to provide you with a spiritual injection to get you through your busy week. There is no children's church or coffee hour connected to this service.


text:
Chipmunks test positive for plague near Tahoe, pose threat
Humans can catch bacterial disease from rodents, fleas
Chipmunks found near visiting areas and campgrounds in South Lake Tahoe have tested positive for plague, prompting health officials to notify the public of the possible threat.
According to an interim El Dorado County Health officer, the test results are not unexpected, but do warrant precautions and public notification, as the rodent disease is transmittable to humans.
The California Department of Public Health said that two additional chipmunks recently tested positive for the infectious bacterial disease after one chipmunk tested positive earlier this month.
Two chipmunks were near the U.S. Forest Service Taylor Creek Visiting Center, another was found in the Tallac Historic Site area.
Health officials said that warning signs will continue to be posted in the affected areas and surrounding campgrounds through the coming months.
Close contact with infected animals or infected fleas could spread the disease. Symptoms of plague typically occur within two weeks of exposure, and include fever, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes.
Health experts urge visitors to avoid feeding and touching squirrels, chipmunks or other rodents. They also advise to not camp near animal burrows.
The disease can also spread through fleas, so health officials advise to leave pets home, as they can also come into contact with sick rodents or fleas.


text:
This weekend I took a brief break from crafting to start getting all the things I've made lately in order. You see Oktoberfest is a mere 26 days away and there's a lot to tag and bag. On my blog here I mainly share my papercrafts with you but I also loom knit, sew and have even started learning how to crochet. So as I started getting ready I realized that I basically have no Christmas cards. Talk about a mild panic setting in.
After I got to a stop point with the tagging and bagging I quickly got to work creating Christmas cards. One of the first ones I made is a favorite from last year using the Reindeer Card from the Mistletoe Manor file from SVG Cuts. I love the ease of putting this card together and the end result is just gorgeous.
For the stamped sentiment on this card I used the Naughty or Nice stamp set from My Craft Spot. (Sadly they are no longer in business.)


text:
In more and more places around the world, water demands are bumping up against the limits of Earth's finite water supply.
Each year seems to bring another analysis of "water stress" to help us get a fix on how dangerous our water situation is becoming, whether in a particular country or in the world as a whole.
Among the latest efforts is by a team led by researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder who examined 2,103 watersheds across the United States and found that in 193 of them – nearly 1 in 10 – water use has surpassed the natural water supply.
These basins are classified as "water stressed," and the researchers find that as climate change unfolds, this water predicament will worsen.
The team set a high bar for "stressed" water conditions. Whereas other analysts have called watersheds stressed when human water demands reach 40 percent of natural supplies – in part, because freshwater ecosystems would be severely impacted at this level – this team declares stress to exist when demands reach or exceed 100 percent of natural supplies. (See the map above, where stressed basins are colored yellow, orange or red.)
To meet the demands of their farms and cities, these regions typically rely on some combination of multi-year water storage, water imports from other basins, and groundwater pumping.
Not surprisingly, most of the stressed watersheds lie in the western part of the country, where irrigated agriculture typically accounts for more than 80 percent of total water withdrawals.
But the team, which published its results in Environmental Research Letters, ran separate stress tests for each major sector of water use – agriculture (including irrigation and livestock), thermoelectric power plant cooling, and municipal and industrial use – and this turned up some interesting results.
One is that the large volume of water needed to cool nuclear and coal-fired power plants creates pockets of water stress all across the country, including in the fairly well-watered East and Midwest.
Thermoelectric power generation demands more water than any other economic sector –some 201 billion gallons a day, or 49 percent of total US water withdrawals. (These figures are for 2005, the latest available from the US Geological Survey.) The high volumes withdrawn to cool a single plant can push a watershed into the stressed category.
Even though plants with once-through cooling systems return most of the water they withdraw back to its source, they often kill numerous fish and other aquatic life in the process.
A report just out from the GRACE Communications Foundation found that each year the nation's thermal power plants kill more than 2 billion fish and destroy more than half a trillion eggs and larvae of aquatic species.
Another important finding of the University of Colorado study is that most of southern California is classified as water stressed even when looking only at municipal and industrial water use. Farms and power plants worsen the stress (the map goes from yellow to orange and red), but urban water demands alone exceed the natural supply. Southern California makes up most of the difference by importing water from the northern part of the state, an increasingly contentious solution, as well as from the overtapped Colorado River.
A third crucial take-away is that we're not paying enough attention to groundwater, a message we've conveyed many times in Water Currents.
Even though groundwater makes up a growing share of water use nationally and globally, we don't measure and monitor it carefully enough to come close to getting an accurate picture of its role in our water accounts.
Due to data limitations, the model used by this research team assumes that there's no limit on groundwater supplies – when, of course, in reality there is. Groundwater is being depleted in many parts of the country, from the High Plains of Texas to California's Central Valley to parts of the Southeast, to name just a few.
While the study team offers the caveat that "the role of groundwater is beyond the scope of this analysis," this omission inhibits a true rendering of water vulnerabilities nationwide.
After all, what did Texas irrigators do during the severe droughts of recent years? They pumped more groundwater to make up for the rainfall deficit. In July 2012, the High Plains Water District, based in Lubbock, reported an average drop in groundwater levels in its 16-county service area of 2.56 feet (0.78 meters) – the largest annual decline recorded in the last 25 years.
As droughts become more widespread or severe, our depletion of groundwater will pick up speed.
And what are southern California cities doing to wean themselves from long-distance water imports? To be sure, they're investing more heavily in water conservation and reuse, but they're also planning to pump more groundwater from local aquifers.
It's a truism that we can't manage what we don't measure and monitor. It's time to begin tracking and managing groundwater use and supply as a matter of national security, because once the wells run dry we'll be severely stressed indeed.
Sandra Postel is director of the Global Water Policy Project, Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society, and author of several books and numerous articles on global water issues. She is co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater conservation and restoration campaign being piloted in the Colorado River Basin.


text:
As always, the finalists for the Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer are an interesting lot with a few surprises and a number of disappointments. The 1343 valid nominating ballots represent a record number, more than 20% above last year's previous record. The winners will be announced Sunday, September 1, 2013, during the Hugo Awards Ceremony at LoneStarCon 3 in San Antonio, Texas.
As usual, I am looking forward to my yearly journey through the contemporary science fiction world, even if the Hugo Award itself is becoming more of a popularity contest among fan personalities than ever before. Here are my initial thoughts about the nominees.
Best Novel (1113 ballots)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)
2312 appeared on almost every best-of list and should be the odds-on favorite to win. Saladin Ahmed's first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, also received widespread accolades. John Scalzi's Redshirts received some praise, but my guess, not having read it yet, is that readers liked its lighthearted premise of what it's like to be a Star Trek crewmember more than its actual literary merits. Scalzi is also a popular fan personality, which helps his visibility. Lois McMaster Bujold is another fan favorite, having been nominated many, many times. My opinion is that her books are solid mid-list action-adventure tales, but mostly just comfort food for fans who relate well to her protagonist who overcomes major physical disabilities to become a badass soldier and politician. Blackout, by Seanan McGuire writing as Mira Grant, was on zero best-of lists and no other award short lists (at least, that I saw). But McGuire is a hugely popular blogger and podcaster whose celebrity within the fan community gives her a disproportionate advantage. The more of McGuire's work I read, the less impressed I am. This is all the more disappointing because well-reviewed books such as Intrusion by Ken MacLeod, Jack Glass by Adam Roberts, The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin, The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal, among others, were ignored.
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)
The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)
On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit)
"The Stars Do Not Lie" by Jay Lake (Asimov's, Oct-Nov 2012)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall; On a Red Station, Drifting; and "The Stars Do Not Lie" were all well reviewed and all are on the Nebula ballot. Neither The Emperor's Soul nor San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats appeared on any best-of or award lists that I saw. Here again, Sanderson's and Grant's fan popularity rather than the merits of their stories likely put them on the final ballot. The title of Grant's story indicates it may be little more than fan fiction related to Joss Whedon's hugely popular SF franchise, Firefly.
Best Novelette (616 ballots)
"The Boy Who Cast No Shadow" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)
"Fade To White" by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
"The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)
"In Sea-Salt Tears" by Seanan McGuire (Self-published)
"Rat-Catcher" by Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)
The love-fest for Seanan McGuire continues, incredulously including a self-published story. I'm not familiar with the other novelettes, so I am hoping that they will be decent. Certainly, Valente and Cadigan have produced top-notch work in the past.
Best Short Story (662 ballots)
"Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld, June 2012)
"Mantis Wives" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
"Mono no Aware" by Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC)
All these stories undoubtedly deserve to be on the ballot. The sad news is that there are only three nominees because no other works received the minimum 5% of the votes required by the World Science Fiction Society constitution. I suspect this is due to a large number of good short stories that spread votes wide and thin.
Best Related Work (584 ballots)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge UP)
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis (Mad Norwegian Press)
Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad Norwegian Press)
I Have an Idea for a Book… The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)
Writing Excuses Season Seven by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson
This is a hard category to say much about. The variety of potential works is vast, so almost anything can appear. Farah Mendlesohn has produced a number of well received scholarly works in the past few years, so I expect The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literatures deserves its place on the final ballot. Previous volumes of Writing Excuses were pretty informative, so I'm not surprised to see it nominated again. I have no idea what Chicks Dig Comics or Chicks Unravel Time are, but from the titles they must be part of a female-centric critical series. Martin H. Greenberg's book sounds like little more than a list, so I'm not sure what value it has, other than to honor one of the great anthologists of all time. I'm a little surprised there are no art books on the final ballot.
Best Graphic Story (427 ballots)
Grandville Bête Noire written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape)
Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Saga, Volume One written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (Hypernode Media)
Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Jimmy Broxton and Goran Sudžuka (Vertigo)
I'm actually pleasantly surprised by how good the selections are for this category, with the exception of Schlock Mercenary, a lightweight gag comic. It is a travesty that it is on the list and Batman: The Court of Owls is not. The voters have no trouble putting superhero stories in the Dramatic Presentation category, but for some reason resist them in their natural home, the Graphic Story category.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) (787 ballots)
The Avengers Screenplay & Directed by Joss Whedon (Marvel Studios, Disney, Paramount)
The Cabin in the Woods Screenplay by Drew Goddard & Joss Whedon; Directed by Drew Goddard (Mutant Enemy, Lionsgate)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, Directed by Peter Jackson (WingNut Films, New Line Cinema, MGM, Warner Bros)
The Hunger Games Screenplay by Gary Ross & Suzanne Collins, Directed by Gary Ross (Lionsgate, Color Force)
Looper Screenplay and Directed by Rian Johnson (FilmDistrict, EndGame Entertainment)
There are no surprises here, other than not seeing Game of Thrones, Season 2.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) (597 ballots)
Doctor Who:"The Angels Take Manhattan" Written by Steven Moffat, Directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who:"Asylum of the Daleks" Written by Steven Moffat; Directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who:"The Snowmen" Written by Steven Moffat, Directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC Wales)
Fringe:"Letters of Transit" Written by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Akiva Goldsman, J.H.Wyman, Jeff Pinkner. Directed by Joe Chappelle (Fox)
Game of Thrones:"Blackwater" Written by George R.R. Martin, Directed by Neil Marshall. Created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (HBO)
As I predicted, there are the usual three episodes of Doctor Who and two other sacrificial lambs. My only question is why a single episode of Game of Thrones is nominated. As established last year, Game of Thrones should be considered as one ten-part presentation. Nominating a single episode is like nominating a single chapter from a book. In any case, it doesn't matter, since it's a foregone conclusion that Doctor Who will win.
Best Editor – Short Form (526 ballots)
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams
The usual suspects are nominated once again. My hope is that the retiring Stanley Schmidt will finally receive his due.
Best Editor – Long Form (408 ballots)
Lou Anders
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Toni Weisskopf
This is a category that very few people are really interested in. I certainly am not.
Best Professional Artist (519 ballots)
Vincent Chong
Julie Dillon
Dan Dos Santos
Chris McGrath
John Picacio
A mixture of some old favorites along with some new faces. There are so many good professional artists that it is hard to pick a slate of nominees without offending some really deserving candidates. And picking a clear winner is nearly impossible.
Best Semiprozine (404 ballots)
Apex Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore and Michael Damian Thomas
Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace and Kate Baker
Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams and Stefan Rudnicki
Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison, Jed Hartman, Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Abigail Nussbaum, Sonya Taaffe, Dave Nagdeman and Rebecca Cross
It baffles me why this category should exist at all. Either you're a professional magazine or you're not. This wishy-washy half-measure should be abolished. For example, Clarkesworld published three Hugo nominees this year compared to one for Asimov's and zero for Analog and F&SF. If that's not a professional magazine, I don't know what is.
Best Fanzine (370 ballots)
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
The Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia and James Bacon
Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond
Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Emma J. King, Helen J. Montgomery and Pete Young
SF Signal edited by John DeNardo, JP Frantz, and Patrick Hester
The Hugo voters inexplicably changed the eligibility rules this year to exclude virtually all online fanzines. Why supposedly forward-looking science fiction fans chose to regress to only printed periodicals is a mystery.
Best Fancast (346 ballots)
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, John DeNardo, and JP Frantz
SF Squeecast, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, Catherynne M. Valente (Presenters) and David McHone-Chase (Technical Producer)
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith
Although the Hugo voters have excluded online fanzines, they have embraced podcasts. However, the same titles appear year after year, and frankly, I have not been impressed with any of them. Episodes of news and opinion shows are almost always too long and often lack organization. StarShipSofa's selection of audio stories is underwhelming. I'm still looking for a SF podcast with value-added information that's worth my time. I suspect others feel the same way, since this category had the second-lowest number of nominating ballots.
Best Fan Writer (485 ballots)
James Bacon
Christopher J Garcia
Mark Oshiro
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Steven H Silver
Mostly the same names we see every year in the mutual-admiration society known as fandom.
Best Fan Artist (293 ballots)
Galen Dara
Brad W. Foster
Spring Schoenhuth
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Here's another list of mostly familiar names. At least professional artist Randall Munroe did not make the final ballot this year.
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (476 ballots)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2011 or 2012, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
Zen Cho *
Max Gladstone
Mur Lafferty *
Stina Leicht *
Chuck Wendig *
* Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.
Mur Lafferty and Stina Leicht were both nominated last year, so I expect one of them will win this year. I am completely unfamiliar with the other three nominees.


text:
Trivia Night at Kip's
WHEN: Tue Jan 28 | 9:30 pm - 11:30 pm
WHERE: 2439 Durant Ave
Every Tuesday night, Jacob Rubin presents a original, independently produced pub quiz upstairs in the back room at Kip's Bar. Glorious prizes like t-shirts, shot glasses, and the grand prize: a pitcher of beer! It's always free, always fun, and always fake totally different. Come week after week and see what questions get cooked up. Sometimes live performances!
Map Unavailable


text:
Tag: lip scrub
DIY Vanilla Mint Lip Scrub
I love me some chilly willy weather, but one thing I don't dig is dry, chapped, crusty lips (feels nasty and makes smooth lipstick application impossible). Plus, who wants to make out with a crustatious beast? Exactly. You could splurge...
Read more >>


text:
Douglas Beal
Partner and Director, Total Societal Impact & Sustainability
New York
For decades, most companies have oriented their strategies toward maximizing total shareholder return (TSR). This focus, the thinking has been, creates high-performing companies that produce the goods and services society needs and that power economic growth around the world. According to this view, explicit efforts to address societal challenges, including those created by corporate activity, are best left to government and NGOs.
Now, however, corporate leaders are rethinking the role of business in society. Several trends are behind the shift. First, stakeholders, including employees, customers, and governments, are pressuring companies to play a more prominent role in addressing critical challenges such as economic inclusion and climate change. In particular, there is recognition that meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be possible without the private sector's involvement. Second, investors are increasingly focusing on companies' social and environmental practices as evidence mounts that performance in those areas affects returns over the long term. Third, standards are being developed for which environmental, social, and governance (commonly referred to as ESG) topics are financially material by industry, and data on company performance in these areas is becoming more available and reliable, increasing transparency and drawing more scrutiny from investors and others.
As these trends gain momentum, companies need to add a lens to strategy setting, one that considers what we call total societal impact. TSI is the total benefit to society from a company's products, services, operations, core capabilities, and activities. (See "What Is Total Societal Impact?") The most powerful—and most challenging—way to enhance TSI is to leverage the core business, an approach that yields scalable and sustainable initiatives. If well executed, this approach enhances TSR over the long term by reducing the risk of negative events and opening up new opportunities. In the end, such an approach allows the company to survive and thrive.
Every company has positive and negative economic, social, and environmental effects on the world. We refer to the aggregate of these as its total societal impact. TSI is a collection of measures and assessments, not a single metric. Companies should use TSI to help shape strategy.
A company's TSI includes the impact of its products and services, its operations, and its corporate social responsibility initiatives. It also includes the result of explicit decisions the company makes to adjust its core business to create positive societal benefits. Activities related to TSI often have a material impact on total shareholder return (TSR)—but not always.
TSI encompasses numerous elements. Examples include:
Impact is not an easy thing to measure. It is topic- and industry-specific and often requires data from outside the company. Many companies measure the outcomes of their efforts—but have difficulty measuring the ultimate societal impact. In the case of efforts aimed at expanding financial inclusion for women, for example, it may be fairly easy to measure an outcome, such as the number of women who join the banking system. The impact, on the other hand, which may be a decrease in gender income inequality, may be more difficult to measure.
No doubt, companies will make progress in identifying and tracking impact in the future. The objective, however, is not to come up with a single metric like TSR but to understand how a company's actions connect to impact and to adjust strategy to maximize TSI for the benefit of TSR.
Evidence of the power of this approach is mounting. Much of the research to date has focused on demonstrating the link between a company's overall ESG performance and its financial performance. However, CEOs tell us that it is unclear where they should put their energy. Which areas in their industry provide the best opportunities to create both societal benefits and financial returns? To help answer that question, we have gone deeper and identified the link between individual ESG topics and financials in specific industries. Our study encompassed five industries: consumer packaged goods, biopharmaceuticals, oil and gas, retail and business banking, and technology.1
For individual industries, we looked at the link between performance in specific ESG topics (such as ensuring a responsible environmental footprint or promoting equal opportunity) and market valuation multiples and margins, both contributors to TSR.2 Our key findings:
ESG data is currently the best way to quantify a company's societal impact. However, it is important to note that ESG measures are not designed to measure a company's TSI. In particular, ESG provides a limited window onto the largest impact of a corporation: the intrinsic societal value created by its core products or services. The ESG measures that do relate to a company's products or services tend to focus on the incremental ways a company improves its products or makes those products more accessible. In banking, for example, ESG data is not designed to capture the full economic benefit of a bank's lending activities—but it does track the degree to which banks are lending in underserved markets. Consequently, most of our findings relate to how companies operate their business, not to the actual product or service they create.
Still, the clear links in each industry between performance in specific ESG topics and financial performance point business leaders to opportunities to enhance both TSI and TSR. Notably, we found just two negative correlations in our analysis of 65 topics (we studied 35 topics, 10 of which applied to all four industries)—suggesting that a well-executed investment in material ESG issues does not hurt financial performance.
Of course, many companies have already developed programs that aim to address various societal issues and generate business benefits. Examples include efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, programs aimed at eradicating major diseases in developing countries, and initiatives that provide opportunities that can lift people out of poverty. But too often, the results are fragmented and lack scale. Moreover, even companies that have an effective, large-scale effort intended to increase both societal impact and TSR frequently fail to measure and communicate the results to investors, their employees, and the wider public. This diminishes the benefits to the brand, to employees, and to stock market performance that companies could realize from such efforts.
Based on extensive work with clients and numerous interviews, we have identified the key success factors for integrating TSI efforts into a company's strategy, organization, and business model. Companies that do this well will find they can not only create value for shareholders—but also make a real difference in the world.
The business community has, of course, played a role in addressing societal challenges for many decades. Companies have long run their own foundations, for instance, and have established major corporate social responsibility programs.
Today, it's not enough for companies to pursue societal issues as a side activity. Instead, they must use their core business—and the scale advantages it offers—to create both positive societal impact and business benefits. The result can be a more reliable growth path, a reduced risk of negative, even cataclysmic, events, and, most likely, increased longevity. (See Exhibit 1.)
BCG conducted a comprehensive study of how this approach is being adopted in five industries. In addition to our quantitative analysis and a review of external studies, we spoke with in excess of 200 people at more than 20 companies both within and outside our five industries. We also spoke with dozens of investment professionals at pension funds, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, private equity firms, and financial advisors to understand how the investment community is assessing ESG performance and incorporating it into their decisions—and what those views mean for corporate leaders. Lastly, we spoke with international development organizations and NGOs to get their perspective on partnerships with the private sector.
A company's significant activities ultimately have an impact both on society and on shareholder value. Company activities are often presented in a 2x2 matrix to illustrate how much they contribute to each. Following the example of others who have conducted research in this area, we have created a matrix that shows the positive and negative impacts of business practices and activities on society and on financial performance. (See Exhibit 2.)
Assessing How Business Practices and Activities Contribute to TSI and TSR. A company's business practices and activities ideally boost both TSR and TSI, falling in the upper-right quadrant. But placement within that quadrant—which reflects just how much these activities actually increase TSR and TSI—varies.
Philanthropy and donations, for example, can benefit society. But the impact on TSR, typically in the form of brand enhancement or employee engagement, is more variable. Some of these activities can enhance both TSI and TSR, putting them in the upper-right quadrant. But when these activities are not done well (or are done to excess), they can actually be a drag on TSR, putting them in the upper-left quadrant. A company may make donations that help society, for example, but do little to burnish its brand or engage employees.
The real question is how companies can identify activities that would fall farther up and to the right in that quadrant—business opportunities that generate significant shareholder returns as well as societal impact that goes well beyond the intrinsic benefit of a product or service. This requires explicitly identifying ways to leverage the core business to address social and environmental goals. How best to do so will vary by industry but can include changes to the supply chain, leveraging core capabilities of the business, and enhancements to existing products or services or the development of new ones.
Such activities can have a greater impact than most philanthropic efforts for a simple reason: they are scalable. In addition, while charitable giving can be among the first things on the chopping block in an economic downturn, a strategy built around enhancing TSI and TSR together is likely to be more sustainable because of the business benefits it aims to create.
Certainly, some activities fall in the other three quadrants, dragging down TSR, TSI, or both. For example, companies that have focused almost exclusively on delivering solid returns to shareholders have at times failed to invest in the best environmental practices or safety disciplines. However, societal expectations, regulations, and investors' attention to social and environmental issues have evolved, making many previously permitted activities untenable.
Consequently, companies find that activities that previously boosted TSR in the short term, but had a negative impact on society, ultimately become a drag on TSR. As a result, those activities move from the lower-right quadrant to the lower left, often damaging the brand in lasting ways and even threatening the company's survival.
The degree to which management has focused—and continues to focus—on TSR as the primary objective varies by region. In continental Europe, companies have long subscribed to the "stakeholder model," in which employee, community, and environmental interests are all considered in addition to shareholder interests. This culture has its roots in an industrial structure dominated by family-owned enterprises and a regulatory environment for large companies that is more alert to maintaining the balance among these constituencies than in the US. In Asia, the prevalence of state-owned enterprises and family-owned, publicly listed companies creates an environment in which companies are generally focused on a broader set of objectives than simply maximizing TSR. These objectives can include, for example, supporting a country's industrial policy.
The Trends Driving an Increased Focus on TSI. Several trends are converging that make it critical for all companies to expand their view to include both TSR and TSI.
First, companies are under mounting pressure from a range of stakeholders to play a more active role in addressing social and environmental issues such as global health challenges, climate change, and gender inequality. Employees—millennials, in particular—not only want their employers to have a greater sense of purpose but also seek an active role in companies' societal impact efforts. In addition, customers are increasingly attuned to information related to a company's social and environmental impact—information that can shape their buying decisions. Some governments, meanwhile, expect companies to do more to solve economic and social problems and are looking to collaborate with companies in such initiatives. The need for greater private-sector involvement in these efforts is clear: the annual gap between the cost of achieving the SDGs and the available public funding is projected to be as much as $2.5 trillion—a shortfall that many believe the private sector must largely address.3
Second, the investment community is increasingly focused on companies' social and environmental performance. A decade or so ago, socially responsible investing (SRI) encompassed two primary approaches. The first was negative screening, in which investors in public markets avoided stocks of companies whose products or services were deemed to have a negative impact on society. The second was impact investing, which involved relatively small investments in the private markets that would support an explicit social or environmental objective. These two approaches represented a relatively small slice of the overall investment market.
Global figures reflect the shift. In 2016, global SRI assets hit nearly $23 trillion, accounting for more than one-quarter of total managed assets and up from $18 trillion two years earlier. The overall share of SRI investing varies quite a bit regionally. In Europe and Australia and New Zealand, roughly half of all managed assets fell into the SRI category in 2016; in Canada, the share was nearly 40%. In the US, the percentage was just over 20%, but it grew at a compound annual rate of 15% from 2014 to 2016. SRI investing has not yet taken off in Asia, where the share was close to zero.4
Asset owners and asset managers, particularly those with a long investment horizon, are paying close attention to environmental and social factors for a simple reason: evidence is mounting that company performance in ESG areas has an impact on long-term shareholder returns.
A third trend that's moving TSI front and center is the growing availability and reliability of ever-more detailed data on company performance in ESG areas. A variety of standard-setting organizations and data vendors are behind this trend. Certainly, data challenges remain. For one thing, consensus is still emerging on which ESG topics are material for specific industries and on the appropriate ways to measure performance in those topics. And data quality and completeness need improvement. But information today is largely available and is rapidly becoming more reliable. As a result, companies will find their performance on social and environmental issues increasingly under scrutiny.
However, even if a company and many investors believe that societal and business benefits go hand in hand, several realities may make it difficult for CEOs to take this long view. These include the need to meet quarterly earnings as well as the increasing prevalence of activist investors, who may pressure the company to boost near-term shareholder returns at the expense of long-term value creation. In addition, some obstacles prevent companies from being fully rewarded by the investment community for their ESG efforts, such as the way companies and investors communicate about these issues. (See "Bridging the Investor Divide.")
There are two main barriers that prevent publicly listed companies from getting full credit in the capital markets for their social and environmental efforts.
The first is the way companies and investors communicate with each other, which reflects the bifurcation between ESG and financial experts within companies, asset managers, and asset owners.
In a company, CFOs are focused on financial results described in well-defined metrics based on accounting standards. Consequently, they communicate less about ESG performance and how that performance affects the company's financial results. As a result, conversations with portfolio managers within the asset managers and asset owners tend not to involve ESG in a major way, focusing instead on the company's financial performance and plans.
Those portfolio managers, meanwhile, do not typically have ESG expertise. While a separate group of ESG experts does communicate directly with companies on issues these specialists believe are significant, such conversations do not generally happen in a regular and scheduled fashion.
The second barrier is that asset managers are typically hired and judged over a relatively short time frame by asset owners.1 That creates less of an incentive to factor in ESG issues, where benefits often accrue over a long period.
These two barriers can create a vicious cycle. Many CFOs and investor relations leaders at companies say investors generally do not ask about ESG factors, giving them less impetus to develop detailed information and messages about them. Investors that do care about ESG, in turn, are often frustrated, arguing that the information they receive about social and environmental efforts and their contribution to financial performance are short on details and clear measures of success.
Both barriers can be surmounted. For the first barrier, ESG expertise needs to be integrated into the company's finance function and into investors' portfolio management activities. That said, because companies set the agenda for communications with their investors, it is their responsibility to include ESG issues in those conversations. The second barrier needs to be addressed by asset owners. They must extend the time frames under which they measure asset managers' performance.
The barriers are not a major issue in the private market, however. Private equity firms typically hold their investments for a fairly long period, usually five years or more. In addition, they often get board seats at the companies in which they invest, giving them significant influence over company strategy and the reporting of ESG performance.
No surprise, then, that a number of private equity firms we spoke with are integrating environmental and social factors into the life cycle of their investing strategy, making ESG a factor in due diligence and setting out ESG targets for companies in their portfolio. This reflects a belief among both general and limited partners that an ESG focus can ultimately help increase exit valuations. And it can help private equity firms attract more socially minded limited partners, such as development finance organizations and foundations.
In the end, the goal for companies is the same whether their shares are held in the public or private market: to receive full value for their ESG performance. That will not be possible unless companies effectively integrate that information in their communications with investors.
1. See R. Eccles and M. Kastrapeli, The Investing Enlightenment: How Principle and Pragmatism Can Create Sustainable Value Through ESG, State Street, 2017.
Companies that recognize these shifts and actively rethink how to improve their TSI stand to reap concrete business rewards. First, adding the TSI lens drives them to identify and address activities that will ultimately destroy TSR, activities that over time can undermine a company's performance and ultimately even threaten its survival.
Second, the TSI lens leads companies to spot completely new opportunities—both internal and external. The most prominent include the following:
Companies that are able to seize such opportunities while addressing potentially TSR-destroying activities increase the likelihood that they will grow and thrive over the long term. Such sustained success is increasingly difficult to achieve. BCG research has found that corporate longevity has plummeted. Public companies have a one in three chance of being delisted in the next five years, whether because of bankruptcy, liquidation, M&A, or other causes. That's six times the delisting rate of companies 40 years ago. (See "Die Another Day: What Leaders Can Do About the Shrinking Life Expectancy of Corporations," BCG Perspective, December 2015.)


text:
When Woo Suk Hwang burst into international prominence back in 2004, seemingly out of nowhere, his story seemed too good to be true. Here was a poor Korean farm boy who had overcome his humble origins to become a leading veterinary scientist, and then gone on to achieve a scientific landmark: the first therapeutic cloning of a human embryo. That transformed him into a biomedical superstar and made his native South Korea--a country better known for its serial television dramas than its scientific accomplishments--into the undisputed leader of a technology that could revolutionize modern medicine.
Over the next year or so, the tale only got better. Hwang, aided by a tireless, dedicated and underpaid laboratory staff that venerated him, went on to create multiple lines of thriving stem cells with unprecedented efficiency and ease. He topped his performance off last summer with yet another feat that had eluded some of the world's most talented scientists: the first cloning of a dog, called Snuppy. TIME named Snuppy "Invention of the Year" for 2005, but that was merely the icing on a cake of praise and recognition for Hwang. Scientists from around the world were clamoring to collaborate with him. Volunteers besieged his operation, offering themselves as research subjects. The South Korean government began pouring millions into his chronically underfunded lab. He was given round-the-clock security and free travel on Korean Air for life.
But in the months since Snuppy's debut in the journal Nature, Hwang's saga has been rewritten--as a Greek tragedy. One by one, he has faced an escalating series of charges: first, that some women had been paid for the eggs they provided for his research, and that eggs also came from his employees, both ethical violations in the rigorous world of high-level research. Then came the allegation that some of the photos of cells he published did not show what he claimed. And finally, as he was forced to admit two weeks ago, before submitting his resignation to Seoul National University (S.N.U.), that nine of the 11 stem-cell lines he described in Science weren't from clones at all. Last week, in a kind of scientific coup de grace, a university panel declared it could find no evidence to support the validity of the remaining two lines either.
Now the university is investigating the Snuppy report, along with Hwang's original 2004 stem-cell paper in Science. Hwang maintains that the current imbroglio involved no fraud on his part. He claims that a mix-up with the stem cells resulted in the wrong stem-cell lines--ones he did not create--being published in Science. Despite his failure so far to prove it, he still insists that he has developed the technology to create human stem cells that could be used to grow resistance-free replacements for damaged nerve, organ and muscle tissue. Despite black, billowing smoke, says Hwang, there is no fire.
But it's hard to find any scientist today who believes him. Even if Hwang's two remaining triumphs, Snuppy and the first human cloning, emerge untainted, urgent questions remain. How did his now invalidated stem-cell paper get into a major scientific journal? How did such serious flaws go undetected for months? And could he have knowingly taken such foolish risks?


text:
As the 11th of November approaches, the thoughts of most Americans turn toward the three-day weekend and the excitements and stresses of the holiday season to come. We are fortunate to live in such a society, where the worry about armed conflict is completely eclipsed the comforts of pumpkin spice lattes and an anxiety about shopping lists. However, this extraordinary privilege can sometimes leave us blind to price of our comfortable existence.
War was certainly not on my mind during my sojourn in France, and it was the last thing I wanted to think about after a long day of climbing around Mont St. Michel, but nevertheless I found myself being driven through the Breton countryside toward a small piece of home in the form of the Brittany American Cemetery. A staid looking French woman and an affable gentleman, whose French was tinted by a distinct New Jersey accent and whose straight posture immediately identified him as an American Serviceman, greeted our party. They told us the remarkable story of the cemetery, how this piece of land, still surrounded by war-torn stone barns, was given to the United States by the French people in gratitude for service in the World Wars, how the United States government had paid for every widow and mother of a man interred there to visit their loved ones' remains and how the old woman fondly remembered the American GIs coming through the village at the end of World War II with candy and chocolate for the grateful children.
To me though, the truly extraordinary aspect of the cemetery lay in the bucket of roses the woman held. She was part of an organization called Les Fleurs de la Memoire, a group of French people who ensure that each grave in the cemetery receives a flower at least once a year. She then handed us each a rose and a card with the location of a grave and asked us to go honor a soldier.
My soldier's name was Private William Elgie. He was with the 39th Infantry 9th Division. He was from California. He died on August 7, 1944, probably during the German counter-offensive in Arvanches. That was all I knew about him. The Jersey accented veteran from earlier approached as I was putting down the flower and I told him that I was sorry I didn't know more about the man whose grave I was decorating.
"You know about his sacrifice and you are honoring it by giving him the gift of time and remembrance. That's the best we can do for the dead."
He was right of course. This is often the best we can do for the dead. However, there are still many living veterans whose sacrifice deserves the same honor and regard. This Veteran's Day, I invite you to salute our servicemen with the gift of time and remembrance. You can choose to emulate Les Fleurs de la Memoire and leave patriotic flowers or send a more tangible gift such as a Delightful Combinations fruit and gourmet basket to a living veteran to honor their service. Veteran's Day only comes once a year. Be sure to take some time to express your gratitude and remember.


text:
If you have not visited the Winter Fair, I'd grab my keys and rush to the event as it ends today! I won't talk long because I don't want to delay you!
You'll find this wonderful outfit at Lush's booth at the Winter Fair. It is the perfect outfit for decorating your Christmas tree and curling up to the fire with a cup of hot chocolate! The top is available in tang, sky, glass, and snow. The pants are available in Mayan, mother land, jingles, and diamonds.
The gorgeous Riria skins, which include the Riria shape, can be found at Shiva's booth! You'll find the uniquely stunning First Snow jewelry set (matching rings not shown) at h.m.a.e.m!
These items are all exclusives at the event! I'll be showing you more items from the Winter Fair but don't wait on me…rush on over to the event!!
Happy Shopping!
Top: Lush* @ Winter Fair — Boatneck Sweater (Sky)
Pants: Lush* @ Winter Fair — Can't Touch This Pants (Diamonds)
Shape: Shiva @ Winter Fair–– Riria Shape (included with Skin)
Skin: Shiva @ Winter Fair — Riria Skin 1 & 2
Jewelry: h.m.a.e.m @ Winter Fair — First Snow (necklace and two rings)
Hair: D!va — Marie (Type A) (Rhodolite)
Shoes: e.one — Flats (no longer in business)
Pose: WetCat Builds & Poses— TTB 16 & 29
Background: KaTink — Christmas Card (pack 2)


text:
Sunday Night Baseball
James Loney just drew a walk to load the bases in the first inning…
It was hard to believe, but researching the notes for today, it dawned on me that James has basically carried the offense for the past six weeks. The Dodgers were six games under .500 on April 29 and have gone 30-16 since then, for a .652 winning percentage.
During that time, Loney leads the team in slugging percentage, on-base percentage, batting average, doubles, homers and RBI…and his 38 RBI are twice as many as the next-highest total (DeWitt's 19). That's crazy. Meanwhile, during that same period, Broxton, Kuo and Weaver are a combined 7-0 with a 1.44 ERA. Pretty impressive.
Anyway, here's hoping we can get out of town with a victory tonight. For those who follow the team on Twitter @dodgertownusa, we posted some random photos from around town today, as I wandered along the Freedom Trail in Boston, a very nice stroll throughout town. Dodger fans, as expected, were everywhere.
51 Comments
That was embarrassing, having no one covering third base and having the ball with no where to throw it. I guess they forgot to practice that play in spring training.
Well, the tables were set for Anderson and Blake but nobody ate, in the first.
Here we go again!
I hope the Dodgers learned something from that bottom of the 1st.
My condolences to Rafael Furcal and his family on the death of his father.
Man, How unlucky can you get, Kemp.
There was this woman on just now with a Mannywood shirt that looked a lot like Emma.
Happy Fathers Day!!!!
My thoughts and prayers go out to Raffy and his entire family.
Heartfelt prayers go out to Furcal.
On a much less important note, I'll pose the same question I did last week. Name one Dodger player in his prime? This club continues to flail because Frank and Ned build a team with cheap youngsters and cheap PVLs. Kuo may be the closest to being in his prime…but he's always one pitch away from ending his career. Watching this team fall short against the Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, California and the Red Sox reminds us all that the Dodgers are very far away from a championship-caliber ball club.
I have nothing to say!
Hu's on first?
Hu's on first.
If thinks keep up like this……
Check out these batting averages for the three Fenway games:
Ethier and Carroll: .000
Martin, Loney, Blake: 091
Kemp: .154
DeWitt, Belliard: .333
Manny: .417
Anderson: .500
And looking at BOTH the Red Sox series and Angels series, check out these three middle of the order hitters:
Ethier: 0-22
Blake: 1-17
Kemp: 2-22
And that's not even addressing the pitching. Short of Kuroda, who showed up in those six games? I know it's easy to be critical right now, but jeepers!!!!!!!!!
IMO The Dodgers have been in all 3 of these games, it's just that the breaks are going to the Redsox.
I would walk Youkilis.
Great job by MILLER.
Just awesome for Michael's team, Nellyjune.
I am not at the point of being concerned about our team….I woud say frustrated is the way I feel right now.
What a waste of good pitching by Kuroda and the bullpen.
Have a nice off-day.
I am trying my best to not pay attention to the standings until August/September (as recommended by Dodgereric). It's a great feeling to be in first, but it certainly isn't the end of the world if we aren't right now either. Even the Diamondbacks, who seem to be so far out right now, really aren't out of anything at the moment. The Rockies have done pretty incredible things in August/September, and I would expect them to try and do the same thing this season. So, why can't we? Once this interleague crap is out of the way, then we can buckle down and start taking care of our division one team at a time. I am not saying this isn't frustrating. It certainly is, but Oldbrooklynfan seems to be taking it well, so why shouldn't I?
I would also like to send my very best to Raffy and his family. My sincere condolences on their loss.
On a personal note………..My son's baseball team (VSA Eagles) won their 2nd tournament of the summer. He pitched a complete game with 13 K's, he batted 3 for 4 today, and they won in Dodger walk-off style in the bottom of the 9th, 4-5. Well, his highschool team won their local tournament during the week too, but that team is nothing compared to this one, nor is the competition.
Also…….Dodgereric – glad your guy won today as our NASCAR buddy from my school, Andres, was there to see it today. He was one happy Jimmie fan according to his mom. I didn't see any of the race, but from reading, it looked like a great one!!
This game was more frustrating seeing as the guys could no NOTHING! NADA! We are all very frustrated walking back to the hotel. I am here in the lobby next to Dodger fans checking in for the early flight tomorrow night and they are just as frustrated as the rest of us.
Unacceptable! We want better performance when the team gets back!!
If only we would've given up 2 runs in either 1 of the first 2 game than we win.
Not shock to see Manny and Anderson batting average that high because Anderson is a Red Sox killer. Still not fair we can't played the Mariners, Indians, Orioles and A's.
Actually I think old the break is going to all the AL teams we're played except the Tigers.
What was up with the Dodgers? Very poor performance. We are now #3….I can not believe this. So is Frank happy his team swept us? Torre comes from coaching American Leagues and yet we can't beat the American Leagues. We are just being swept around by the American Leagues and the Padres will come and just put in a dust pan and throw us down the garbage can.
Boston have difficult the stadium to play in. Well if you are a visitor. Each time the ball was being hit to the outfield and it start hitting those walls. Balls are just bouncing around like a ping pong game. I felt like you needed a Geometry degree and to be a professional pool player to figure which way the ball was going to bounce.
Next the Angels (Again) then the Yankees….can it get any tougher? Wow I hope the Dodgers regroup and get their crap together. Rest today and tomorrow it will be another day, another game and I hope the Dodgers packed their damn broom, cause we need to start sweeping.
A big decision for Joe on Thursday's starter….Haeger or Vargas 🙂
It sure is a sad state if affairs, Bear. I was saying last night that even though some of us feel optomistic about our chances for success, I feel a betrayed and pisssed off!
Last years team and this years team are TOTALLY DIFFERENT TEAMS! I just feel that they have sooo much distraction they can't even concentrate on the game. They need to start working as a team again. It might be phases a team goes through.
First, let's stop making excuses or crying about who the Dodgers have to play in interleague player versus who any other team has to play. The Dodgers have had problems with interleague play right from the start. If the team is good enough to win, it will win. If the team plays good baseball more often than not, it will win more games, no matter the opponent. To win a championship the Dodgers will have to beat the best of whatever opponent they face. Yes, they will need some luck and breaks here and there and injuries will play a role. Sometimes things have to fall right. But it takes the whole team to win. Does anyone really think the Padres have the best talent? They score fewer runs than most other teams but find ways to win. They have a bunch of no name pitchers getting the job done.
What is the problem? Of course, the pitching. But where is the offense? Fenway a tough place to play defensively as an outfielder? The Dodgers have three players on this team with extensive experience playing in Fenway and two of them are outfielders. It seemed to me the Red Sox had more trouble in the outfield than the Dodgers, so stick a fork in this argument as well. I said it the other day and I will say it again: it seems to me the Dodgers are clear underdogs in these national broadcasts and yet with a hit here and there, they could have won two of three. The Dodgers were in a funk coming out of Spring training and seemed to come out of it in May. June comes and back in the funk.
So what to do now. Nothing except continue to go out there everyday and give it the best the players can. Distractions? I suppose being asked about Manny or the energy vibe guy or the other mundane questions players are asked everyday can be a distraction but my guess is losing is a much worse distraction. The paper reported that even Andre snapped at a reporter's question and when has that ever happened. Are these players really worried about ownership? Clearly, their future depends on what they do on the field regardless of ownership and you would hope they play for the name on the jersey and for the fans as well as for themselves. I would hope these players have better character than to let the problems with ownership affect what happens on the field.
lbirkin, another horrible answer may be a lot of these players are having mediocre years…or are just never going to reach that wondrous thing called "potential." Martin has 16 RBIs in late June, and there are countless more stats, both pitching and hitting, equally feeble. But I hate stats, anyway. I still maintain the general funk has been brought on by the players' none-to-keen observation that management and ownership did NOTHING to put this team over the hump. Middle of the road pitching, middle of the road bench, bottom of the barrel owner.
Hi to my ITD boys and girls!
What a tough weekend, for sure. But I did hear about something good ? personally! No, I?m still unemployed. Actually the great news isn?t about me. My sister, my mom plus a couple of nephews and some cousins were in Boston this weekend to catch a game; too bad they didn?t oblige by winning a game. But I hear that my mom and sister (and I think my nephews too) were out to dinner this weekend and ran into none other than our own Tommy Lasorda! My mom talked to Tommy and got her picture taken with him! That?s great! At least mom had that this weekend, if our Boys in Blue couldn?t eek out a win in Beantown?
***Note to Josh***
My mom and sister are still on the plane ride home, and I won?t be able to talk to her until tomorrow, but tell Tommy that I think it?s wonderful that he took the time to talk to my mom!
Josh, I do believe it's time for an ITD tour, no?
Hey CP!!!! How cool is that!!!!
Kalhli – About the ITD Tour – Dodgereric and I were wondering the same thing a couple of weeks ago. This coming Sunday (the 27th) will be our one year anniversary of that day.
The ITD tour last year was a lot of fun. It would be great to get together again.
ITD TOUR!!!! Agreed…last year was much fun!! I would hope to welcome enchanted, messagebear and jhall, as I believe they were nowhere to be seen last year…….. Anyone else miss the show?
Yup it is about that time when we need our ITD TOUR!
IBERKEN: You are right, "To win a championship the Dodgers will have to beat the best of whatever opponent they face." and to me they are NOT playing to their full potential to beat the best. BOSTON & YANKEES are great teams. They couldn't beat BOSTON and now let's see what happens with the YANKEES. I've seen them play great and I know that they can win it all. But this "FUNK or DISTRACTIONS" need to stop. I do like "FUNK" better so I hope that they win some game this next series against the ANGELS to get De-FUNKed-T-fied so when the play the YANKEES, we can can kick their FUNKy As-s back to NY. LET'S GOOOOO DODGERS!
Well, well, well. Isn't this nice?
Now how do all of you feel who purchased the 13-game plan? Or even the 6? Betrayed? I would certainly hope so.
Sell the team, you miserable lying son-of-a-bitch!
*** Note to Josh ***
I just talked to my mom and she said that my cousin (I think) had an extra ticket for Friday?s game and she went. She also said that when she met Tommy, the owner of the restaurant introduced her to Tommy and his friends. Were you one of those friends? Mom said she didn?t know who the other three were, but she was sure that they were connected to the Dodgers somehow. Don?t remember the name of the restaurant, but that was very cool of the owner to do that. I still don?t know what day they met Tommy, but it was at an Italian restaurant. Did you have dinner with Tommy at an Italian restaurant in Boston? Just thinking!
Oh, yeah. I too would love another ITD tour! If we have it, I?ll bring my mom with me!
Oh, so NOW they sell single seats, huh. I knew they would at some point. Like I said before, I don?t begrudge them charging more for these tickets, but why not make them available on an individual basis from the beginning? Oh, I know — the mighty, old $dollar$. Okay, iwannabelikebear1, is this STILL our very own enchanted? (I think, I think, I think???)
When I made up this moniker I tossed a coin between iwannabelikebear and iwannabelikeenchanted.
Bear lost. Sorry bear. I hope you're not too pissed.
Got it…
OH YEAH the "OWNER" is all about the $$. Single tickets where available to purchase by registered-club fans last week. Now it seems that you need certain code (NYTWEET) to buy single tickets. Why can't they just completely open the sales of the single tickets. Hey they should allow ITD to purchase single tickets…ITDBLOG can be the code…LOL!
However impressive it is, I know not to ask why because you just do.
Random Thoughts: (before a new string to come hopefully)
I wish Raffy and his family all the best under the circumstances.
I am beginning to dislike dustin pedroia, I wish we had him.
There are action fugures for Manny, Matt and Dre, I wonder if we could field them, I would like to see some action from our outfield.
Hello ITD!
that is wonderful that your mom go to talk to Tommy and have her picture taken with her and the rest of the family that was there!
In the Q&A, I aksed Tommy where does he get all his energy. I recalled a Caravan day that felt on Ash Wednesday. I went to see the truck send off to Vero Beach about 9ish at the stadium. He was already there with his ashes on his forehead, he went to the Panda In luncheon, then to a school then I saw him at Universal City walk along with the players singing autographs. In the middle he got up and was dancing to the music. He said "When you love what you do, is not work so I have not worked a day in my life. I LOVE what I DO!"
I am glad to be back in Cali. It was too humid in Boston.
And yes, Sunday June 27, will be a year since the ITD tour. Monday June 28 is my birthday and I hope the Dodgers give me a nice birthday present by defeating the Giants.
***And Dodgers!***
Your fans showed up in Boston but you guys failed to show up! We deserve better!
Now we are aggresively looking at starting pitching……….
ummmm we have been saying that for two/three years now here on ITD. So, if Frank and Ned keep this pace, our young core will be gone before Frank and Ned aggressively try and keep them.
I know…..I know………maybe we don't want to keep them, but I am sticking to the faith that whatever "funk" they are in, they will come out of it. Heck, the Diamondbacks crushed the Yankees last night so anything is possible and nothing is impossible.
Don't ask me why I noticed this, but I just saw that the Cubbies are about to become the first MLB club to play in 20,000 games.
Too bad it will also mark the 16,040th game since they won the World Series.
I got time warped back to PST 😦


text:
In this section you will find flash games online adventure. Adventure games are interesting and unpredictable plot
Games online:
Online Games:
Your planet is threatened by donuts!
Armor Trigger
Deadly Facility
Hermie Heckle's Fun House
Save The Dummie
Bob the Robber 2
Super Mafia Bros.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Cursed Cave Crusade
Dungeon Hunt
Ben 10 hidden objects
It's Dark in Hell
The love of dinosaurs
Treasure Hunt
Air enforcer
Play the same