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You may want to jump on this deal as quickly as possible, Nintendo's new Wii U console is back in stock at GameStop. No telling when they will sell out again so go get it fast.
The White Basic set has been in and out of stock for the last two-weeks at GameStop, though the Deluxe set has been sold out everywhere for weeks. No telling when the stock will last, so we suggest that if you have been looking for either the White Wii U set or the Black Wii U set that you head over GameStop and add yours to the cart as quickly as possible.


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You can now invite anyone to meet at your favorite Starbucks.
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51 year old man | Cypress, TX, USA | Seeking women 43-54 within 200 miles
Active within 24 hours
Make My Day
I'm a pretty active and busy guy interested in finding a great personality, lover and best friend. I love the outdoors and most related activities from river rafting, hiking and exploring to mountain biking, boating, and skiing. I like dining out, patio parties, a good bottle of wine, vodka martinis, loyal friends and calm days. I'm self employed and financially stable. I am generally desscribed as having a very positive outlook and an easy going personality. I enjoy professional and college baseball and football although I'm not a fanatic. I've grown up on the Texas coast and I have done fishing and hunting as a hobby since I was a young man with my father. I appreciate watching the sun rise and the wonders that nature offers. I like to cook for events and entertain friends. I'm not beyond walking the streets of Santa Fe and looking through the enless art galleries and tourist shops. Concerts and live outdoor performances are fantastic and I ejnoy a wide variety of music. I'm looking for a woman that is attractive, honest, genuine, secure in herself and willing to share lifes treasures.
Alumni connections , Business networking , Cooking , Dining out , Music and concerts , Exploring new areas , Nightclubs/Dancing , Travel/Sightseeing , Watching sports , Wine tasting
Baseball, Golf, Skiing, Tennis / Racquet sports, Walking / Hiking, Yoga
I exercise 3-4 times per week.
I have Dogs
I'd like to have property and a country home someday in the hill country like Marble Falls to be able to raise & train horses and let life slow down a bit
Middle of the Road
Cabo, Manzonia, Mazatlan, South Beach, and Maui someday. I like dining out as well as cooking at home. Ibiza, Villagio's, Grappino's patio, Back Street, Maggiano's, Del Fresco, to name a few dining spots.
I like lots of different music depending on the mood. Same with movies and favorite dining spots.
Going to baseball games, building things, movies, theatre, comedy clubs, live music, and most anything outdoors. I love the water so along the coast is my favoriate but I'm up for floating the river and other ways to get wet.
The Assasination of Kennedy
Z{{Cta}} {{#if HasMoreInfo}} ?{{CtaSecondary}} {{/if}}
|What he is looking for
|5'11" (180cms)
|4'7" (139cms) to 5'10" (177cms)
|Body type:
|Athletic and toned
|Slender, Athletic and toned
|No preference
|Dark brown
|Black, Light brown, Dark brown, Blonde
|No Way
|No Way, Occasionally
|Social Drinker
|Never, Social Drinker, Moderately
|Self-Employed / Entrepreneur
|No preference
|No preference
|No preference
|Have kids:
|Yes, and they live away from home (2)
|No preference
|Wants kids:
|No preference
|White / Caucasian
|No preference
|Christian / Other
|Christian / Catholic, Christian / LDS, Christian / Protestant, Spiritual but not religious, Christian / Other
|Bachelors degree
|Associates degree, Bachelors degree, Graduate degree, PhD / Post Doctoral

subset: commoncrawl


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Against the grain
Australian grain growers say a foreign takeover of the country's biggest agri-business, GrainCorp, should be stopped, in the national interest. They say they'll be the losers if US food giant ADM takes control of the storage, movement and sale of grain across several states. Reporter Stan Correy looks at ADM's chequered history and what the takeover would mean for Australian farmers.
UPDATE: Treasurer Joe Hockey blocks sale of GrainCorp to ADM and GrainCorp CEO Alison Watkins tenders her resignation.
UPDATE: Pressure is mounting on Treasurer Joe Hockey over the decision to sell GrainCorp to ADM. 7th November 2013
UPDATE: ADM's Ian Pinner appears before a senate committee chaired by Senator Heffernan to answer questions about the proposed takeover of GrainCorp. Transcript available here. 18th June 2013.
Stan Correy: At Port Kembla on the New South Wales south coast a 40-car train is unloading wheat from last year's bumper grain harvest. Wheat is Australia's most valuable rural commodity. 80% of it is exported, earning over $9 billion a year.
This is one of seven port terminals in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, owned and operated by Australia's biggest agri-business GrainCorp. Just as the Port Kembla coal loader is integral to the mining boom, so is this terminal to what is being called the 'dining boom'.
Alison Watkins: We are on the doorstep of a global food revolution, a shift from a mining boom, if you like, to a dining boom. The world's population will climb by 2.7 billion, something like that, to close to 10 billion people over the next four decades, 67- and 68 million people a year that we are adding. For Australian agriculture the good news is that most of these will be in regions like Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East.
Stan Correy: That's the CEO of GrainCorp, Alison Watkins.
Once a New South Wales government agency, today GrainCorp is a publicly-listed company which runs grain handling operations across eastern Australia. It has storage sites in three states, linked by rail, and seven export terminals, from Gladstone in Queensland to Portland in Victoria, as well as processing interests in the US and Germany.
GrainCorp has a history as a grower organisation, largely owned by Australian grain growers, and through it, grain farmers have expected to hold a rising stake in the 'dining boom', with direct access to hungry Asian markets. Now they say they're being sold out. GrainCorp has accepted a takeover bid from the US food giant Archer Daniels Midland or ADM.
Warren Truss: If this bid is successful it would mean that every grain export facility in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and all but half of one in Victoria, would be foreign owned.
Stan Correy: In early June, Nationals' leader Warren Truss spoke at the party's federal council meeting, and he attacked the ADM takeover.
Warren Truss: It would hand ADM 280 storage sites in the eastern states with capacity for 21 million tonnes, 19 grain trains, 3 container loading facilities and vital stocks information. It is fair to say that the owners of these vital assets have the ability to decide whether eastern Australia has a grain industry or not. What is in this deal for Australia?
Stan Correy: Hello, I'm Stan Correy and this is Background Briefing.
Foreign investment in agriculture is an increasingly sensitive political issue, especially for the Nationals and their rural constituents. The ADM takeover still needs approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board, the FIRB, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC.
Brett Stevenson: The difficult aspect for everybody to come to grips with and understand the implications of all this is that GrainCorp owns such a substantial amount of storage, upcountry storage and port loading facilities in eastern Australia.
Stan Correy: Brett Stevenson is the managing director of Market Check, a company that provides marketing advice and acts as an agent for grain growers. He says the industry dominance of GrainCorp is an oddity that stems from its ownership origins, but an ADM takeover could change the game.
Brett Stevenson: It doesn't make ordinary economic sense for one entity to own so much. However, that's happened because the government really was accepting of that ownership because the company was primarily owned by growers and seen as a grower organisation. The difficulty now is that this company is now going to be owned by a foreign entity, a global trading entity and we don't know what sort of commercial behaviour they will have with the upcountry storage and the port loading facilities. It's an unknown.
Stan Correy: The ownership of Graincorp has been gradually shifting offshore.
In a speech last month to the Centre for Economic Development of Australia, CEDA, GrainCorp's CEO Alison Watkins said if Australia's agricultural sector is to be a key player in the 'dining boom', it will have to rely on foreign investment.
Alison Watkins: Australian investors, including growers, have demonstrated that they don't have the capacity or the appetite for the level of investment that this is required to realise the opportunity from agriculture. Prior to ADM's interest, international investors already held around 30% of our shares. A well credentialed owner will invest well in our industry, generate prosperity for growers, communities, employees and customers. It's only reasonable that they should also earn a fair return on the capital that they put at risk.
Stan Correy: Alison Watkins has been urging politicians not to 'ease back' on deregulation of the industry, but grain grower parliamentarians aren't receptive.
Michael McCormack: If we keep blithely going along with the domino effect of one-by-one allowing our successful agribusinesses to fall into foreign hands, we'll have nothing left to call our own, and all the decisions about Australia's farming future will be made in boardrooms halfway around the world.
Stan Correy: Michael McCormack, the Nationals member for Riverina, told the parliament he doesn't believe the ADM takeover of GrainCorp is in the national interest.
Michael McCormack: The consideration of the takeover will be a major test for the Foreign Investment Review Board and Treasurer Wayne Swan. If the FIRB reckons this sale is in the national interest, then it is incumbent upon the FIRB to spell out why. It is also time for Archer Daniels Midland to explain its actions about GrainCorp. Are there any benefits in this transaction for Australia and its farmers? Does it plan any new facilities and investment in Australia? What increased charges or reduction in services is it proposing? What will be left for Australia or profits from Australia's $9 billion a year grain harvest? They are questions that need to be answered.
Stan Correy: Soon after GrainCorp's board accepted ADM's takeover offer, ADM executives went on a charm offensive through the wheat belt of eastern Australia, meeting growers. According to growers there were no firm promises of further investment.
When Background Briefing spoke to ADM's grains president ten days ago he wouldn't say if the company had any plans for further investment. He spoke in broad terms about using the company's global expertise to 'add value'. Ian Pinner:
Ian Pinner: What we can do is bring our global distribution network, our transportation network to the ports of Australia and then bring value up the supply chain through that. And then at the same time work with the Australian management team where we've said we want to keep an Australian management team in Sydney to manage this business, to work with these stakeholders and the growers to develop the strategy and the growth of the company going forward. And we want to work with them through our global supply chain to find better ways of bringing value to Australia and to the farmers.
Stan Correy: The first round of ADM lobbying was ineffective. Grain grower associations didn't want vague promises, they wanted to see the money behind the promises.
Andrew Broad is a grain grower from Victoria and the Nationals candidate for the seat of Mallee in the upcoming federal election
Andrew Broad: I mean, what are ADM offering? They're not telling us what they're offering. I'm not sure that ADM is out there saying, 'Let us buy GrainCorp, we are going to make you $20 a tonne more or we are going to invest $1 billion in more efficient handling and port facilities.' This is ADM coming in and saying, 'We want to buy what you've already have got, and we're going to take some additional profit out of it at the expense of the grower.'
Stan Correy: Growers have had a fresh round of meetings with ADM, and after more political lobbying, ADM has made some promises. In the past week it has promised to set up a grower advisory council and to donate to local rural charities. To counter the criticism that it's not offering any new investment, ADM has come up with a sweetener; an extra $300 million for investment in transportation infrastructure.
Ian Pinner has been busy doing media interviews, including this one with ABC's business editor Peter Ryan.
Peter Ryan: On the matter of infrastructure, you're ramping up your budget to $300 million. Is that enough to appease concerns?
Ian Pinner: What we've done is identify $50 million, which is another 20% of additional investment within the business where we can see opportunities for strategic growth and strategic investment. And then in addition to that we're looking to spend an average of $40- to $60 million a year in ongoing improvements, where every time we're looking to maybe maintain or improve a piece of the business, this is the money that we do year in, year out to make sure that we're not just maintaining but improving as we go along the infrastructure of GrainCorp.
Stan Correy: Mr Pinner also told The Australian newspaper that Brazil is an example of how they invest in foreign countries. But Brazil may not be the best example, according to US agribusiness researcher Emelie Peine, who spoke to Background Briefing from Rio de Janeiro.
Emelie Peine: In terms of storage and processing there has been quite a bit of investment. In terms of transportation logistics…and that is something where Brazil is really struggling to modernise its transportation infrastructure. And everyone that I've talked to, it's sort of a recurring theme in every interview that I do here, everybody always talks about the custo do Brasil, the Brazilian cost of growing and selling agricultural products, because transportation logistics just add a premium onto the price of every agricultural commodity in Brazil.
Stan Correy: Last week, the global agricultural bank Rabobank put out a new report on Brazil's agricultural transport systems. It says Brazil's already poor transportation system is getting worse under the strain of increased export production of soybeans and corn. They're the two commodities where Archer Daniels Midland dominates the Brazilian and global markets.
Emelie Peine: So in that sense ADM has not…they may own a fleet of trucks for example, or they may own some rail cars, but in terms of the basic transportation infrastructure, most of the soybeans that get shipped out of the central west and the corn that gets shipped out on trucks over roads that are not even necessarily always paved between the farm and the port. And so that is a real struggle. It's one thing to be able to store and process the grain, it's another thing to be able to actually get it out of the country.
Stan Correy: Emelie Peine, speaking via Skype from Rio de Janeiro. We'll come back to ADM's investment in Brazil and why it's relevant to the way the company may operate in Australia.
Archer Daniels Midland is one of four companies known as the ABCD companies that dominate the global agri-food business. Between 2005 and 2011, the combined revenues of these companies doubled from $150 billion to $318 billion.
Former advisor to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Paul McMahon:
Paul McMahon: People often say that the global food system resembles an hourglass, where you have millions of farmers who are actually growing food, then you have millions of consumers who are actually eating it, but in the middle a lot of it flows through the hands of a small number of companies. And so it's predicted that those ABCD companies—Archer Daniels Midlands, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, and we could probably add a G which is Glencore which has emerged as a pretty big player in the last 10, 20 years—those five companies probably control about 80% of all the world's grain trade.
So it's a fairly concentrated industry at certain points, and that has caused some people to question whether that's too much concentration and whether they are able to take advantage of that position. Certainly if we look at what's happened in the last few years in food markets it's been a boom time for those trading firms. Their revenues and profits have probably doubled in the last five years, they're doing very well, partly because of the higher volumes of trade, partly because of the higher prices, and partly because all the volatility means they make more money out of their trades.
Stan Correy: These companies buy food when it's cheap and store it until prices rise, or buy food where it's cheap and sell it to places where people will pay the higher prices.
The ABCD companies have a reputation for secrecy in their business dealings, but Archer Daniels Midland has attracted more scrutiny than the others. In the 2009 film The Informant, Matt Damon played the role of ADM executive, Mark Whitacre:
Excerpt from The Informant: Most people have never heard of us. But chances are, they've never had a meal we're not a part of. Just read the side of the package, that's us. Now ADM is taking the dextrose from the corn and turning it into an amino acid called lysine. It's all very scientific. But if you're a stockholder, all that matters is that corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.
Stan Correy: The film dramatises how Whitacre agreed to spy on his ADM bosses in the 1990s to record evidence of a price fixing cartel. ADM's penalty for the 1990s price fixing scam was a $100 million fine by the US government. The legacy of the 1990s and The Informant still haunts ADM, even though it has a different management and corporate culture today. This is from ADM's website:
Victoria Podesta: Hello, I'm Victoria Podesta, vice president of corporate communications here at ADM. You've probably stopped by because you're curious about ADM now that you've seen the movie The Informant or read the book. You may wonder what ADM is like today and how we're reacting to the movie. We actually met and talked with the filmmakers while the movie was in production. We gave them a tour of our offices and processing plants, we provided them information and historic materials and let them do some filming on our property. Why would we do this? Well, as a company we want to be open and responsive to people who want to know more about us.
Stan Correy: On the Background Briefing website, there's a link to this ADM version of what happened and how the film bears no resemblance to the company's current operations.
Archer Daniels Midland is heavily involved in all aspects of food production. Paul McMahon:
Paul McMahon: Archer Daniels Midland is probably the youngest of the big four of the ABCDs. They set up earlier in the 1900s. And it was initially quite US-focused and was also very focused not just on trading and exporting of grain but also the processing of foods. And so in the 1960s it practically invented the veggie burger, so it found a way to turn soybeans into a protein-rich meat substitute and set up a lot of processing plants for soybeans.
Stan Correy: But Archer Daniels Midland had a weakness it needed to fix. Paul McMahon says too many of its assets were based in the United States. Its competitors had a more global perspective and ADM needed more offshore investment, so it went on a buying spree around the world.
Paul McMahon: I just had a look at the ADM annual reports and their profits went from an average of about $500 million a year for most of the early 2000s to about $2 billion per year from 2007 onwards. So we are seeing the consequences of some very fat balance sheets these companies are holding at the moment. But then on the other hand I think those companies do have some very genuine concerns about where the supply is going to come from.
Stan Correy: Paul McMahon says as well as a remorseless increase in demand, the commodity firms faced more volatile weather.
Paul McMahon: So even what was seen as very safe places of supply like the US were crippled last year because of the drought. ADM themselves got into a little bit of trouble because they had quite a few operations in Russia/Ukraine, they were relying on it for a source of wheat, and then in 2010 there was a heat wave and drought in Russia, and the Russian government banned all exports of wheat for about 11 months, and that caused ADM to lose I think about $100 million because they'd made some commitments to their customers which they weren't able to meet because of the export bans in Russia.
Stan Correy: Archer Daniels Midland is a $90 billion company, and its headquarters are not in New York or Chicago but in rural Illinois, in Decatur. Agricultural consultant, Sophia Murphy:
Sophia Murphy: So they're based near where the big grain trade is centred in the United States. They are publicly traded, which is a little bit different, at least historically, than the other grain firms. ADM has been publicly traded for a long time, which means they are raising their capital from outside shareholders and have to account for themselves a bit more than, say, Cargill might as a private company.
Like all of the firms they have business all over the world. ADM has especially been growing in Asia and has a large share of Wilmar which is one of the big oil seed and grain firms that works through Malaysia and Singapore and China and Southeast Asia. They are also strongly associated with the lobby that pushed the US government to subsidise biofuels and in particular ethanol. For ADM it was a way to add value to the corn that they are buying and processing. And they had a pretty sustained 10, 15 year campaign to get the US government behind those policies that we have today on biofuels.
Stan Correy: What makes ABCD companies like Archer Daniels Midland so influential in the food business is their control or capture of the supply chain, and what's known as vertical integration.
Sophia Murphy: So vertically is where we are talking about at different points along the same value chain do we find the same companies dominate. And they do, so they might be providing input, they're likely providing part of the transportation infrastructure, they have significant holdings in the storage which is very important in terms of price. A lot of them are making feed for the animal and livestock sector. But that vertical integration means that you find different ways to make money on the grain that you own.
Stan Correy: Vertical integration also creates another opportunity for the ABCD companies by way of tax benefits. Archer Daniels Midland is currently challenging decisions by tax authorities in Brazil and Argentina over its use of tax deductions and transfer pricing. Paul McMahon:
Paul McMahon: It's probably in the nature of any global business where you're buying from one country and selling to another, it's possible to route those sales through a number of intermediaries such that you can minimise tax burdens at either end and maximise them in the lower tax jurisdiction. It's not just the grain traders. I mean, the big controversy in the UK at the moment is over Google, and in the US there's a lot of controversy about what Apple are doing in their tax arrangements. It's a sort of wider trend really in globalised businesses.
Stan Correy: Paul McMahon says the grain trading firms have been at the forefront of some aggressive tax schemes for quite some time.
Paul McMahon: They all have substantial trading operations in Switzerland and that dates back to the 1950s, and it's not because Switzerland has deepwater ports or a massive agricultural sector itself, that they're there, a lot has to do with favourable tax regimes. And as you said, ADM are facing some problems in Argentina because the Argentinean government accused a number of grain traders of using aggressive transfer pricing to shift profits out of Argentina where the food has been grown and been purchased into Cayman Islands and other offshore jurisdictions. It's a very complicated world and I think what's happening is people are waking up to the fact that these structures are now being used in a fairly aggressive way and it's having an impact on the tax take in the more developed economies.
Stan Correy: Paul McMahon, author of Feeding Frenzy, a new book on the politics of food.
On the Background Briefing website, there's a link to ADM's latest quarterly report or filing to the US Securities Exchange Commission, the SEC. In that filing they give details of the progress of their tax disputes in Argentina and Brazil.
In that same filing released in early May, ADM stated that it had set aside $25 million to deal with potential penalties under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to the SEC filing, the violations occurred with grain and feed exports back in 2008. No other details of the violations have been released by ADM or US authorities.
ADM corporate video: In many ways South America mirrors what ADM has done so well in other places around the world. By integrating a vast amount of assets…
Stan Correy: Archer Daniels Midland is a major player in Brazilian agriculture. ADM grains president Ian Pinner has pointed to Brazil as an example of how it invests in transportation for their commodities. But as we heard earlier from agribusiness researcher Emelie Peine, Brazilian agriculture suffers from massive under-investment in transport. Archer Daniels Midland has invested heavily in storage facilities in rural areas and at the ports. But that hasn't substantially improved the economic situation for Brazilian farmers.
Emelie Peine: Many farmers lack on-farm storage, or I guess I should say few farmers have the capacity to store grain on the farm, and that puts them in a position where at the time of harvest they pretty much have to deliver their harvest to the buyer at that moment, which means that when everybody is delivering their harvest to the buyer at the same time, prices are generally lower. And since farmers don't have the ability to hold onto their harvest and wait for the prices to go back up, that puts them at a disadvantage.
Stan Correy: In Australia, growers already complain about a lack of competition with GrainCorp's overwhelming ownership of silos. If ADM takes control, growers expect competition will be reduced even further. That's what happened in Brazil.
Emelie Peine: ADM is one company that controls quite a bit of the storage capacity and also a lot of the infrastructure. So, for example, in the ports, if a farmer wants to export grain directly to a buyer overseas, the farmer has to have the ability not only to store that grain after harvest but also to then transport it to the port via trucks or rail and then store it at the port in order to then export it, load it onto a ship or whatever. So, much of the storage capacity at the ports is also privately owned, and ADM is one of the companies that owns a lot of storage capacity in the ports as well.
Stan Correy: ADM says it can provide superior access to global markets. But the Brazilian experience is double-edged, says Emelie Peine.
Emelie Peine: It is easier for ADM to export soybeans around the world than it is for a Brazilian company to do so. So in that sense, yes, ADM does provide easier market access for Brazilian farmers for the global market. But the flip side of that is that ADM can just as easily export American soybeans to the highest bidder as they can Brazilian soybeans. And so, for example, in April there was…at one of the major Brazilian ports in Sao Paulo there was a big delay, there was a 30-day back-up at the port because of infrastructure problems and also because of some labour disputes that were happening at the port. There were some port workers that are on strike.
And so there was a major delay in delivery and loading of ships which prompted Chinese buyers to cancel millions and millions of dollars worth of soybean contracts in Brazil. And at that time, you know, if you're a Brazilian soybean broker and you're depending on the contract and the Chinese buyer cancels your contract then that is going to be a major blow to you. But if you're ADM and a Chinese buyer cancels your Brazilian contract, then you can sell that same Chinese buyer soybeans from the United States, or from Australia or from somewhere else
Stan Correy: Emelie Peine, who's a Professor of Political Economy, and a Fulbright scholar researching the investment of commodity firms like ADM in Brazil and China.
ADM corporate video: We monitor all the changes in every marketplace to help us make decisions about how we're going to add value.
Stan Correy: Last week, Archer Daniels Midland responded to grower concerns about their potential takeover of GrainCorp. They've provided more cash for infrastructure, promised to donate to rural communities, and set up a grower advisory council. But what they haven't agreed to is more transparency on what's called stocks information. This is critical to both growers and traders.
Think about it this way; ADM now controls all the data about the kinds of wheat and other grains in their silos all around the world, and if they take over GrainCorp's Australian storage network, this inside information gives them a massive competitive edge in the grain market. Sophia Murphy explains:
Sophia Murphy: You need information, it's the core to a successful market of any kind. And the companies are notoriously lacking in transparency. That's not how they operate and they don't have to because they have enough market power, that's how they've built so much market power and that's how they hold on to it. There's certainly not much precedent for them, they will tell you it's a proprietary secret and they can't be revealing how much stock they have or what position they are in because it would endanger their business position. And so somewhere the government has to make a decision about to what extent does ADM need to, like any business, operate without revealing every single thing it's about to do.
Stan Correy: Who has the right to access grain data was the main topic at the meeting of the federal government's Wheat Advisory Taskforce in late May. The office of the Minister for Agriculture told Background Briefing that getting a solution on the issue was 'a matter of urgency'.
It's also a big concern for grain grower Terry Fishpool. He's from Tottenham in central west New South Wales. The only choice for him is to deliver his wheat crop to a GrainCorp silo, which if taken over would be an ADM silo. He says he's at a big disadvantage in deciding when to sell his wheat.
Terry Fishpool: Basically the information on stocks is how much is sold, how much is being held, you know, how much is committed. Just to give an example, you might be a grower that has 1,000 tonnes of, say, prime hard wheat, APH2, and you've held it back and you've paid your warehousing prices and the price is starting to rise, and you're in a dilemma of whether you should sell or hold on a bit more because prices are rising.
If there was stocks information available, that would allow you to know how much has been sold and how much is being held in system, and if there's limited amount held in the system then you might take the view that it may rise a little higher because most of it has been committed. Or if there are enormous stocks out there is a rise you might say, well, I'll sell now because that's an attractive price. So the information gives you power, basically.
Stan Correy: A lack of information is already a problem for growers when dealing with GrainCorp because it owns everything from the local silo to the export terminals. Commodity analyst Jonathan Barratt:
Jonathan Barrett: The farmer grows, he then trucks it to the silo, they look after the grain in terms of its quality, and then it's bagged or siloed in a particular area, and then it's shipped off or tracked down to the port. GrainCorp own most of that of that facility. Once it leaves the farm for the silo then it's in control of the service end and that's GrainCorp. So when you lose a level of transparency in terms of the transportation, where the grain goes, then it becomes an issue. Because you might provide or grow a particular grade, who's to say that the price that you're receiving at the terminal is in fact the correct price for what the market is.
Stan Correy: The level of information in Australia is poor compared to the United States where ADM has its headquarters. In the US there are government regulations that require more market information to be made available.
Wayne Newton from Queensland farmers association Agforce says there should be a similar requirement in Australia.
Wayne Newton: Interestingly enough in the United States market, the United States Department of Agriculture regularly supplies a whole heap of statistics about the crop and the quality and the location of that crop in the United States, yet we don't have the same thing happening in Australia.
Stan Correy: Why is that? If that's happening in the United States and ADM has to do that, why doesn't it happen here?
Wayne Newton: It's one of the legacy issues from the deregulation of the Australian Wheat Board single desk. Back in the days when the Australian Wheat Board was the monopoly exporter of the Australian grain, they used that information to best place that grain in the Australian market, and because they were legislated to actually work for the maximum benefit of growers, growers were quite confident that that information was used to the best ability. Now we have a deregulated market, the best way that Australian growers could get the maximum returns for our grain is actually having the maximum number of merchants and marketers actually competing for that same grain. So we are keen now since deregulation has occurred to see full transparency in relation to the information about the stocks of grain right across the country.
Stan Correy: An ADM takeover won't mean more competition; if anything, it could mean less. However, GrainCorp's CEO Alison Watkins thinks the stocks information controversy is a red herring and demands for transparency a code for a return to more regulation of the grain trade. She told ABC TV's Landline program that the information in GrainCorp's network belonged to GrainCorp.
Alison Watkins: Traders being traders always like to have more information rather than less. And to be honest I'm not apologetic, given the significant investment—over a billion dollars of our shareholders' funds that we have tied up in concrete and steel at our ports and upcountry—that we should be providing information on a whim for free. I don't think that that's reasonable.
Stan Correy: In a speech last month, Alison Watkins warned politicians not to cave in to the unreasonable demands of the rural lobby.
Alison Watkins: My message to our political leaders as they consider their policy platforms in this election year is that capturing opportunity usually requires brave decisions. They've driven competitiveness by farsighted decisions including dismantling tariffs and removing the single wheat export desk which stifled innovation and excellence in our industry. And these changes at the time were politically difficult but they provided a strong foundation and set Australia up to succeed. Now is not the time to ease back.
Stan Correy: This week, ADM executives will front a senate committee inquiry into the ownership of GrainCorp. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, will report on 27 June and then it's up to the Foreign Investment Review Board. Its decision has serious economic and political consequences, says Nationals leader Warren Truss.
Warren Truss: The Foreign Investment Review Board has never said no to a foreign takeover of Australian farmland or Australian agribusiness. What is in this deal for Australia? There's no doubt that grain storage handling charges will rise for farmers to pay for the purchase and the profits to be transferred to new American owners.
This purchase, along with the dominant buyouts of Australia's sugar industry, meat works, dairy industry, grain marketing, oilseed crushers, food processing, the wine industry, mostly over the last four years, raises serious questions about the future decision-making in our agricultural industries.
Stan Correy: Warren Truss has accused the Foreign Investment Review Board and the federal Labor government of 'selling out agriculture' and has called on Treasurer Wayne Swan to reject ADM's takeover of GrainCorp. Wheat evokes deep passions within the Nationals. But that doesn't always translate into political action.
Former wheat industry adviser and now Professor of Public Policy at the University of Canberra, Linda Botterill:
Linda Botterill: The wheat industry issue has been an article of faith for the National Party for a long time. Collective wheat marketing and particularly the export monopoly have been issues that the National Party has held very dear to its heart, and it actually was to some degree of disagreement with its coalition partners over the deregulation of the wheat board. And I think in terms of any opportunity for it in government to actually change the course of events is diminished greatly by the fact that if the opinion polls are to be believed there is a good chance that Tony Abbott will be one of the very few Liberal prime ministers who doesn't actually need the National Party to govern.
Stan Correy: On such an emotive issue like the sale of Australia's last major agribusiness to such a giant commodity trader as Archer Daniels Midland, do you think they could generate some pressure or do you think it's a lost cause?
Linda Botterill: Unless they hold a balance of power position and they're prepared to trade on that, in other words they're prepared to do perhaps what the Greens and the independents did after the last election and say to the Liberal Party 'this is not negotiable', and be prepared to sit on the cross benches and to be prepared to countenance going into government with Labor, which I think is highly unlikely, they don't really have the leverage to actually change Liberal Party policy, because intervening in this would run counter to the views of many people and their coalition partners.
Stan Correy: Background Briefing's coordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Anna Whitfeld, technical production by Leila Shunnar, the executive producer is Chris Bullock, and I'm Stan Correy.
- Title
- Wheat Marketing in Transition: The Transformation of the Australian Wheat Board (Environment & Policy)
- Author
- Linda Courtenay Botterill
- Publisher
- Springer 2012
- Title
- Feeding Frenzy: Land Grabs, Price Rises and the Geopolitics of Food
- Author
- Paul McMahon
- Publisher
- Allen and Unwin
Further Information
- Reporter
- Stan Correy
- Researcher
- Anna Whitfeld
- Supervising Producer
- Linda McGinness
- Sound Engineer
- Leila Shunnar
- Executive Producer
- Chris Bullock
Comments (9)
Barry Rutherford :
16 Jun 2013 11:44:56am
I agree with the National Party Leader Warren Truss. The monopoly control of Australian grain by a foreign corporation is a very serious issue. In my view very much against the national interest.
Bob Phelps :
19 Jun 2013 4:20:11pm
Truss's ineffectual bleating is far too little and much too late. The Nationals were nowhere to be heard or seen when the corporatisation, privatisation and foreign ownership of key assets began, in service of neo-liberalism and 'free' trade - an ideology backed by the NFF, state farm groups and big agribusiness, and also by short-sighted, irresponsible governments.
Jason Frear :
16 Jun 2013 2:59:01pm
When will Australia grow up...we have fought so many wars to protect our way of life. Now we are about to prostitute ourselves to the almighty dollar...does the word Judas mean anything to anyone today? Anybody even care? A sad day indeed...my great grandparents would roll over in their graves with shame.
Peter :
16 Jun 2013 4:08:38pm
Astounded to think anyone could believe a foreign company behoven to its shareholders would put the profitability of Aust farmers before dividends to shareholders. Australian shareholders of Graincorp certainly haven't. When will we learn we need to collaborate and Joint Venture to protect our future rather than sell out for a quick buck and think what smart business people we are.
Stephanie :
17 Jun 2013 7:24:01pm
WE have to remember that the governments of countries doing the agri-business takeovers would never allow us to come to their countries and do likewise.
me :
18 Jun 2013 5:54:19pm
On Corey Blacksells' blog-
Re your comments on port control by ADM/Glencore, with proposed port privatisation of Newcastle it'll be a toss up between ADM & coal industry, & yes that's a problem whatever way it goes. Cropping viability is further endangered by extractive industries right to over-ride any preexisting communities (eg farmers & Traditional Owners).
But I have to disagree that ...""agriculture doesn't have a responsibility to provide food and fibre for the world and the world doesn't have an obligation to pay more for it". Consumers and farmers have a conflict of interest; consumers want to pay less, farmers want to be paid more."...
I think this is a big part of the problem.
Apart from personal experience of people & places I have known & loved, my ideas about agriculture & hence the ADM issue arise from underlying philosophy that we as a global community have a responsibility to ensure that we have food, water, shelter & communities able to care for each other especially when children, ill or elderly. Economic systems should just be tools to assist achieving this, but currently they are working against us. What if we want fair trade systems, where producers & workers are paid decently to produce & transport in a sustainable way (including crop rotations such as you do on farm), & consumers are protected from scarcity & rip-offs of market manipulation by profiteering speculators. This should apply to all inputs to the basic human rights of life I listed above. Locally what this means is preventing actions that risk exploiting agricultural workers & risk food security of this social & economic community. We are connected with the world, but if all the profits of our labour go to a globo-corp who doesn't even pay taxes to us (or anyone), we lack capacity to function as a community with local & global responsibilities to preserve the basic rights of all people & the world we live in.
me :
18 Jun 2013 6:04:09pm
Hallo & thanks for this BB.
I don't think a few lollies tossed out by the masters' lackey is fooling anyone who's involved here. But its a sorry state if the comments are a reflection of the number of people in the community with knowledge & interest in this matter & it's a bad sign that FIRB is what we are relying on for food security. I agree the parliamentary system is failing us. Too bad we can't get a coalition of people with the will & power to act in the interests of humanity.
When we have basics of life as speculative commodities where profit is the most important outcome, we have situations where grain rots in silos next to families eating meals by rotation (one person eats one day, another the next day), where sustainability & the rights of workers & communities are subsumed to wheeling & dealing. This can happen under govt beholden to profit over people, or under corporate ownership. The main thing is the structure & purpose of the bodies controlling grain supply including remoteness & a globo-corp is about as remote as it gets, no matter whether they have a management team in each country of operation. Below is what I said in April 2013 re possible adverse effects of GrainCorp takeover by ADM:
probable impacts on local & global food security from increasing concentration of corporate power, with decision making remote & alienated from sources & markets & communities & governance of communities directly affected;
lack of priority of working with local farmers, traders, transport & dock staff, pressure to standardise contracts & practices to US based global brand method & standards;
increased pressure on governments & organisations to allow lowest common denominator corporate standards eg environmental, OH&S, taxes paid, etc;
lack of local accountability & transparency regarding corporate/community relations regarding port infrastructure, transport & storage practices;
lack of local ability to influence the company regards such things as ensuring our communities have adequate seed stock, stored grain for local use, ability to use grain for local & global emergency situations, separation of GMO/non-GMO lines of supply (companies & i think also govt o/s food aid in US has been known to deliberately mix up the two lines & would not have as much as a motive to maintain local standards as they are currently a market advantage for local suppliers in global terms, whereas globo-corps have generally been trying to undermine differentials);
pressure to "streamline" & homogenise grain growing & handling thus reducing ability of local communities & businesses to arrange things for the societal benefit of direct locality & economically related areas (eg Aust as a communal tax system & currency with relations o/s);
general probs with economic security & defence etc from
me :
18 Jun 2013 8:32:35pm
general probs with economic security & defence etc from having a US based global company knowing details about & having power over really basic things such as essential raw food supply & sales in an international situation of waning US power & economic problems;
trade deal implications for current & future agreements with US & other countries/economic-zones.
an excellent program.
Colin Horace Phillips :
22 Jun 2013 2:13:35pm
This is the next step down to GMO wheat by Monsanto
[ Is that 'one saint or one devil? ]


text:
2,400 industry executives and fans packed the Madison Square Garden Theater for YouTube's Brandcast NewFront Wednesday night that was part 10-year birthday celebration, part evangelical commercial about online video/YouTube's ascendance and part pure entertainment spectacle.
The evening began with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki noting that hours watched are up 50% year-over-year and that YouTube now reaches more 18-49 year olds on mobile ALONE, than does any single cable network reach on TV. YouTube daily viewers are up 40% vs. 2014. And in a pitch to how advertisers can succeed on YouTube, Wojcicki said that 4 out of 10 of the top trending videos in 2014 were actually ads, not content.
Categories: Advertising, Aggregators, Indie Video
Hulu held its NewFront on Wednesday, highlighting its growth, which includes approaching 9 million subscribers, up 50% vs. 2014, with 700 million hours of video streamed in Q1 '15, up 83% vs. Q1 '14. Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins said that 61% of Hulu's viewers no longer watch on a computer. 82% of Hulu's audience is in the 18-49 year-old age range, with a median age of 33 years-old.
I have long wondered whether Hulu was going to be the odd man out, sandwiched between Netflix, OTT's 800-pound gorilla, and Amazon, with its unlimited resources. But Hulu is clearly investing heavily in both licensed and original content, and seemingly carving out its place in the OTT landscape.
Categories: Advertising, Aggregators, Indie Video
Topics: AMC, Hulu, Jerry Seinfeld, NewFronts
AOL hosted its NewFronts presentation Tuesday night, with the key highlights including a new strategy dubbed "Content 365" structured around a screen-based content development approach, a new slate of 16 different programs, and a deal to obtain clips from NBCU's entertainment and news programs.
Content 365, the new mantra from AOL, describes an expansion from a NewFronts "season" to a NewFronts "year." AOL's content development strategy is to focus on 3 formats: short/snackable for smartphones, 5-7 minute mid-form "storytelling" for tablets and desktops and longer-form for connected TVs. In all, AOL plans to produce over 3,600 pieces of video in 2015.
Categories: Advertising, Indie Video
Crackle is introducing a new linear TV feature dubbed "Always On," which will begin streaming a scheduled program whenever a user opens Crackle. The move gives viewers a TV-like experience in addition to the 100% on-demand experience that Crackle has been. Crackle will launch Always On exclusively on Roku devices in May, with other platforms to follow during the summer.
Always On helps differentiate Crackle and appeal to TV-oriented ad buyers, a stated goal when it decided to pull out of the NewFronts this year. The hybrid linear/on-demand approach will be powered by Adobe Primetime under a broader deal also announced yesterday. Adobe Primetime will provide playback, ad insertion and DRM for Crackle.
Categories: Indie Video
Netflix made waves in its recent Q4 earnings report by announcing a massive acceleration of its international rollout, with its goal to now be in 200 countries by the end of 2016, up from 50 today (note there's some murkiness around counting to 200 countries as well). One of the keys to Netflix's successful international expansion is offering a robust content library, which in turn means owning the worldwide distribution rights to marquee programming.
But a new note from analysts MoffettNathanson observes that studios are increasingly resisting Netflix's proposed global license fee structure, which only allows for a 20-30% markup on the actual cost of producing the shows. Instead, studios are biased to retain international distribution rights because of the potential for far more lucrative distribution deals.
Categories: Aggregators, Indie Video
Topics: MoffettNathanson LLC, Netflix
(Note, I'll share details of online viewing of Super Bowl ads and the game later today…I'm still pulling all of the relevant data together.)
We're just a month into 2015, and there are already abundant signs of online and mobile video's momentum, with lots more growth to come as the year unfolds. Here's what's hit my radar so far:
Categories: Aggregators, Indie Video, Mobile Video, Social Media
Topics: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Snapchat, Twitter
Not so long ago, content on YouTube was mostly user-generated, leaving advertisers uninterested. But now things have changed dramatically. Content has been professionalized by a vast range of independent creators, who are attracting huge audiences, especially among younger viewers. This was the key context for the 2014 surge in M&A activity among multichannel networks (MCNs) like Maker Studios, Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, etc.).
In parallel, there have been significant innovations in how to monetize YouTube content. The latest is Outrigger Media's new OpenSlate demographic data, allowing advertisers improved targeting across 250K+ YouTube channels and Nielsen-backed audience guarantees in a program called "OpenSlate Select." The demo data complements OpenSlate's traditional "SlateScore" scoring of YouTube channels based on engagement and influence.
Categories: Advertising, Indie Video, Programmatic
Topics: OpenSlate, Outrigger Media, YouTube
I'm pleased to present the 256th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.
This week Colin and I share our predictions for the video industry in 2015. In addition, we look back at our predictions for 2014 and share how we did (yes, accountability!).
Listen in to learn more!
Click here to listen to the podcast (25 minutes, 38 seconds)
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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!
Categories: Advertising, Aggregators, Cable TV Operators, Indie Video, Podcasts
Topics: AT&T, Comcast, DirecTV, Net Neutrality, Netflix, Nielsen, Podcast, Time Warner Cable
In yet another sign of how SVOD is upending the traditional TV industry, Amazon has announced this morning that renowned film director Woody Allen has signed on to create his first-ever TV series. Amazon ordered a full season of the half-hour series, named "Untitled Woody Allen Project." It will available in Prime Instant Video in the U.S., U.K. and Germany at launch. No additional information on release date, casting or subject matter was released.
In typical Woody Allen fashion, he is quoted in the press release saying "I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that (VP of Amazon Studios) Roy Price will regret this."
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: Amazon
At last night's Golden Globe awards, Amazon's series "Transparent" won Best Comedy, with its star Jeffrey Tambor winning best actor - TV Comedy, while Netflix's "House of Cards" star Kevin Spacey won for best actor - TV drama. Granted, it's just one awards show, and just two programs, but the Amazon and Netflix wins further legitimize OTT as a bona fide alternative source of high-quality programming to broadcast and cable TV.
The operative word here is "alternative." Note that for years, Netflix in particular has characterized itself as "supplemental" to broadcast and cable TV. And to be sure, with around 37 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S. and cord-cutting still relatively muted, the reality is that today Netflix still is mostly a "supplemental" service.
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: Amazon, CEA, Leichtman Research Group, NATPE, Netflix, Nielsen
Vessel has pulled back the curtain on its long-rumored business model this morning, which essentially boils down to being a huge willingness-to-pay test case. The fundamental question: will online video viewers pay $2.99/month for Vessel's service, which includes a "modest amount of advertising," to gain early access to select online videos that will otherwise be available for free within 3 days or more?
If the answer is yes, there is no doubt we'll see an explosion of paid early access models from all kinds of video content providers. If the answer is no, then Vessel would have to revert to an ad-supported only business model, which would leave it with a far less interesting value proposition to content creators.
Categories: Commerce, Indie Video, Startups
Topics: Vessel
The WSJ is reporting today that YouTube is now offering some of its most popular video creators bonuses in exchange for signing exclusive multiyear deals. The new offers are on top of previously reported deals to underwrite programming for the same creators. All of this is happening primarily in response to pitches ex-Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is making to the same YouTube creators, to provide his new company Vessel with an exclusive 3-day window for these creators' new videos.
The YouTube talent war is raging because the viewing behaviors of millennials - the primary audience for this type of programming - is up for grabs. The most compelling evidence of this came in last week's Nielsen Q3 '14 Total Audience report. Based on my calculations, live TV viewing by 18-24 year-olds (the core millennial segment) dropped by nearly 20% in Q3 '14 vs. Q3 '13. The reduction represented over 4 hours per week of viewing time, thereby dropping live TV viewing to approximately 17 hours per week, easily the lowest of any age group Nielsen measures.
Categories: Indie Video, Social Media
Topics: Facebook, Vessel, YouTube
Late last week, Thomas Owadenko, CEO of Octoly, a marketing software company that released a report on YouTube and video games last June, noted that all-time YouTube views of fan-created Minecraft videos are now up to 47 billion, an increase of 16 billion just since the report was released. Underscoring how robust Minecraft's fan community is, just 228 million of these views occurred on Minecraft creator Mojang's own YouTube channel.
Minecraft is a true "unicorn," a one-of-a-kind video game empire built with virtually no paid marketing, which partly explains why Microsoft was willing to pony up $2.5 billion for the company in September. But while Minecraft itself may be a unicorn, its success on YouTube says a lot more generally about the video industry's new rules - including serious challenges for industry incumbents.
Categories: Games, Indie Video
Topics: Minecraft, Octoly, YouTube
The list of YouTubers who owe their success to YouTube alone is shrinking. After years of dominating the online video market, YouTube is no longer the only place where online video is happening. From big video outfits like Maker Studios, to independent YouTube stars like PewDiePie, video producers who got their start on YouTube are now looking beyond YouTube for their next act.
Diversify revenue streams. It sounds simple enough, but as smart a move as this is, there are plenty of potential pitfalls in its execution. Because as much as relying on YouTube as your sole revenue stream is a mistake, not fully taking advantage of the alternative distribution channels at your disposal - or using them haphazardly - is an even bigger mistake.
Categories: Apps, Indie Video
Topics: Beachfront Media, YouTube
Consumers are spending more of their time with YouTube videos, which represents an opportunity for brands to connect with consumers with a more personal and engaging message.
Nielsen has already reported that when they include measuring YouTube's audience later this fall it will debut as the largest destination for video viewing among all cable networks and video websites - perhaps by a wide margin. YouTube has 1 billion unique monthly visitors globally and it continues to grow fast. In 2012 YouTube grew 55%. Television viewing, however, according to Nielsen, was down by almost 7% in the first quarter of 2014 among 18-24-year-old.
There is a new culture developing within the social ecosystem that has been called "Gen C." Gen C is the YouTube generation. Gen C describes people who care deeply about creation, curation, connection and community. It's not an age group; it's an attitude and mindset. While Gen C may not be every brand's target audience, the very notion that this is now labeled a generation underscores how large the movement has become.
Categories: Advertising, Indie Video
Likely not to surprise anyone with a teen in the house, new research commissioned by Variety found that the 5 personalities with the most influence among American 13-18 year-olds are all YouTube stars. As well, half of the top 20 are also YouTube stars, with the other half well-known mainstream celebrities.
1,500 teens were asked about 20 personalities (10 had the most subscribers on YouTube and 10 had the highest Q score among teens). Questions focused on approachability, authenticity and other measures deemed important to their influence. Answers were then scored on a 100-point scale to determine the final rankings.
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: YouTube
I'm pleased to present the 237th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.
This week we dive deep into the question of whether YouTube is indomitable or vulnerable to new competitors. Colin observes that the 45% revenue split YouTube keeps has opened the door for everyone from Vessel (former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar's startup) to Yahoo to others to approach YouTube stars about better deal terms. Major MCNs like Maker Studios (acquired by Disney) and Fullscreen (rumored to be acquired by Otter Media) are expanding beyond YouTube with their own properties.
However, I don't see much changing with the revenue split, except maybe the largest players getting improved terms. For both established and startup content providers, YouTube offers unparalleled audience reach, publishing tools and monetization. I offer a few examples as proof of YouTube's power: PewDiePie (which now has an astounding 29 million subscribers), Vice News (a pure YouTube news channel now able to take over the NYTimes.com's masthead ad) and Sorted Food (a British startup that has gained 870K+ subscribers on YouTube and now tops its Food category).
For all of these content providers and tons of others, YouTube provides an open, flexible distribution platform unlike anything before it in the media business. Ad splits will continue to be a bone of contention, but YouTube is poised to only get stronger going forward.
(Related, Colin has a complimentary new white paper on how to win and retain OTT customers available here.)
Listen in to learn more!
Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 19 seconds)
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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!
Categories: Aggregators, Indie Video, Podcasts
Topics: Fullscreen, Maker Studios, Podcast, Vessel, Vice, Yahoo, YouTube
Here's a great example of how convoluted the media ecosystem has become: if you visit NYTimes.com today, you'll notice that upstart Vice News has taken over the masthead ad position. I check NYTimes.com every day and this is the first time I've noticed the Vice News ad though it's possible it has run previously. Vice News positions itself as "an international news organization created by and for a connected generation" and still carries a "beta" label.
The ad itself runs a series of protest scenes from what looks like Ukraine, with periodic statements interspersed like "You go to both sides of the front line," "Look beyond the headlines," "Follow the story wherever it leads" and "Don't just watch the news." Clicking "Watch Now" starts a loop with similar scenes and statements. There is a click through to the Vice News site on YouTube and ability to subscribe (the counter shows 588,220 subscribers so far).
Categories: Advertising, Indie Video, Newspapers
I'm pleased to present the 236th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.
This week we discuss the demise of two online video businesses that were short-lived, Qplay and Xbox Entertainment Studios. Qplay was founded by 2 TiVo founders and backed by blue-chip venture capitalists, but lasted in the market just 6 months. Colin provides a cogent analysis of the 4 key challenges the company faced, which it couldn't surmount.
Xbox Studios was shut down for completely different reasons, and, as I wrote last week, it is just the latest lesson in how difficult it is to create high-quality, long-form content.
Listen in to learn more!
Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 53 seconds)
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Categories: Indie Video, Podcasts, Startups
Microsoft will close down its Xbox Entertainment Studios (XES) as part of a broader, 18,000 employee headcount reduction it has announced. I, for one, am not surprised by this outcome. A year-and-a-half ago, at the D: Dive Into Media conference, I watched an interview with Nancy Tellem, head of XES (and former head of CBS Entertainment) and Yusuf Mehdi, Xbox's chief marketing and strategy officer, that left me wondering whether the company really understood what role it wanted original programming to play or how it would be differentiated.
Basic questions on whether originals would be included in the current subscription service or cost extra, whether they would be ad-free or ad-supported, exclusive to Xbox or available elsewhere and more were essentially left unanswered, creating a very unfocused vibe. But, since it was still relatively early days for XES, I was inclined to cut them some slack.
Categories: Devices, Indie Video


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XServer hogging 100% CPU on 8300
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I am having Problems with my "new" built PC which is aimed to be used as VDR (or HTPC, whatever). I've got a ASUS M3N78-EM Motherboard which has an onboard GeForce 8300 (CPU is X2 235e, 2gb RAM).
I installed Arch 64bit with MythTV Backend and Frontend on the Machine. I am starting the XServer via mingetty, and the driver is loaded properly.
For a while everything works quite good, but then some minutes later, the X-Process (/usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp :0 -auth /tmp/serverauth.m2VOlJB8W0) causes 100% CPU Load on one Core, swapping from one Core to the other from time to time.
I've already been searching and found out, that this problem is known. But the xorg.conf-Options did not work for me..
and slowly but surely i am at my wits end.
I am using driver version 275.09.07-1
Re: XServer hogging 100% CPU on 8300
sooo now i can say that quite exactly 5 minutes after X is started, the process takes 100% load of one cpu core..
help desired...
Re: XServer hogging 100% CPU on 8300
solution: completely reinstall linux.
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Cozart SS
Valdez CF
Votto 1B
Phillips 2B
Bruce RF
Frazier 3B
Heisey LF
Hanigan C
Latos P
Printable View
Cozart SS
Valdez CF
Votto 1B
Phillips 2B
Bruce RF
Frazier 3B
Heisey LF
Hanigan C
Latos P
So close...
Work Volquez!
I would love to ask Dusty just once what would be the harm to bat Phillips leadoff, Hanigan 2nd, Votto 3rd, Bruce 4th, Frazier 5th, Ludwick 6th, Cozart 7th and whom ever is in CF 8th...Just once why not try it, what is the worse that could happen...
Ahahaha....I hope this a joke.
Alive and well!!!
San Diego is Spanish for a whale's...
Next year, we should take a collection to send MrRedLegger on the West Coast trip. We gotta start taking advantage of his stellar attendance record. :)
Following this team this year has been very hard. Such a underachieving pile of fecal matter. They are on pace to score 682 runs in a hitting friendly park. Come on. We have given up less runs than the freaking San Francisco Giants and this team isn't 15-20 games over?
Either get it together this series or time for some heads to roll.
Valdez needs to take the starting job, it's right there for him.
I'd kill to follow the Reds out west for a week. Never been to California.
When has the West Coast trip not been difficult for the Reds? It's easily our toughest stretch of games and will virtually always be. It couldn't have happened at a better time, allowing the team 4 days to get their minds right for a grueling and exciting 2nd half of the season. Which by the way starts off against the surging Cardinals. It's a guarantee I'll be there two nights to see that. Look for the guy with the really huge fake moustache.
We don't play Pittsburgh for a month. Who knows what the circumstances will be come that time.
Let's focus on what we can control. OK, what the boys in Red can control...
The Red hot Mat Latos is pitching tonight in his old home field. (comfort zone??) The fact that it's him vs Volquez is pretty amazing, especially after last night's game being against Harang. We're in a good position to sweep this series or take 3 of 4. And if we don't, that's ok.
Someone posted that Valdez' record as a starter was 11-4. Works for me.


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André PrevinAndré Previn(composer/conductor/pianist, born April 6, 1929, Berlin, Germany) André Previn is a complete musician, perhaps the most successful crossover genius since George Gershwin and the most generous in the reach of his voracious musical tastes. "He is a born opera composer," said Lotfi Mansouri, director of the San Francisco Opera, where Previn's own A Streetcar Named Desire will have its world premiere September 19, 1998. Yet opera is only Previn's latest and most ambitious musical adventure. Before coming to opera, Previn has excelled in virtually every field of composition from symphony and concerto to chamber music and song cycles. Previn's masterful touch as a conductor and music director of the world's leading orchestras has been marked by a self-effacing respect for the score that is at least as intense as his natural way with orchestral phrasing.
- Dance
- Song
- Tango+ Show More Compositions


text:
CCAC brings home eighth state crown
TribLIVE Sports Videos
For the eighth time in school history, the CCAC men's golf team has earned the distinction of being called state champions. The course was cold and nasty according to CCAC coach Chuck Bell, but his boys pulled it off.
Leading the way was Eric Poplowski of Ambridge, who won the individual state title with scores of 72 and 72.
"It's been two years now," Poplowski said. "We set these goals, and kept our eye on the prize.
"I just kept my head in (the game) and hit straight shots off the tee."
Poplowski said he should have sunk more putts, but he didn't let a tough start get him down.
While Poplowski took first, teammates Paul Ajak of Aspinwall and Ben Kennedy of Sewickley tallied scores of 80, 79 and 80, 81 to earn third and fourth place.
"We finally got it done as a team," Ajak said. "Me and Eric wanted to win it as a team, and we are excited because it is our last year here, so this win was a weight off our shoulders."
Ajak said he didn't have his best round but was happy with the end result.
Kennedy credited Bell with pushing the team and the team in turn pushing each other.
"Chuck is never down on us," Kennedy said. "We didn't let the weather get to us, either. We just tried to dress in layers and stay warm."
Bell mentioned Dan Dalhnik as another player who played a big role in this victory.
"It never gets old," Bell said. "We always have fun and try to win because this is our goal. Everyone has to be good, but we expect that."
Jerry Clark is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-779-6979 or email@example.com.
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Graduate student Richard Sanderson enjoys the sunrise from the summit of Santa Maria. The shadow of Santa Maria is overprinted on the Guatemala cordillera.
In January 2007, principal investigator Jeffrey Johnson and a multi-institution team of researchers conducted a week-long field experiment that included establishing a manned observation post near the summit of Santa Maria from which eruptions of Santiaguito's Caliente dome can be viewed.
Santiaguito is an active dome that has been growing since 1922 within the crater left by the catastrophic 1902 eruption of Santa Maria plinian eruption (a 6 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index). Plinian eruptions have columns of gas and volcanic ash that extend high into the stratosphere and include such characteristics as ejections of large amounts of pumice and very powerful continuous gas blast eruptions.
Caliente (summit elevation ~2600 meters) is located approximately 1.2 kilometers below and 2 kilometers to the southwest of the Santa Maria summit. In recent years, Santiaguito has been simultaneously extruding dacitic magma and erupts explosively several tens of times each day. Typically these pyroclastic-laden eruptions originate from diffuse, often concentric fractures distributed about the 200 meter-diameter crater. Plumes are buoyantly driven up to heights of 1 to 2 kilometers. Larger explosions and/or associated lava flow that collapse on the steep slopes of Caliente dome generate pyroclastic flows that are generally confined to the upper reaches of the volcano.
The project by Johnson and the team included coordinated experiments on the volcano with seismic and acoustic sensors (for analysis of earthquakes), infrared video (for study of thermal signals), Doppler radar (for analysis of eruption material velocities), UV absorption imagery (for analysis of gas flux), and high-resolution digital video (from the summit looking straight down into the vent). Simultaneous thermal and UV imagery was obtained from the Santiaguito Observatory. Further information about the data collected during the experiment is available Here.
This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences (EAR 04-40225). Johnson was with New Mexico Tech earth and environmental sciences department at the time of this research, but is now in the department of geosciences at Boise State University. (Date of Image: 2007) [Image 6 of 7 related images. See Image 7.]


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Investigation Tools and Techniques
A full and fair investigation of alleged misconduct is a critical component of due process. This interactive workshop provides valuable information on how to conduct an investigation of major workplace offenses that may result in immediate termination and that are the likely subject of arbitration. This workshop will cover:
- Analysis and investigation of major disciplinary offenses
- Practical techniques for conducting investigatory interviews
- How an arbitrator scrutinizes your investigation
Key Topics
- Analyzing the standards and evidence used in arbitrations involving major misconduct offenses, including scrutiny of the employer's investigation
- Key steps for conducting a thorough investigation
- Techniques for authenticating evidence
- Conducting interviews of management and rank-and-file employees
- The effect of a concurrent criminal proceeding on your investigation
- How other legal concerns, including workplace privacy laws, affect the investigation
- Case study practice
Who Will Benefit
Labor relations, human resource, and operations professionals who investigate complex or serious matters in a unionized environment
Effective Discipline or equivalent knowledge
Open enrollment workshops can be taken individually or as part of a certificate in Contract Administration Studies or Collective Bargaining Studies. They are also available as Labor Relations Customized Programs for your organization.


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Ballmer Repeats His Demand for License Payments from Red Hat Users
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has again demanded license payments from Red Hat users.
In his speech at a company event in Great Britain, Ballmer quotes intellectual property infringements as the basis for claims. "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said. This isn't the first time that the Redmond boss has targeted attacks at Linux distributor Red Hat. In contrast to Novell and other Linux companies like Xandros or Linspire, Red Hat has not yet signed "patent assurances" with Microsoft, although Microsoft is obviously pushing in this direction.
Referring to the continuing attacks by Microsoft, Red Hat Germany boss Werner Knoblich said that the only topic for an agreement that Red Hat could see thus far was that of interoperability between the two operating systems. Red Hat Germany has issued a statement on the subject.
To give customers assurances, Red Hat recently set up a website explaining the legal situation from its point of view. Red Hat points to its "Open Assurance Program" in which it assures customers that it would immediately replace every single line of provably controversial code. Red Hat currently has no information on claims against Linux code: "We are also aware of no patent lawsuit against Linux. Ever. Anywhere."
In the course of his appearance at the conference, Ballmer went even further and accused Open Source users in general of infringing on Microsoft's patents. This isn't the first time that the corporation has threatened FOSS users with lawsuits. In March 2006, stated that it was his duty towards his shareholders, and the attacks have not stopped despite agreements being signed with Linux companies like Novell (November 2006). In an interview with Forbes magazine, Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith even specified the numbers, stating that Microsoft had ascertained that free software infringed on more than 235 patents.
Microsoft employee Lars Lindstedt published Ballmer's controversial speech on a British corporate website.
Issue 177/2015
Buy this issue as a PDF
NoScript Flaw
Mozilla's script blocker add-on could be putting malware sites on the whitelist.
RIP SSLv3
The Internet community officially banishes the notoriously unsafe Secure Sockets Layer protocol.
Mate 1.1 Arrives
Popular desktop environment continues the Gnome 2 legacy – with new support for the Gnome 3 toolkit.
US Government Requires HTTPS
The Obama White House has issued a memorandum telling all US government agencies they must use HTTPS for all websites and web communication.
Mozilla Signs Firefox Add-Ons
New program will dial up security for the Firefox browser.
Fedora 22 Arrives
Red Hat's community distro embraces the cloud.
Code.org and College Board Team Reach Out for Talented High School Coders
New partnership will bring more and better CS training to US schools
A Peek Inside TeslaCrypt Ransomware
Criminals offer online help over Tor network
Mumblehard Still Spams
Sophisticated malware is still present on Joomla and WordPress sites around the world.
Launchpad Gets Git
Future versions of Ubuntu's code service will support the popular Git version control system used with Linux and other open source projects.


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- Home
- Products
- Pricing
- About
- Countertops
- Landscape
- Commercial
- Everything Stone
- Contact
About Us
Rocky Mountain Stone was started in 1963 as a supplier of natural building and landscaping stone for the Albuquerque area. Since then, we have expanded into every aspect of the natural stone industry including full fabrication and installation for both residential and commercial applications. We produce the best quality work for you.
Custom Countertops
Our specialty is creating beautiful countertops from our main facility in Albuquerque, NM for the entire state of New Mexico, as well as Arizona, Texas, and Colorado. Whether you are looking for genuine granite, quartz surfacing, or hardwood countertops, our savvy project managers can help you decide which is best for you.
Landscape Materials
Here at Rocky Mountain Stone we are the leading source for natural stone in New Mexico and have been the leading supplier for 50 years. We carry a vast selection of landscaping rocks for every need. If you are looking for gravel, boulders, flagstone, or thin veneer, we have the best selection in the Albuquerque!
Custom Stone Work
At Rocky Mountain Stone, stone is in our name. It is what we do, what we love, and what we think about all the time. Our extensive knowledge and expertise of stone allows us to create unique, one-of-a-kind custom stone works for you. If you have an idea for your home or business let us know and we'll turn your dream into reality.
Commercial Services
We provide excellent stone work and installation for our commercial clients. Our commercial services include, waterjet cutting, interior counters, paving, & commercial cladding. We have many stone options for both interior and exterior applications. Our skilled project managers will help you design the perfect stone project for your business.
MIA Accredited
In October 2009, Rocky Mountain Stone earned the coveted designation of Marble Institute of America (MIA) Accredited Commercial B Contractor and Accredited Natural Stone Fabricator. This proves that we are among the finest in the natural stone industry with respect to craftsmanship, safety, and business practices.
Our Artisan Group Products
Why Choose Us?
Our Previous Projects
Rocky Mountain Stone tore out old formica counters, and installed granite counters. Rocky Mountain Stone is absolutely awesome. Our sales rep, Karen was extremely knowledgeable with the product line, and took the time to go over the various options. In the end, we got the product that was perfect for our kitchen. I can't say enough great things about the service we got.
The project went very smoothly thanks primarily to Karen, the RMS sales representative, who worked with me. She was extremely professional and very helpful from the beginning to the end of the project. Karen went above and beyond to make sure that I was able to get the granite that I wanted. She patiently worked with me on the design issues and made the overall experience very positive. The guys that did the installation also were very professional and clearly had a lot of experience. They worked carefully and efficiently and did a fantastic job. Just as a family member referred me to RMS, I will refer others to this company.
Assisted with the selection of the granite, met to discuss the specific layout on the stone, installed the granite countertops in the kitchen. We were very pleased with our experience with Rocky Mountain Stone. The sales representative met us several times at the granite supplier to assist with the selection of the stone. She then made recommendations on complementary backsplash tiles. Once we selected the stone, she met with us to discuss the best layout of the countertops on the stone to get the best pattern placement. The installers were prompt and professional. The were conscientious and worked extremely hard and made it look great. The salesperson had worked on the pattern matches, so the seams are very unnoticeable. We are very pleased with how it turned out. We definitely had a great experience with Rocky Mountain Stone.
Karen Ryan at RMS helped us from long distance with a kitchen countertop install for our rental property. During the initial measure, she checked out the cabinets and flooring and gave us granite recommendations that would match. She made the whole process simple, is friendly and nice, and is very timely in communication. I had initially contracted with Lowe's about 5 weeks earlier, reasoning that it would be easier to deal with a national company from across the country. I never heard from them again, even after leaving multiple phone messages and emails. Ironically, we were finally contracted by the Lowe's subcontractor the day RMS did their final measure for our new counters, and after we'd called a manager at Lowe's to cancel.
I remodeled a 100 yr old adobe home and looked for a counter-top to match, Rocky Mountain Stone was the only place that came up with something for me. It was a special water-brushed granite that I could not get anywhere else. They were great to work with and were very punctual. Priced very competitive as well. When I started showing the home I received very many complements on the kitchen and in particular the counter-tops. What a great job and will recommend them to all my clients and friends.
We built our dream home about 4 years ago. I had seen many other granite installations from other companies and my biggest complaint was the mismatched seams. At Rocky Mtn Stone prior to my purchase they pulled the number of slabs needed for our job. They pulled three slabs so I could see that they were cut in sequence and the color and pattern were the same. Great we ordered. The installation date came we were so excited. Their crew was neat and professional. We were amazed at how great the seams looked. One could barely see the seam. We love our kitchen! The granite is beautiful. The sales staff was patient with my many visits. Wonderful experience. We would definately use them again. Thank You.
All went well despite some changes that we made in our choice of granite and top configuration. RMS was patient and helpful getting all taken care of in an efficient and timely manner. The salesperson, Karen R., that we worked with was particularly patient, helpful and most especially knowledgeable. She helped tremendously in planning backsplash and paint coordination. All together a satisfying experience.
They put in a granite countertop. It was wonderful! They were very careful not to damage my existing backsplash and I'm very grateful for that. I'm very happy with the job that they did.
Went extremely well. From beginning to end, RMS did exactly what they said they would do, when they said they would do it. Everyone was friendly and helpful and knowledgeable. They did a professional job and installed a quality product in a timely fashion. That is all I require from a business for me to be a loyal customer!
American Made
We're proud to say that our products are American-made! This in turn has a huge impact on our local economy. By taking a fraction of what we're already spending and buying US-made goods, we'll create a economic tidal wave. Watch the video to your right and share it. Boom, you're helping make jobs!
The Power of Buying American


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Google+ for iPhone and Android update improves photo sharing, posting, location sharing, and more
If you use Google+ on your iPhone, you'll want to keep your eyes out for an update that will make sharing content, posting photos, and managing communities even easier. The update promises that you'll be able to do more in less time and have stricter control over your content when posting.
When posting photos, you'll now have the ability to edit them natively within the Google+ app by adding filters, rotating, and cropping. The view profile section has also been tweaked and presents information in a much more streamline way. Anyone who has communities set up has probably noticed there wasn't much interaction or ways to control what posts you see via the app. With the update you'll now be able to control how many posts feed into your main stream via communities.
Updates to location information including being able to only share location with certain circles. For example, if you'd like only your family and close friends to see your location information, you can set those circles in that way while leaving other circles without location information attached. That way, the way people view your profile will differ and the ones you choose to share location information on posts, the ones you share it with will see that information underneath your post.
To see all the changes including screenshots of how changes will look, hit the link below.
Source: Google+
Have something to say about this story? Leave a comment! Need help with something else? Ask in our forums!
Senior editor for iMore. I can take apart an iPhone in less than 6 minutes. I also like coffee and Harry Potter more than anyone really should.
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Reader comments
Google+ for iPhone and Android update improves photo sharing, posting, location sharing, and more
I use google but only just. To me it really isn't as intuitive as Facebook was. Maybe that is just me.
I use it all the time.
I like their app mostly but it feels semi-childish with all the colors they use.
That's Google, they like their multi-colors.
Really nice update, puts it ahead of the Android version in some areas
Yup. My brother is an all-out Google fanatic and is super annoyed with how the iOS versions of googles core apps look better and in some cases are more functional than the android equivalents. He is especially jealous of the animation that occurs when doing a pull-down-to-refresh action in the iOS Google+ app.
This is a nice update, I love the new layout. You no longer have to scroll through the menu and your personal page and options are easier to notice and get to. Notifications are now right there one click away from your main feed and I think the new slide motion for new stories coming into the feed is a little gimmicky but overall nice. Great update, now I still just need to be able to sort my feed by most recent stories.
For those of you using google+, what does it offer you above FaceBook and Twitter? I now the hangout feature is cool and I've used that for fantasy sports drafts, but what else is there to offer?
What does any other social network offer you that another doesn't? Twitter it's easier to follow celebrities but at the cost of post space, Facebook doesn't show you everything and everyone you "like" or are friends with but you can post the crap out of anything. Google gives you a fun layout and makes it easier to "hangout" with people. But most of all, all social networks just offer a different layout, best advice, download it, login with Google and try it out, don't like it? No problem delete, it's free.
A couple of things:
Circles. You either love them or you hate them, but they make it much simpler to group people by interest in Google+ than other networks, create clutter-free feed views, and, most importantly, share only to specific group(s) and people. I also find discussions are better on Google+ than on Facebook, but that is because I have pretty carefully tailored circles of people with good signal-to-noise ratios.
That said, social is fundamentally about the people, not the features. If the people you want to connect with are not on Google+, you will be disappointed in Google+.
Seems like a Circle Jerkal over that at G+ ...
Who brought this guy??
Google+ gives you a couple things Facebook can't in my opinion.
1. Hangouts
2. A cleaner and fresher design mostly free of annoying FB ads and farmvillesque crap
3. A chance to start over in terms of who you actually want to connect with. I'm pretty sure FB has some sort of groups that are similar to circles now but for those who have hundreds if not thousands of friends its hard to put all them into some sort of defined groups. Also this feature in FB is impossible to find and hard to use.
4. FB has annoying instabilities
5. FB is constantly changing stuff in what i think is annoying ways.
Lastly i'd like to say that none of this matters because hardly anyone you know uses Google+ with any sort of frequency so no matter how annoying FB is it will always be better than G+ unless more of the people YOU know make the transition.
Google is a good idea... But it was dead when it was released. Only because they took too much time ans facebook was all over the place. The only solution to ser google emerge is if fb close… which won't be happening soon.
Google+ looks good, but nobody uses it that I know
I really wish Google caught on: it's much cleaner and less buggy than Facebook in terms of mobile apps and they're updates actually include features rather than just bug fixes like most of Facebook's updates. Unfortunately for it, until the general public comes over, it's just a pretty interface with nothing to do except interact with the tech community/enthusiasts.
Yeah most people I know IRL don't use Google . Mainly a good place to talk tech with people.
I don't know what it's going to take to get Google+ up and running. With minimal users on the site, these updates are meaningless. It's no fun only getting to connect with yourself. They need to differentiate between Facebook and offer some readily available features that would compete against Twitter. Until they do BOTH, Google+ is actually quite useless.
Does anyone even use G+? I did at initial release for about 15 minutes.
Looks really great and love the design. Personally wanna ditch Facebook and adopt to google but none of my friends use ...
Looks really great and love the design. Personally wanna ditch Facebook and adopt to google but none of my friends use ...
I hate all things Google, and the fact that I depend on them so much.
I have my YouTube account linked, that's pretty much the extent of my activity on G+......never had Facebook, so don't need a "replacement" for that & I'm quite happy with Tumblr, Twitter, & Instagram as my only social networks.
i have google+ but don't use it much. i never took the time to figure it out.
I don't think I've touched G+ since I set it up. But being able to control what I see would be a positive. I do know that of the 4 people I know using it, all of them said you could not control the feed at all, and that made them less likely to touch the app. So perhaps this will make them happy.
i use google + on a daily basis so i love that thy have updated it
I don't really use G+ that much; however the update seems amazing. I really don't think G+ will 'truly' take off until Google Babble gets merged with G+. If they plan on making babble a separate entity, that would be pretty stupid. This would be a great way to boost G+ and connect people across all devices.
Google keeps growing and getting better. Glad the app keeps getting more user friendly.
Too bad people focus on the social-Facebook aspect of Google .
I view it as finally unifying the various google products with a single login and feature set (Picasa
The jury is still out for me on G . I think it's a valid social platform, but I can only effectively use so many channels until I become ineffective in the digital space. I'm heavily leveraging Twitter for blogging connections while maintaining personnel relationships w/ family and friends on Facebook. I can't be everywhere at once, but I'd like to use Google better. Maybe the updated app will help.
I like Google+ however only two of my friends and family use it. Everyone I know is on Facebook. Kinda pointless to use a social network when my social crowd isn't there. :(
I love Google . I use it everyday. The update does make it a lot smoother.
Wait, G is still around?
I've only recently really started to use Google+ and man it is a nice app!
I never really found use for G+ before, but I use it as a sort of newsreader and it works great for that. Mostly geeks there to provide my iOS, Android, etc. news!
The new loading screen looks beautiful and clicking on a post now makes a "drop + pop" effect which looks really nice.
Thank you google for the update. Needed it for the photo sharing and also thank u imore
G is really only good for the handouts and the on air features. Better than Skype since someone has to be on a premium plan to be able to have a conference. Wouldn't be surprised if google started charging foot it or did away with G a long ways down the road.... #RIPGooglereader


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Articles tagged ghandia johnson
30 Sep 2002 // 1:00 AM
Ever helpful, Jeff Probst reminded everyone that, on Survivor, assumptions are always wrong.READ more
//Mixed media
Colette Carr "Static" (video) (Premiere) // Music
House of Blondes "First of July" (audio) (premiere) // Music
Digisaurus 'No More Room For Love' (EP stream) // Music
Eszter Balint 'Airless Midnight' (album stream) (premiere) // Music
//Pm Picks
PopMatters is on a short summer publishing break. We resume Monday, July 6th.
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"PopMatters is on a short summer publishing break. We resume Monday, July 6th.READ the article