text:
US media manipulates Moscow tragedy
RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin © RIA Novosti
The terrorist attack inside Russia's Domodedovo airport killed at least 35 people and injured another 180. While dozens of investigators are will combing the crime scene, US media outlets are spinning the story in several different directions.
It was an explosion heard around the world.A massive terrorist attack in Moscow instantly became an international story, with many US media outlets presenting inconclusive facts and fearful analysis. Over at Fox News, pundits and presenters hijacked the tragedy to garner support for US foreign policy. "Is that going to help us in places like Iran? Get more Russian co-operation in Afghanistan, with al-Qaeda, things like that. Are they gonna wise up and help us a little bit?" said Fox News Host, Bill O'Reilly. No official has connected Iran to Moscow's deadly bombing, and Russia does remain a key US ally in the Afghan war, through its transshipment of goods to the war torn region. A fact, analyst said, Mr. Bill O'Reilly purposely neglected to mention."In his view Russia is bad because they don't automatically support the US and all our foreign policy decisions so he's trying to use this. Manipulate this to anger his viewers to get them upset with Russia," said Media Analyst, TJ Walker.Over at CNN, the fear-mongering switch was flipped on, with some presenters warning about a possible destabilization of the Caucuses region. "And the worldwide price of oil, which is already high, could get even higher," said CNN host, Wolf Blitzer.As Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prepared to leave for the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, a talking head on the Fox Business Network warned the world that more deadly attacks are on the horizon. "I'm sure the terrorist are already in place in Davos. Whether they make an incident occur, the Swiss police is very tough. It's problematic. But they've been there every year for several years, and my guess is they'll try something of some nature," said Robert Dilenschneider during an interview with FOX.The terrorist bombings in Moscow caught the world's attention, and within 24-hours media in the US spun the story in several directions. From fear to frantic analysis, American narratives spanned far and wide, but fell short of delivering facts on a story still developing.Mark Adomanis, a columnist with INOSMI said the US media often entertains thoughts of justification and rationalization for attacks in Russia, but they would never do so regarding attacks against the United States or the west. "Last March when there were the bombings on the Moscow Metro, it was a problem, I wrote a couple pieces about it, the double standards at work were wrong and glaring," he added.It's not wrong, he argued, to look for reasons these types of attacks occur. Seeking why is not the same as justification. "It's pretty clear these sorts of acts are not justifiable," Adomanis remarked. "To try and understand why they occur and why the people that carry these out are motivated to do them is very important. I think to a large extent the western media neglects to do that when they are problems that we face; they are very willing to look at the problems Russia experiences."
Two blasts in Moscow Metro, dozens killed
Recent history of terror attacks in Moscow
FSB: Moscow Metro bombing organizers identified
Deadly blast at Moscow's Domodedovo airport
"We reach out to those bereaved" - Medvedev
We are in this fight together - NATO chief to Russia
"Our flight was delayed and it saved us" – witness
Obama condemns Moscow's Domodedovo terrorist attack
American double standard on terrorism


Most of us have never been victims of a stabbing frenzy, as Kay Wilson has.
When she describes what was done to her, and then how she came to choose life, not in some abstract philosophical sense but as a powerful daily passion that illuminates her life, she speaks with the unadorned voice of authenticity.
She knows what evil looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like from hideously up close, and when she shares this via the video below, the resulting six-and-a-half-minutes have the impact of truly unforgettable testimony. She reminds us that there is never closure. The impact on terror's victims is forever.
Men and women with knives are seeking out victims all over our land as these words are being keyed in. Based on our experience of terror, we have never been in doubt about how there are no two sides to the coin, that what drives them is unrecognizable from the values that empower and energize the society in which we live.
It's a good, important and difficult time to listen and watch.
Here is an important article Kay wrote to understand the Palestinian barbarians Israel is dealing with.


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text:
Q: Count the amount of times value A occurs without value B and vice versa I'm having trouble figuring out how to do the opposite of the answer to this question (and in R not python).
Count the amount of times value A occurs with value B
Basically I have a dataframe with a lot of combinations of pairs of columns like so:
df <- data.frame(id1 = c("1","1","1","1","2","2","2","3","3","4","4"),
                 id2 = c("2","2","3","4","1","3","4","1","4","2","1"))

I want to count, how often all the values in column A occur in the whole dataframe without the values from column B. So the results for this small example would be the output of:
df_result <- data.frame(id1 = c("1","1","1","2","2","2","3","3","4","4"),
                        id2 = c("2","3","4","1","3","4","1","4","2","1"),
                        count = c("4","5","5","3","5","4","2","3","3","3"))

The important criteria for this, is that the final results dataframe is collapsed by the pairs (so in my example rows 1 and 2 are duplicates, and they are collapsed and summed by the total frequency 1 is observed without 2). For tallying the count of occurances, it's important that both columns are examined. I.e. order of columns doesn't matter for calculating the frequency - if column A has 1 and B has 2, this counts the same as if column A has 2 and B has 1.
I can do this very slowly by filtering for each pair, but it's not really feasible for my real data where I have many many different pairs.
Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

A: First paste the two id columns together to id12 for later matching. Then use sapply to go through all rows to see the records where id1 appears in id12 but id2 doesn't. sum that value and only output the distinct records. Finally, remove the id12 column.
library(dplyr)

df %>% mutate(id12 = paste0(id1, id2),
              count = sapply(1:nrow(.),
                             function(x)
                               sum(grepl(id1[x], id12) & !grepl(id2[x], id12)))) %>%
  distinct() %>%
  select(-id12)

Or in base R completely:
id12 <- paste0(df$id1, df$id2)
df$count <- sapply(1:nrow(df), function(x) sum(grepl(df$id1[x], id12) & !grepl(df$id2[x], id12)))
df <- df[!duplicated(df),]

Output
   id1 id2 count
1    1   2     4
2    1   3     5
3    1   4     5
4    2   1     3
5    2   3     5
6    2   4     4
7    3   1     2
8    3   4     3
9    4   2     3
10   4   1     3

A: A full tidyverse version:
library(tidyverse)
df %>%
  mutate(id = paste(id1, id2),
         count = map(cur_group_rows(), ~ sum(str_detect(id, id1[.x]) & str_detect(id, id2[.x], negate = T))))

A: A more efficient approach would be to work on a tabulation format:
tab = crossprod(table(rep(seq_len(nrow(df)), ncol(df)), c(df$id1, df$id2)))
#tab
#
#    1 2 3 4
#  1 7 3 2 2
#  2 3 6 1 2
#  3 2 1 4 1
#  4 2 2 1 5

So, now, we have the times each value appears with another (irrespectively of their order in the two columns). Here on, we need a way to subset the above table by each pair and subtract the value of their cooccurence from the value of each id's total appearance.
Make a grid of all combinations:
gr = expand.grid(id1 = colnames(tab), id2 = rownames(tab), stringsAsFactors = FALSE)

Create 2-column matrices to subset the table:
id1.ij = cbind(match(gr$id1, colnames(tab)),
               match(gr$id1, rownames(tab)))
id2.ij = cbind(match(gr$id1, colnames(tab)),
               match(gr$id2, rownames(tab)))

Subtract the respective values:
cbind(gr, count = tab[id1.ij] - tab[id2.ij])
#   id1 id2 count
#1    1   1     0
#2    2   1     3
#3    3   1     2
#4    4   1     3
#5    1   2     4
#6    2   2     0
#7    3   2     3
#8    4   2     3
#9    1   3     5
#10   2   3     5
#11   3   3     0
#12   4   3     4
#13   1   4     5
#14   2   4     4
#15   3   4     3
#16   4   4     0

Of course, if we do not need the full grid of values, we can set:
gr = unique(df)

which results in:
#   id1 id2 count
#1    1   2     4
#3    1   3     5
#4    1   4     5
#5    2   1     3
#6    2   3     5
#7    2   4     4
#8    3   1     2
#9    3   4     3
#10   4   2     3
#11   4   1     3

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Located in a 19th-century factory building, this hotel in the lively Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin offers a 24-hour bar and breakfast until 12:00. Alexanderplatz Square is 8 minutes away by tram.
Hotel Transit Loft provides brightly decorated rooms with high ceilings, small seating areas, and safety deposit boxes. All include a private bathroom.
The Transit Loft's reception is open 24 hours a day. Free Wi-Fi is available in the Loft's public areas.
Hufelandstraße Tram Stop is a 5-minute walk from the Transit Loft Hotel. Trams run directly to Alexanderplatz Square from there, 24 hours a day.
The Transit Loft is an 8-minute walk from the large Volkspark Friedrichshain Park. The trendy Kollwitzplatz Square is just a 10-minute walk away.
Bright room offers a work desk and private bathroom.
This bright room comes with a work desk and a private bathroom.


Your feet are prone to dryness for a few reasons. They have only sweat glands, not oil glands, according to Ava Shamban, MD, a Beverly Hills–based dermatologist. As such, they also endure constant sweating and then drying, which causes skin to crack, she says. Plus, your skin has a hard time staying moisturized as it ages. So basically, your feet are in need of a pampering session, stat!
To soften your feet, follow this routine weekly—but moisturize (see step 3) as often as you can. Trust us, your feet will thank you!
1. Start with a 20-minute soak. Fill the tub with warm water and add at least half a cup of kosher or Epsom salt. You can try Dr Teal's Moisturizing Foot Soak (walmart.com, $4). The saline water will help draw out impurities.
2. While feet are still wet, remove dead skin by exfoliating with a pumice stone or an exfoliating scrub, like Earth Therapeutics Cooling Foot Scrub (ulta.com, $9).
3. Apply a foot cream before bed to instantly boost moisture. To remove rough patches, go for one with lactic acid, like Ahava Dermud Intensive Foot Cream (ahava.com, $29). It also helps strengthen skin to prevent future cracking.
You can credit friction from tight-fitting shoes for these thick-skinned spots. Instead of going to town on them with a pumice stone, do a daily application of a cream that contains urea, which quickly breaks down calluses and softens. Try Eucerin Roughness Relief Spot Treatment (cvs.com, $7).
After applying cream, slip on cotton socks for softer heels by morning.


Our avocado tincture is naturally flavored from organic, virgin avocado oil. It's sold only in the full strength 1000mg variety, but it provides all of the same benefits that our "Blue Label" products supply. This tincture is a great alternative for anyone with coconut or citrus allergies, and it brings a robust and earthy flavor to the table.
*Since the carrier being used is Avocado Oil, the flavor is very Earthy and mildly bitter. If this doesn't fit the needs of your palette, then we recommend our Blue Label Tincture which uses a distilled coconut oil (MCT) that has a more mellow flavor.
CBD dosing isn't universal, but below are some general dosing guidelines that seem to be the most beneficial for the majority of folks. After a few days of consumption, feel free to adjust your dose to fit your needs.
Effects usually kick in within 30-90 minutes. Ideally, the product should be stored at room temperature and kept out of direct sunlight.


On September 12, 1919, a group of World War One Veterans decided to start up a local post of the new veteran's organization that was recently charterd by the U.S. Congress - The American Legion.
Initially, they met at a local Auburn Establishment that was located in what is now called Old Town.
Since our charter in 1919, our American Legion Post has been welcoming VETERANS from all branches of our Armed Forces. Today, we continue to welcome all military personnel serving our country.
Join us and keep the history alive.


text:
The Daily lays off a third of its staff. Is it on the way out?
Seth Weintraub
- Jul. 31st 2012 12:58 pm PT
@llsethj
Image via AP
As first reported by News Corp's AllthingsD, News Corp's Daily iPad publication is cutting its staff by a third.
The publisher plans to tell its workers today that it will fire 50 of its 170 employees, according to [colleagues] familiar with the Daily's plans.
The news follows a report from earlier this month by the New York Observer that claimed The Daily was winding down operations and ultimately shutting down after the Nov. 6 elections. It would appear the iPad-only magazine is in that process.
From Day One, we were highly critical of the News Corp iPad app that aimed to revolutionize newspapers for the digital age—despite the amount of hype built before it launched. From its hay-day, The Daily has been relatively slow to load and present new content, especially considering our fast pace, gimmie-gimmie world. Moreover, its content has not always been hard-hitting.
Rupert Murdoch to put 'The Daily' iPad app out of its misery in November?(9to5mac.com)
Breaking news for iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Be the first to know about product launches, iOS updates, product carriers reports, and competitor analysis.
Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek sites.
Seth Weintraub's favorite gear
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text:
A Plea for Atheism
Charles Bradlaugh
THIS essay is issued in the hope that it may succeed in removing some of the many prejudices prevalent, not only against the actual holders of Atheistic opinions, but also against those wrongfully suspected of Atheism. Men who have been famous for depth of thought, for excellent wit, or great genius, have been recklessly assailed as Atheists by those who lack the high qualifications against which the malice of the calumniators was directed. Thus, not only have Voltaire and Paine been, without ground, accused of Atheism, but Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley himself, have, amongst others, been denounced by thoughtless or unscrupulous pietists as inclining to Atheism, the ground for the accusation being that they manifested an inclination to push human thought a little in advance of the age in which they lived.
It is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation to speak in unmeasured language of Atheism as favouring immorality, and of Atheists as men whose conduct is necessarily vicious, and who have adopted Atheistic views as a desperate defiance against a Deity justly offended by the badness of their lives. Such persons urge that amongst the proximate causes of Atheism are vicious training, immoral and proffigate companions, licentious living, and the like. Dr. John Pye Smith, in his "Instructions on Christian Theology," goes so far as to declare that "nearly all the Atheists upon record have been men of extremely debauched and vile conduct." Such language from the Christian advocate is not surprising, but there are others who, while professing great desire for the spread of Freethought and having pretensions to rank amongst acute and liberal thinkers, declare Atheism impracticable, and its teachings cold, barren, and negative. Excepting to each of the above allegations, I maintain that thoughtful Atheism affords greater possibility for human happiness than any system yet based on, or possible to be founded on, Theism, and that the lives of true Atheists must be more virtuous -- because more human -- than those of the believers in Deity, the humanity of the devout believer often finding itself neutralized by a faith with which that humanity is necessarily in constant collision. The devotee piling the faggots at the 'auto da fe' of a heretic, and that heretic his son, might notwithstanding be a good father in every other respect (see Deut. xiii. 6-10). Heresy, in the eyes of the believer, is highest criminality, and outweighs all claims of family or affection.
Atheism, properly understood, is no mere disbelief; is in no wise a cold, barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion of action of highest humanity.
Let Atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned -- its defence unheard -- on the 'ex parte' slanders of some of the professional preachers of fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage is bold enough while the pulpit protects the sermon, but whose valour becomes tempered with discretion when a free platform is afforded and discussion claimed; nor misjudged because it has been the custom to regard Atheism as so unpopular as to render its advocacy impolitic. The best policy against all prejudice is to firmly advocate the truth. The Atheist does not say "There is no God," but he says: "I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me. If, however, 'God' is defined to mean an existence other than the existence of which I am a mode, then I deny 'God,' and affirm that it is impossible such 'God' can be. That is, I affirm one existence, and deny that there can be more than one." The Pantheist also affirms one existence, and denies that there can be more than one but the distinction between the Pantheist and the Atheist is, that the Pantheist affirms infinite attributes for existence, while the Atheist maintains that attributes are the characteristics of mode -- i.e., the diversities enabling the conditioning in thought.
When the Theist affirms that his God is an existence other than, and separate from, the so-called material universe, and when he invests this separate, hypothetical existence with the several attributes of personality, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity, infinity, immutability, and perfect goodness, then the Atheist in reply says I deny the existence of such a being"; and he is entitled to say this because this Theistic definition is self- contradictory, as well as contradictory of every-day experience.
If you speak to the Atheist of God as creator, he answers that the conception of creation is impossible. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought as possible that the complement of existence has been either increased or diminished, much less can we conceive an absolute origination of substance. We cannot conceive either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or on the other, something becoming nothing. The words "creation" and "destruction" have no value except as applied to phenomena. You may destroy a gold coin, but you have only destroyed the condition, you have not affected the substance. "Creation" and "destruction" denote change of phenomena; they do not denote origin or cessation of substance. The Theist who speaks of God creating the universe must either suppose that Deity evolved it out of himself, or that he produced it from nothing. But the Theist cannot regard the universe as evolution of Deity, because this would identify Universe and Deity, and be Pantheism rather than Theism. There would be no distinction of substance -- no creation. Nor can the Theist regard the universe as created out of nothing, because Deity is, according to him, necessarily eternal and infinite. Gods existence being eternal and infinite precludes the possibility of the conception of vacuum to be filled by the universe if created. No one can even think of any point in extent or duration and say: Here is the point of separation between the creator and the created. It is not possible for the Theist to imagine a beginning to the universe. It is not possible to conceive either an absolute commencement, or an absolute terminltion of existence; that is, it is impossible to conceive beginning, before which you have a period when the universe has yet to be; or to conceive an end, after which the universe, having been, no longer exists. The Atheist affirms that he cognizes to-day effects; that these are, at the same time, causes and effects -- causes to the effects they precede, effects to the causes they follow. Cause is simply everything without which the effect would not result, and with which it must result. Cause is the means to an end, consummating itself in that end. Cause is the word we use to include all that determines change. The Theist who argues for creation must assert a point of time -- that is, of duration, when the created did not yet exist. At this point of time either something existed or nothing; but something must have existed, for out of nothing nothing can come. Something must have existed, because the point fixed upon is that of the duration of something. This something must have been either finite or infinite; if finite it could not have been God, and if the something were infinite, then creation was impossible: it is impossible to add to infinite existence.
If you leave the question of creation, and deal, with the government of the universe, the difficulties of Theism are by no means lessened. The existence of evil is then a terrible stumbling- block to the Theist. Pain, misery, crime, poverty confront the advocate of eternal goodness, and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all- powerful. A recent writer in the 'Spectator' admits that there is what it regards "as the most painful, as it is often the most incurable, form of Atheism -- the Atheism arising from a sort of horror of the idea of an Omnipotent Being permitting such a proportion of misery among the majority of his creatures." Evil is either caused by God or exists independently; but it cannot be caused by God, as in that case he would not be all-good; nor can it exist hostilely, as in that case he would not be all-powerful. If all-good he would desire to annihilate evil, and continued evil contradicts either God's desire, or God's ability, to prevent it. Evil must either have had a beginning or it must have been etemal; but, according to the Theist, it cannot be eternal, because God alone is etemal. Nor can it have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have originated in God, or outside God; but, according to the Theist, it cannot have: originated in God, for he is all- good, and out of all-goodness evil cannot originate; nor can evil have originated outside God, for, according to the Theist, God is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or beyond infinity.
To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely different aspect. He declares that each evil is a result, but not a result from God nor Devil. He affirms that conduct founded on knowledge of the laws of existence may ameliorate each present form of evil, and, as our knowledge increases, prevent its future recurrence.
Some declare that the belief in God is necessary as a check. to crime. They allege that the Atheist may commit murder, lie, or steal without fear of any consequences. To try the actual value of this argument, it is not unfair to ask: Do Theists ever steal? If yes, then in each such theft the belief in God and his power to punish has been insufficient as a preventive of the crime. Do Theists ever lie or murder? If yes, the same remark has again force -- Theism , failing against the lesser as against the gearer crime. Those who use such an argument overlook that all men seek happiness, though in very, diverse fashions. ignorant and miseducated men often mistake the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the endeavour to obtain it. Atheists hold that by teaching mankind the real road to human happiness it is possible to keep them from the by-ways of criminality and error. Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself immediate good is ensured to the doer and the circle surrounding him. Atheism would perserve man from lying, stealing, murdering, not from fear of an eternal agony after death, but because these crimes make this life itself a course of misery.
While Theism, asserting God as the creator and govemor of the universe, hinders and checks man's efforts by declaring God's will to be the sole directing and controlling power, Atheism, by declaring all events to be in accordance with natural laws -- that is, happening in certain ascertainable sequences. -- stimulates man to discover the best conditions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements to morality. While the Theist provides future happiness for a scoundrel repentent on his death-bed, Atheism affirms present and certain happiness for the man who does his best to live here so well as to have little cause for repenting hereafter.
Theism declares that God dispenses health and infficts disease, and sickness and illness are regarded by the Theists as visitations from an angered Deity, to be borne with meekness and content. Atheism declares that physiological knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing us from infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not as the ordinance of offended Deity, but from ill-ventilated dwellings and workshops, bad and insufficient food, excessive toil, mental suffering, exposure to inclement weather, and the like -- all these finding root in poverty, the chief source of crime and disease; that prayers and piety afford no protection against fever, and that if the human being be kept without food he will starve as quickly whether he be Theist or Atheist, theology being no substitute for bread.
It is very important, in order that injustice may not be done to the Theistic, argument, that we should have -- in lieu of a clear definition, which it seems useless to ask for -- the best possible clue to the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word "God." If it were not that the word is an arbitrary term, maintained for the purpose of influencing the ignorant, and the notions suggested by which are vague and entirely contingent upon individual fancies, such a clue could probably be most easily, and satistactorily obtained by tracing back the word "God," and ascertaining the sense in which it was used by the uneducated worshippers who have gone before us, and collating this with the more modem Theism, qualified as it is by the superior knowledge of to-day. Dupuis says: "Le mot Dieu parait destine a exprimer l'idde de la force universelle et eternellement active qui imprime le mouvement a tout dans la Nature, suivant les lois d'une harmonie constante et admirable, qui se developpe dans les diverses formes que prend la matiere organisee, qui se mele a tout, anime tout, et qui semble etre une dans ses modifications infiniment variees, et n'appartenir qu'a elle-meme." "The word God appears intended to express the universal and etemally active force which endows all nature with motion according to the laws of a constant and admirable harmony; which develops itself in the diverse forms of organized matter, which mingles with all, gives life to all; which seems to be one through all its infinitely varied modifications, and inheres in itself alone."
In the "Bon Sens" of Cure Meslier, it is asked: Qu'est-ce que Dieu? "and the answer is: "C'est un mot abstrait fait pour designer la force cachee de la nature; ou c'est un point mathematique qui n'a ni longueur, ni largeur, ni profondetir." "It is an abstract word coined to designate the hidden force of nature; or it is a mathematical point having neither length, breadth, nor depth."
The orthodox fringe of the Theism of to-day is Hebraistic in its origin -- that is, it finds its root in the superstition and ignorance of a petty and barbarous people nearly destitute of literature, poor in language, and almost entirely wanting in high conceptions of humanity. It might, as Judaism is the foundation of Christianity, be fairly expected that the ancient Jewish records would aid us in our search after the meaning to be attached to the word "God." The most prominent words in Hebrew rendered God or Lord in English are @@@@@ 'Ieue,' and ##### 'Aleim.' The first word Ieue, called by our orthodox Jehovah, is equivalent to "that which exists," and indeed embodies in itself the only possible trinity in unity i.e., past, present, and future. There is nothing in this Hebrew word to help us to any such definition as is required for the sustenance of modem Theism. The most we can make of it by any stretch of imagination is equivalent to the declaration "I am, I have been, I shall be." The word ***** is hardly ever spoken by the religious Jews, who actually in reading substitute for it, Adonai, an entirely different word. Dr. Wall notices the close resemblance in sound between the word 'lehowa' or leue, or Jehovah and Jove. In fact %%%%% Jupiter and leue-pater (God the father) present still closer resemblance in sound. Jove is also $$$$$ or @@@@@ or ##### whence the word Deus and our Deity. The Greek mythology, far more ancient than that of the Hebrews, has probably found for Christianity many other and more important features of coincidence than that of a similarly sounding name. The word ***** traced back, affords us no help beyond that it identifies Deity with the universe. Plato says that the early Greeks thought that the only Gods (%%%%%) were the sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven. The word $$$$$, Aleim, assists us still less in defining the word God, for Parkhurst translates it as a plural noun signifying "the curser," deriving it from the verb @@@@@ (Ale), to curse. Dr. Colenso has collected for us a store of traditional meanings for the ##### of the Greek, and the ***** of the Hebiew; but, though these are interesting to the student of mythology, they give no help to the Theistic demonstrator. Finding that philology aids us but little, we must endeavour to arrive at the meaning of the word "God" by another rule. It is utterly impossible to fix the period of the rise of Theism amongst any particular people; but it is, notwithstanding, comparatively easy, if not to trace out the development of Theistic ideas, at any rate to point to their probable course of growth amongst all peoples.
Keightley, in his "Origin of Mythology," says: "Supposing, for the sake of hypothesis, a race of men in a state of total or partial ignorance of Deity, their belief in many Gods may have thus commenced: They saw around them various changes brought about by human agency, and hence they knew the power of intelligence to produce effects. When they beheld other and greater effects, they ascribed them to some unseen being, similar but superior to man." They associated particular events with special unknown beings (Gods), to each of whom they ascribed either a peculiarity of power, or a sphere of action not common to other Gods. Thus, one was God of the sea, another God of war, another God of love, another ruled the thunder and lightning; and thus through the various then known elements of the universe, and the passions of human-kind.
This mythology became modified with the com mencement of human knowledge. The ability to think has proved itself oppugnant to, and destructive of, the reckless desire to worship, characteristic of semi-barbarism. Science has razed altar after altar heretofore erected to the unknown Gods, and has pulled down Deity after Deity from the pedestals on which ignorance and superstition had erected them. The priest, who had formerly spoken as the oracle of God, lost his sway just in proportion as the scientific teacher succeeded in impressing mankind with a knowledge of the facts around them. The ignorant, who had hitherto listened unquestioning during centuries of abject submission to their spiritual precaptors, at last commenced to search and examine for themselves, and were guided by experience rather than by church doctrine. To- day advancing intellect challenges the reserve guard of the old armies of superstition, and compels a conflict in which human-kind must in the end have great gain by the forced enunciation of the truth.
From the word "God" the Theist derives no argument in his favour; it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demonstrates nothing, explains nothing. The Theist answers that this is no sufficient objection that there are many words which are in common use to which the same objection applies. Even if this were true, it does not answer the Atheist's objection. Alleging a difficulty on the one side is not a removal of the obstacle already pointed out on the other.
The Theist declares his God to be not only immutable, but also infinitely intelligent, and says: "Matter is either essentially intelligent or essentially non-intelligent; if matter were essentially intelligent, no matter could be without intelligence; but matter cannot be essentially intelligent, because some matter is not intelligent, therefore matter is essentially non- intelligent; but there is intelligence, therefore there must be a cause for the intelligence, independent of matter -- this must be an intelligent being -- i.e., "God." The Atheist answers: I do not know what is meant, in the mouth of the Theist, by "matter."
"Matter," "nature," "substance," "existence," are words having the same signification in the Atheist's vocabulary. Lewes used "matter" as the symbol of all the known properties, statical and dynamical, passive and active; i.e., subjectively, as feeling and change of feeling, or objectively, as agent and action"; and Mill defined "nature" as "the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them, including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening." It is not certain that the Theist expresses any very clear idea to himself when he uses the words "matter" and "intelligence"; it is quite certain that he has not yet shown himself capable of communicating this idea, and that any effort he makes is couched in terms which are self-contradictory. Reason and understanding are sometimes treated as separate faculties, yet it is not unfair to presume that the Theist would include them both under the word intelligence. Perception is the foundation of the intellect. The perceptive ability differs in each animal; yet, in speaking of matter, the Theist uses the word "intelligence" as though the same meaning were to be understood in every case. The recollection of the perceptions is the exercise of a different ability from the perceptive ability, and occasionally varies disproportionately; thus, an individual may have great perceptive abilities, and very little memory, or the reverse; yet memory, as well as perception, is included in intelligence. So also the comparing between two or more perceptions; the judging and the reflecting; all these are subject to the same remarks, and all these and other phases of the mind, are included in the word intelligence. We answer then, that "God" (whatever that word may mean) cannot be intelligent. He can never perceive; the act of perception results in the obtaining a new idea, but if God be omniscient, his ideas have been eternally the same. He has either been always, and always will be, perceiving, or he has never perceived at all. But God cannot have been always perceiving, because, if he had, he would always have been obtaining fresh knowledge, in which case he must at some time have had less knowledge than now; that is, he would have been less perfect; that is, he would not have been God. He can never recollect nor forget; he can never compare, reflect, nor judge. There cannot be perfect intelligence without understanding; but following Coleridge, understanding is the faculty of judging according to sense." The faculty of whom? Of some person, judging according to that person's senses. But has "God" senses? Is there anything beyond "God" for God to sensate? There cannot be perfect intelligence without reason. By reason we mean that phase of the mind which avails itself of past and present experience to predicate more or less accurately of possible experience in the future. To God there can be neither past nor future, therefore to him reason is impossible. There cannot be perfect intelligence without will; but has God will? If God wills, the will of the all-powerful must be irresistible; the will of the infinite must exclude all other wills.
God can never perceive. Perception and sensation are identical. Every sensation is pleasurable or painful. But God, if immutable, can neither be pleased nor pained. Every fresh sensation involves a change in mental and perhaps in physical condition. God, if immutable cannot change. Sensation is the source of all ideas, but it is only objects external to the mind which can be sensated. If God be infinite there can be no objects external to him, and therefore sensation must be to him impossible. Yet without perception where is intelligence?
God cannot have memory nor reason -- memoiy is of the past, reason for the future, but to God immutable there can be no past, no future. The words past, present, and future imply change: they assert progression of duration. If God be immutable, to him change is impossible. Can you have intelligence destitute of perception, memory, and reason? God cannot have the faculty of judgment -- judgment implies in the act of judging a conjoining or dis-joining of two or more thoughts, but this involves change of mental condition. To God the immutable, change is impossible. Can you have intelligence, yet no perception, no memory, no reason, no judgment? God cannot think. The law of the thinkible is, that the thing thought must be separated from the thing which is not thought. To think otherwise would be to think of nothing -- to have an impression with no distinguishing mark would be to have no impression. Yet this separation implies change, and to God, immutable, change is impossible. In memory, the thing remembered is distinguished from the thing temporarily or permanently forgotten. Can God forget? Can you have intelligence without thought? If the Theist replies to this, that he does not mean by infinite intelligence, as an attribute of Deity, an affinity of the intelligence found in a finite degree in humankind, then he is bound to explain, clearly and distinctly, what other "intelligence" he means; and until this be done the foregoing statements require answer.
The Atheist does not regard "substance" as either essentially intelligent or the reverse. Intelligence is the result of certain conditions of existence. Burnished steel is bright -- that is, brightness is the characteristic of a certain condition of existence. Alter the condition, and the characteristic of the condition no longer exists. The only essential of substance is existence. Alter, the wording of the Theest's objection: -- Matter is either essentially bright, or essentially non-bright. If matter were essentially bright, brightness should be the essence of all matter; but matter cannot be essentially bright, because some matter is not bright, therefore matter is essenteally non-bright; but there is brightness therefore there must be a cause for this brightness independent of matter -- that is, there must be an essentially bright being -- i.e., God.
Another Theistic proposition is thus stated "Every effect must have a cause; the first cause universal must be eternal: ergo, the first cause universal must be God." This is equivalent to saying that "God" is "first cause." But what is to be understood by cause? Defined in the absolute the word has no real value. "Cause," therefore, cannot be eternal. What can be understood by "first cause"? To us the two words convey no meaning greater than would be conveyed by the phrase "round triangle." Cause and effect are correlative terms -- each cause is the effect of some precedent; each effect the cause of its consequent. It is impossible to conceive existence terminated by a primal or initial cause. The "beginning," as it is phrased, of the universe is not thought out by the Theist, but conceded without thought. To adopt the language of Montaigne: "Men make themselves believe that they believe." The so-called belief in Creation is nothing more than the prostration of the intellect on the threshold of the unknown. We can only cognize the ever-succeeding phenomena of existence as a line in continuous and eternal evolution. This line has to us no beginning; we trace it back into the misty regions of the past but a little way, and however far we may be able to journey there is still the great beyond. Then what is meant by "universal cause"? Spinoza gives the following definition of cause, as used in its absolute signification: "By cause of itself I understand that, the essence of which involves existence, or that, the nature of which can only be considered as existent." That is, Spinoza treats "cause" absolute and "existence" as two words having the same meaning. If this mode of defining the word be contested, then it has no meaning other than its relative signification of a means to an end. "Every effect must have a cause." Every effect implies the plurality of effects, and necessarily that each effect must be finite; but how is it possible from finite effect to logically deduce a universal -- i.e., infinite cause?
There are two modes of argument presented by Theists, and by which, separately or combined, they seek to demonstrate the being of a God. These are familiarly known as the arguments 'a Priori' and 'a posterori'.
The 'a posteriori' argument has been popularized in England by Paley, who has ably endeavoured to hide the weakness of his demonstration under an abundance of irrelevant illustrations. The reasoning of Paley is veiy deficient in the essential points where it most needed strength. It is utterly impossible to prove by it the eternity or infinity of Deity. As an argument founded on analogy, the design argument, at the best, could only entitle its propounder to infer the existence of a finite cause, or rather of a multitude of finite causes. It ought not to be forgotten that the illustrations of the eye, the watch, and the man, even if admitted as instances of design, or rather of adaptation, are instances of eyes, watches, and men, designed or adapted out of pre-existing substance, by a being of the same kind of substance, and afford, therefore, no demonstration in favour of a designer alleged to have actually created substance out of nothing, and also alleged to have created a substance entirely different from himself.
The illustrations of alleged adaptation or design in animal life in its embryonic stages are thus dealt with by the late George Henry Lewes: "What rational interpretation can be given to the succession of phases each embryo is forced to pass through? None of these phases has any adaptation to the future state of the animal; they are in positive contradiction to it, or are simply purposeless; many of them have no adaptation, even in its embryonic state. What doe's the fact imply? There is not a single known organism which is not developed out of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex structure which distinguishes it, there must be an evolution of forms which distinguish the structures of organisms lower in the series. On the hypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic world, nothing could be more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to construct an organism at once, without making several tentative efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and repeating for centuries the same tentatives and the same corrections in the same succession. Do not let us blink this consideration. There is a traditional phrase which is in vogue amongst Anthropomorphists -- a phrase which has become a sort of argument -- 'the Great Architect.' But if we were to admit the human point of view, a glance at the facts of embryology must produce very uncomfortable reflexions. For what shall we say to an architect who was unable -- or, being able, was obstinotely unwilling -- to erect a palace, except by first his materials in the shape of a but, then pulling them down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding storey to storey, and room to room, not with any reference to the ultimate purposes of a palace, but wholly with reference to the way in which houses were constructed in ancient times? Would there be a chorus of applause from the Institute of Architects, and favourable notices in newspapers of this profound wisdom? Yet this is the sort of succession on which organisms are constructed. The fact has long been familiar; how has it been reconciled with infinite wisdom?"
The 'a posteriori' argument can never demonstrate infinity for Deity. Arguing from an effect finite in extent, the most it could afford would be a cause sufficient for that effect, such cause being possibly finite in extent and duration. Professor Flint in his late work in advocacy of Theism concedes that "we cannot deduce the infinite from the finite." And as the argument does not demonstrate God's infinity, neither can it, for the same reason, make out his omniscience, as it is clearly impossible to logically claim infinite wisdom for a God possibly only finite. God's omnipotence remains unproved for the same reason, and because it is clearly absurd to argue that God exercises power where he may not be. Nor can the 'a posteriori' argument show God's absolute freedom, for as it does nothing more than seek to prove a finite God, it is quite consistent with the argumefit that God's existence is limited and controlled in a thousand ways. Nor does this argument show that God always existed; at the best, the proof is only that some cause, enough for the effect, existed before it, but there is no evidence that this cause differs from any other causes, which are often as transient as the effect itself. And as it does not demonstrate that God has always existed, neither does it demonstrate that he will always exist or even that he now exists. It is perfectly in accordance with the argument, and with the analogy of cause and effect, that the effect may remain after the cause has ceased to exist. Nor does the argument from design demonstrate one God. It is quite consistent with this argument that a separate cause existed for each effect, or mark of design discovered, or that several causes contributed to some or one of such effects. So that if the argument be true, it might result in a multitude of petty Deities, limited in knowledge, extent, duration, and power; and still worse, each one of this multitude of Gods may have had a cause which would also be finite in extent and duration, and would require another, and so on, until the design argument loses the reasoner amongst an innumerable crowd of Deities, none of whom can have the attributes claimed for God.
The design argument is defective as an argument from analogy, because it seeks to prove a Creator God who designed, but does not explain whether this God has been eternally designing, which would be absurd or, if he at some time commenced to design, what then induced him so to commence? It is illogical, for it seeks to prove an immutable Deity, by demonstrating a mutation on the part of Deity.
It is unnecessary to deal specially with each of the many writers who have used from different stand-points the 'a posteriori' form of argument in order to prove the existence of Deity. The objections already stated apply to the whole class; and, although probably each illustration used by the Theistic advocate is capable of an elucidation entirely at variance with his argument, the main features of objection are the same. The argument 'a posteriori' is a method of proof in which the premises are composed of some position of existing facts, and the conclusion asserts a position antecedent to those facts. The argument is from given effects to their causes. It is one form of this argument which asserts that a man has a moral nature, and from this seeks to deduce the existence of a moral governor. This form has the disadvantage that its premises are illusory. In alleging a moral nature for man, the Theist overlooks the fact that the moral nature of man differs somewhat in each individual, differs considerably in each nation, and differs entirely in some peoples. It is dependent on organization and education; these are influenced by climate, food, and mode of life. If the argument from man's nature could demonstrate anything, it would prove a murdering God for the murderer, a lascivious God for the licentious man, a dishonest God for the thief, and so through the various phases of human inclination. The 'a priori' arguments are methods of proof in which the matter of the premises exists in the order of conception antecedently to that of the conclusion. The argument is from cause to effect. Amongst the prominent Theistic advocates relying upon the 'a priori' argument in England are Dr. Samuel Clarke, the Rev. Moses Lowman, and William Gillespie.
An important contribution to Theistic literature has been the publication of the Baird lectures on Theism. The lectures are by Professor Flint, who asks: "Have we sufficient evidence for thinking that there is a self-existent, etemal being, infinite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and goodness, the Maker of heaven and earth?"
"Theism," he affirms, "is the doctrine that the universe owes its existence, and continuance in existence, to the reason and will of a self-existent Being, who is infinitely powerful, wise, and good. It is the doctrine that nature has a Creator and Preserver, the nations a Governor, men a heavenly Father and judge." But he concedes that "Theism is very far from coextensive with religion. Religion is spread over the whole earth; Theism only over a comparatively small portion of it. There are but three Theistic religions -- the Mosaic, the Christian, and the Muhammadan. They are connected historically in the closest manner -- the idea of God having been transmitted to the two latter, and not independently originated by them. All other religions are Polytheistic or Pantheistic, or both together. Among those who, have been educated in any of these heathen religions, only a few minds of rare penetration and power have been able to rise by their own exertions to a consistent Theistic belief. The God of all those among us who believe in God, even of those who reject Christianity, who reject all revelation, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From these ancient Jewish fathers the knowledge of him has historically descended through an unbroken succession of generations to us. We have inherited it from them. If it had not thus come down to us, if we had not been born into a society pervaded by it, there is no reason to suppose that we should have found it out for ourselves, and still less that we should merely have required to open our eyes in order to see it."
If "Theism is the doctrine that the universe owes its existence to the reason and will of a self-existing Being who is infinitely powerful, wise, and good," then it is a doctrine which involves many difficulties and absurdities. It assumes that the universe has not always existed. The new existence added when the universe was originated was either an improvement or a deterioration on what had always existed; or it was in all respects precisely identical with what had therefore always existed. In the first, if the new universe was an improvement, then the previously self-existent being could not have been infinitely good. If the universe was a deterioration, then the creator could have scarcely been all-wise, or he could not have been all-powerful. If the universe was in all respects precisely identical with the self- existent being, then it must have been infinitely powerful, wise and good, and must have been self-existent. Any of the alternatives is fatal to Theism. Again, if the universe owes its existence to God's reason and will, God must, prior to creation, have thought upon the matter until he ultimately determined to create; but, if the creation were wise and good, it would never have been delayed while the infinitely wise and good reasoned about it, and, if the creation were not wise and good, the infinitely wise and good would never have commenced it. Either God willed without motive, or he was influenced; if he reasoned, there was -- prior to the definite willing -- a period of doubt or suspended judgment, all of which is inconsistent with the attributes claimed for deity by Professor Flint. It is hard to understand how whole nations can have been left by their infinitely powerful, wise, and good governor -- how many men can have been left by their infinitely powerful, wise, and good father -- without any knowledge of himself. Yet this must be so if, as Professor Flint conceives, Theism is spread over only a comparatively small portion of the earth. The moral effect of Christian and Muhammadan Theism on the nations influenced was well shown in the recent Russo-Turkish War.
Every Theist must admit that, if a God exists, he could have so convinced all men of the fact of his existence that doubt, disagreement, or disbelief would be impossible. If he could not do this, he would not be omnipotent, or he would not be omniscient -- that is, he would not be God. Every Theist must also agree that, if a God exists, he would wish all men to have such a clear consciousness of his existence and attributes, that doubt, disagreement, or disbelief on this subject would be impossible. And this, if for no other reason, because that out of doubts and disagreements on religion have too often resulted centuries of persecution, strife, and misery, which a good God would desire to prevent. If God would not desire this, then he is not all good -- that is, he is not God. But as many men have doubts, as a large majority of mankind have disagreements, and as some men have disbeliefs as to God's existence and attributes, it must follow that God does not exist, or that he is not all-wise, or that he is not all-powerful, or that he is not all-good.
Many Theists rely on the intuitional argument. It is, perhaps, best to allow the Baird Lecturer to reply to, these: "Man, say some, knows God by immediate intuition; he needs no argument for his existence, because he perceives Him directly -- face to face -- without any medium. It is easy to assert this, but obviously the assertion is the merest dogmatism. Not one man in a thousand who understands what he is affirming will dare to claim to have an immediate vision of God, and nothing can be more likely than that the man who makes such a claim is self-deluded." And Professor Flint urges that "What seem intuitions are often really inferenices, and not unfrequently errondous inferences; what seem the immediate dictates of pure reason, or the direct and unclouded perceptions of a special spiritual faculty, may be the conceits of fancy, or the products of habits and association, or the reflexions of strong feeling. A man must prove to himself, and he must prove to others, that what he takes to be an intuition is an intuition. Is that proof in this case likely to be easier or more conclusive than the proof of the Divine existence? The so-called immediate perception of God must be shown to be a perception and to be immediate; it must be vindicated and verified; and how this is to be especially if there be no other reasons for believing in God than itself, it is difficult to conceive. The history of religion, which is what ought to yield the clearest confirmation of the alleged intuition, appears to be from beginning to end a conspicuous contradiction of it. If all men have the spiritual power of directly beholding their Creator -- have an immediate vision of God -- how happens it that whole nations believe in the most absurd and monstrous Gods? That millions of men are ignorant whether there be one God or thousands?" And still more strongly he adds: "The opinion that man has an intuition or immediate perception of God is untenable; the opinion that he has an immediate feeling of God is absurd."
Every child is born into the world an Atheist, and, if he grows into a Theist, his Deity differs with the country in which the believer may happen to be born, or the people amongst whom he may happen to be educated. The belief is the result of education or organization. This is practically conceded by Professor Flint, where he speaks of the God-idea as transmitted from the Jews, and says: "We have inherited it from them. If it had not come down to us, if we had not been born into a society pervaded by it, there is no reason to suppose that we should have found it out for ourselves." And, further, he maintains that a child is born "into blank ignorance, and, if left entirely to itself, would, probably, never find out as much religious truth as the most ignorant of parents can teach it." Religious belief is powerful in proportion to the want of scientific knowledge on the part of the believer. The more ignorant the more credulous. In the mind of the Theist "God" is equivalent to the sphere of the unknown; by the use of the word he answers, without thought, problems which might otherwise obtain scientific solution. The more ignorant the Theist, the more numerous his Gods. Belief in God is not a faith founded on reason. Theism is worse than illogical; its teachings are not only without utility, but of itself it has nothing to teach. Separated from Chrisitanity with its almost innumerable sects, from Muhainmadanism with its numerous divisions, and separated also from every other preached system, Theism is a Will-o'-the-Wisp, without reality. Apart from orthodoxy, Theism is the veriest dreamform, without substance or coherence.
What does Christian Theism teach? That the first man, made perfect by the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God, was nevertheless imperfect, and by his imperfection brought misery into the world, where the all-good God must have intended misery should never come; that this God made men to share this misery -- men whose fault was their being what he made them; that this God begets a son, who is nevertheless his unbegotten self, and that by belief in the birth of God's etemal son, and in the death of the undying who died as sacrifice to God's vengeance, men may escape the consequences of the first man's error. Christian Theism declares that belief alone can save men, and yet recognizes the fact that man's belief results from teaching, by establishing missionary societies to spread the faith. Christian Theism teaches that God, though no respecter of persons, selected as his favourite one nation in preference to all others; that man can do no good of himself or without God's aid, but yet that each man has a free will; that God is all-powerful, but that few go to heaven, and the majority to hell; that all are to love God, who has predestined from etemity that by far the largest number of human beings are to be burning in hell for ever. Yet the advocates for Theism venture to upbraid those who argue against such a faith.
Either Theism is true or false. If true, discussion must help to spread its influence; if false, the sooner it ceases to influence human conduct the better for human kind. This Plea for Atheism is put forth as a challenge to Theists to do battle for their cause, and in the hope that, the strugglers being sincere, truth may give laurels to the victor and the vanquished; laurels to the victor, in that he has upheld the truth; laurels which should be even more welcome to the vanquished, whose defeat crowns him with a truth he knew not of before.


In September, USDA global wheat production estimates were revised slightly higher. Mainly due to better crop conditions in Turkey and Russia, estimates were raised to 744.85 million tons from 743.18 million tons in August. Based on the latest data, Russia is currently expected to be the top wheat exporter in the 2017/18 season year. Global wheat consumption is now expected to edge slightly lower from this year's record of 738.7 million tons and reach 737.5 million tons next season year. Latest data are more bearish for global inventories, however, which are forecast to increase 16.5 percent to 263.14 million tons.
The September USDA report saw a downward revision in corn production for Ukraine, Russia and EU countries. As a result, global production is forecast to demonstrate a 3.7 percent year-over-year decrease to 1.03 billion tons in 2017/18. In contrast with forecasts for an annual consumption increase in August, global corn consumption was revised lower in September and is now projected to remain nearly unchanged at just below 1.06 billion tons. Consequently, global inventories are expected to demonstrate a strong 11 percent year-over-year increase to 202.5 million tons.
With soybean consumption continuing to increase, global crush in 2017/18 is expected to reach 300.7 million tons vs. the current year's level of 288.5 million tons – a 4.2 percent year-over-year increase mainly driven by solid production yields and a record soybeans production of 4.431 million bushels. Global inventories are expected to slightly offset the balance and are currently projected to remain nearly unchanged at 97.8 million tons. With a forecast for a 3.4 percent increase in global exports, USDA expects the US soybean prices to average $8.35-10.05 per bushel in 2017/18, 10 cents lower year-over-year at the midpoint.
Global soybean meal production is expected to continue closely tracking domestic use in 2017/18, and is currently expected at 234.4 million tons – a 5.5 percent year-over-year increase from the current year's level of 222.1 million tons. In the meantime, global production – projected at 236.6 million tons – will likely narrow down the production-consumption spread to 2.17 from 4.27 million tons a year earlier. However, despite the expected global ending stocks decrease – currently seen at 12.9 metric tons – the USDA lowered its pricing forecast from August and currently expects U.S. prices to average $290-330 per short ton next year.
Due to a significant expected decrease in harvested area, U.S. rice production is forecast to suffer a 20 percent decrease in 2017/18, with additional downward revisions for China and Bangladesh. Partially offset by increased production levels in India, Burma and Peru, global production is expected to reach 483.36 million tons next year, a minor decrease from this season year's estimate of 486.39 million tons. Global consumption is projected to edge slightly lower to 482.5 million tons, raising the ending stocks estimate to 123.52 from 120.33 million tons estimated for the current season year.
The September USDA report saw an upward increase in global cotton production estimates, raising the 2017/18 estimate to 120.8 from 117.3 million bales in August. Mainly driven by continued cotton demand growth in the Asian region, world cotton consumption is projected to demonstrate a 3.6 percent year-over-year increase and reach 117.75 million bales during the next season year. Ending global stocks are forecast to increase from the current multi-year low of 89.6 to 92.5 million bales. Consequently, latest U.S. pricing estimates are slightly below the current price of $0.68 and are forecast to trade in the range between $0.54 and $0.66 per pound in 2017/18.
With no significant data updates on Coffee in September, Brazilian crop harvesting period is nearing its end. As a result of excess rain and beetle pests, country's Arabica production came in below estimates and resulted in slashed crop estimates by Conab, Brazil's official crop bureau. Conab currently projects domestic production at 44.77 million bags in 2017/18, lower by 790,000 from the previous estimate. Despite the upward revision totalling 568,000 bags, Brazilian Robusta crop is forecast at 10.71 million bag and is expected to demonstrate its 2nd weakest result in a decade. Despite slightly tempering the upbeat coffee production expectations, its global supply balance remains relatively bearish. Signalling weaker sentiment, large traders have been net short the coffee futures contract since the middle of August.
Sugar prices remain in a downtrend due to bearish supply fundamentals, with no USDA data updates in September. Reports of better crop conditions in India and the abolishment of the EU sugar quotas – resulting in a significant inflow of new sugar exports – continue to depress the soft commodity. In the meantime, recent price action was also significantly influenced by the reports of a production rebound in Brazil. According to a cane industry group Unica, Brazilian Centre South mills – representing more than 90 percent of the total Brazilian output – produced a total of 3.13 million tons in the first half of September, 50 thousand tonnes above the S&P Global Platts consensus estimates.


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The It List: Five things to do in Berkeley this weekend
Variety is the spice of life, so we have a versatile DJ, a local art show, Rococo French music, a vegan food swap and a free fix-it clinic for you to choose from this weekend.
by Tracey Taylor March 02, 2018, 2:58 p.m. October 4, 2022
Cut Chemist will be at Cornerstone in downtown Berkeley Saturday night. Photo: Joseph Armario
CUT CHEMIST AT CORNERSTONE Cut Chemist, DJ of hip-hop group Jurassic 5, will be spinning at Cornerstone on Saturday, March 3, to mark the release this week of Die Cut, his first solo record since 2006. Die Cut features appearances by Deantoni Parks (The Mars Volta), Biz Markie, actress Erika Christensen (Parenthood), tune-yards, Farmer Dave Scher, Dexter Story, and more. Cut Chemist was a founding member of Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli. He's toured with Shakira, made appearances in the Academy Award-nominated films Juno, Jennifer's Body, and Up In The Air, and has headlined the Hollywood Bowl alongside DJ Shadow. Cornerstone is at 2367 Shattuck Ave. (at Durant). Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for 8:30 p.m. show. Details and tickets at Cornerstone's website.
Visitors to 'The Space Between' show at SHOH gallery on Gilman Street. Photo: Katherine Briccetti
ART SHOW: 'THE SPACE BETWEEN' SHOH, an exhibition space for original works by East Bay artists, has just opened a new show, 'The Spaces Between.' Check out new works by Susan Adamé, Wilma Wyss, Dobee Snowber and Susan Taylor at the gallery this weekend or before it closes on March 24. SHOH states as its goal "to assist in helping the right works find the right collectors and to encourage new relationships between local artists, art lovers and our community." SHOH is at 700 Gilman St. (at Second Street) in Berkeley. Visit SHOH online.
Berkeley Public Library is holding a free Fix It clinic at the Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Saturday. Photo: Creative Commons
FIX IT CLINIC The Berkeley Public Library is hosting a free Fix It Clinic on Saturday March 3, 1-4 p.m., at the Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch (where the Tool Lending Library's staff will be assisting). Bring in your broken furniture, appliances, tools, toys, clothes, and other household items and repair them using provided materials and with the help of community experts. The ultimate objective is to grow a culture of repair (rather than one of disposal) and build a community of fixers, said the library's Jack Baur. The Fix-It Clinics were developed with artist Vita Wells, Culture of Repair, the Berkeley Ecology Center and the City's Zero Waste Division, with donations from Ace Hardware. Another Fix It Clinic is scheduled for March 24 at the North Branch. Registering for the clinic is recommended. Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch is at 1901 Russell Street (at MLK). Details at BPL.
Les Delices. Photo: Steven Mastroianni
LES DÉLICES PERFORM 'AGE OF INDULGENCE' Ohio-based Les Délices perform Age of Indulgence, works of the French Rococo Saturday, March 3, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church. The works, by François-André Philidor andJean-Philippe Rameau among others, are described as being "full of wit and elegance." Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established a reputation for "concerts and recordings…that are journeys of discovery." In addition to Nagy, the members of Les Délices are: Julie Andrijeski and Adriane Post, violins; Emily Walhout, viola da gamba; and Mark Edwards, harpsichord. Age of Indulgence spotlights the musical culture of Paris in the 1740s and '50s, a world with a wealth of opportunities to find a patron and thrive as a musician. St. Mary Magdalen Church is at 2005 Berryman St. (at Henry). Details and tickets at SFEMS.org
Theres a vegan food swap Sunday at Ashby Community Garden. Photo: Courtesy the Swap
VEGAN FOOD SWAP Swap your homemade or home-grown creations and get ideas and recipes from other swappers at the Vegan Food Swap at Ashby Community Garden Sunday at 1 p.m. Some things you can swap: backyard produce, baked goods, condiments, soups, pickled and fermented goods, home brews, herbal remedies and beauty products. As this is a vegan food swap, please don't bring items containing animal products such as: meat, dairy, eggs, honey, beeswax, wool, leather, gelatin or collagen. No need to be vegan to participate. Fill out the swap sheet before showing up. Ashby Community Garden is at 1376 Ashby Ave. (between Acton and Mabel). Details.
Tagged: What to do this weekend


In a salad bowl, combine 2 cups halved cherry tomatoes, 2 cups seeded cucumber half-moons, 2 cups watermelon balls, and 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion. Toss with 2 teaspoons thick, aged balsamic vinegar. Let stand 5 minutes, then sprinkle with leaves from 1 sprig tarragon and cracked black pepper to taste.


Bring your hammer , this house is in need of work , but could be a nice home for the right family, property is condemned, electrical and plumbing has been vandalized. Possible owner finance.
Directions To Property: From Allen Street, Turn On To English , Left On To Barrows And A Short Way Down On The Right.


Well, it's almost Easter and school holidays and it's that time of term when we're all utterly exhausted. I get pretty busy in the lead-up to Easter because I have a musical directorship which demands quite a lot of Easter music. That's fine by me, because I love Easter music almost as much as I love Christmas music.
Anyway, while other food bloggers have been creating their own Easter recipes, I …. well, I haven't. Two reasons – the music situation has meant there's little time for other things, and also because I'm no good at bread recipes. So no gluten-free hot cross bun delights from me, I'm afraid.
But the good news is that if you are really hankering to make some gluten-free hot cross buns this year, look no further than the beautiful gluten-free blog Decadent Alternatives. Libby is an amazing and prolific baker and has developed her own gluten-free flour mix which, just quietly, is the best mix on the market in my view. Just recently, she published a recipe for gluten-free Sourdough Hot Cross Buns. They look divine. So head over to her blog for all your Easter baking needs.
Meanwhile, here's my latest lunchbox contribution – Gluten-free Hedgehog Slice.
I'm no expert, but from what I've read about hedgehog slice, it's traditionally a no-bake slice. Interesting, because it also usually has egg in it. So if you're not into eating raw egg, then it's probably one to avoid the next time you are thinking about buying a wicked slice at your local café.
No-bake doesn't really lend itself to lunchboxes – too many issues with trying to keep it cool so that it remains set. It's impractical if it warms to room temperature as it becomes too difficult to eat. My version is baked, which takes care of that issue. It has puréed prunes in it for a whopping big whack of dietary fibre and for sweetness. There's a little bit of added sugar as well as a thin layer of icing spread over the top (because hedgehog slices are also traditionally iced, so it seems), but on the whole, in my book this is healthy enough for a recess time snack.
For the biscuit pieces, I used Dr Schar Maria biscuits. Any gluten-free plain digestive biscuits will work fine – the less sugar, the better. If you want a cheaper, sugar-free option, use broken plain rice cakes instead, although you won't get the delightful crunch because the rice pieces will soften.
My family loves these, and I love that I can freeze and defrost them. It makes packing lunchboxes so much easier.
To make the base, grease and line a 18 x 28 centimetre slice tray. Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius (conventional oven) or 160° Celsius (fan-forced oven).
Put prunes in a medium-sized bowl. Add enough cold water to cover the prunes. Cover the bowl with cling film or a plate and microwave on high for 4 minutes, or until prunes are softened. Drain thoroughly and then purée. Set aside to cool a little.
Into a large bowl, sift the flours, psyllium husk and 50 g cocoa powder. Add the sugar, eggs, 120 g butter and 70 ml milk. Add the prunes and mix to combine.
Using your hands, break the biscuits into small chunks and add to the bowl. Stir gently to combine.
Tip the mixture into the slice tray and spread evenly. Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool in tray.
To make the icing, sift icing mixture and 5 g cocoa powder into a medium-sized bowl. Add 50 g melted butter and 1 tsp milk. Stir or whisk to combine.
When base is completely cooled, spread the icing evenly over the top and allow to set.
Cut into 4 centimetre squares. Store in an airtight container for 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Using rice cakes instead of biscuits is a great idea!


text:
Digging an Early Grave for Radio Liberty
By Tatiana Yankelevich
In October 2004, I stood next to my mother, Yelena Bonner, at an elegant dinner at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and translated her keynote remarks addressed to the participants of a conference on the impact of Cold War broadcasting. This three-day conference brought together the veterans of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and those, who like my mother and myself, represented the audience on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Our lives and the fates of the countries we lived in were directly affected by the independent news coverage and analysis coming from these programs.
My mother, in her usual direct manner, was not afraid to utter words that were not exactly in sync with the festive and pleasant atmosphere. I did my best to convey the sense and style of her remarks, though, as often with translators, it was not easy to overcome the temptation to smooth over the rough edges. She predicted that should the plans to reorganize Radio Liberty materialize, they would alter its image beyond recognition and put an end to Radio Liberty as we know it.
Two months later, in December 2004, Bonner, together with dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, wrote a comment in The Moscow Times about the danger of ignoring the reality of the times: "The Constitution has been demolished. The two-chamber parliament has been destroyed. Elections were violated. Federalism has been annihilated. Independent courts are being liquidated. The Orthodox church is coalescing with the political authorities and threatening the secular nature of the state. … Public officials at all levels are being replaced by veterans of agencies like the NKVD, KGB and FSB. … All this is taking place while almost all the independent media, the press as well as radio and television are being wiped out."
Mothers are usually right, and in the eight years that followed I had many chances to confirm this. Still I have not felt the need to get involved directly until now. Today a grave and gross error of judgement is taking place with Radio Liberty.
It would not be an overstatement to say that Radio Liberty has been a source of free speech and free thought over the years, allowing a unique, albeit dangerous, chance to those behind the Iron Curtain to exercise the right to a free flow of information and ideas.
Today, when the regime of President Vladimir Putin has initiated a new attack on freedom of speech and the democracy movement in Russia, human rights organizations have been declared "foreign agents," and USAID has been ousted from Russia, the U.S. management team of Radio Liberty has ended its medium-wave broadcasts and dismissed its top journalists, whose broadcasts attracted hundreds of thousands of listeners.
These actions go against the spirit and the mission of Radio Liberty. These actions dig an early grave for Radio Liberty as free and independent radio broadcasting. They put an end to the collaboration of people of high public repute, essential for a democratic public discourse, and they completely compromise the station's moral authority.
This is why I am raising my voice against these policies. They are foolhardy at best and cynical at worst. They will quickly lead to a sad day when, to paraphrase writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, Radio Liberty will have only one future: its past.
Tatiana Yankelevich is former director of the Sakharov Program on Human Rights at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Kicked Off Airwaves, Radio Liberty Rethinks Strategy
Radio Liberty Hires Gessen
The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.
opinion Alexei Zakharov
Russians See Sputnik V Vaccine as Kremlin Prestige Project
Attitudes to the vaccine are strongly influenced by trust in the Kremlin and local governance.
opinion Ilya Klishin
The Capitol Storming Gives Russians an Escape From Their Reality
The great majority of Russians have no say over the future of their cities or regions and so resort to events outside the country.
opinion Mark Galeotti
No One Benefits From Renewed Demonizing of Russia
The continued presentation of a Russian threat that is both outsized and out of control is profoundly problematic for the West itself.
opinion Sam Greene
'Meet Me,' Alexei Navalny Wrote
The opposition leader is setting up a showdown with both Putin and the people. Who will rise to the occasion?


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text:
import VSS = require("VSS/VSS");
import Utils_Core = require("VSS/Utils/Core");
import Service = require("VSS/Service");
import Controls = require("VSS/Controls");
import Notifications = require("VSS/Controls/Notifications");
import Dialogs = require("VSS/Controls/Dialogs");
import Menus = require("VSS/Controls/Menus");
import Navigation = require("VSS/Controls/Navigation");
import Notes_Contracts = require("./notesContracts");
import Notes_Dialogs = require("./notesDialogs");
import Notes_Grids = require("./notesGrids");
import Notes_Services = require("./notesServices");

var delegate = Utils_Core.delegate;

/**
 * Creates a high-level view object the notes UI.
 * Contains a grid and toolbar for viewing, adding, deleting and editing notes.
 */
export class NotesView extends Navigation.NavigationView {
    private _toolbar: Menus.MenuBar;
    private _grid: Notes_Grids.NotesGrid;
    private _notesService: Notes_Services.NotesService;
    private _noteValidationError: Notifications.MessageAreaControl;

    private static MenuCommands = {
        DELETE_SELECTED_NOTE: "delete-selected-note",
        EDIT_NOTE: "edit-note",
        NEW_NOTE: "new-note",
        REFRESH_NOTES: "refresh-notes",
    }

    /**
     * Initializes the view to populate data and wire up other controls
     */
    public initialize() {
        this._notesService = Service.getService(Notes_Services.NotesService);
        this._notesService.initService(() => { this._onDataLoaded(); }, (e: Error) => { this._setError(e.message); });

        this._noteValidationError = <Notifications.MessageAreaControl>Controls.BaseControl.createIn(Notifications.MessageAreaControl, this._element, { closeable: true });

        var $toolbarContainer: JQuery = this._element.find(".notes-toolbar-container");
        this._toolbar = this._createMenuBar($toolbarContainer);

        var $gridContainer = this._element.find(".notes-grid-container");
        this._grid = <Notes_Grids.NotesGrid>Controls.BaseControl.createIn(Notes_Grids.NotesGrid, $gridContainer, {
            viewModel: this._notesService
        });

        this._updateMenubarItems();

        this._bind(Notes_Grids.NotesGrid.Events.NOTE_MENU_ITEM_CLICKED, delegate(this, this._onContextMenuItemClick));
        this._bind(Notes_Grids.NotesGrid.Events.SELECTED_NOTE_CHANGED, delegate(this, this._onSelectedNoteChanged));
        this._bind(Notes_Grids.NotesGrid.Events.NOTE_DOUBLE_CLICK, delegate(this, this._onNoteDoubleClick));

        $(".add-first-note-link").click(() => {
            this._createNewNote();
        });
    }

    private _setError(message: string) {
        this._noteValidationError.setError(message);
    }

    private _clearError() {
        this._noteValidationError.clear();
    }

    private _createMenuBar($container): Menus.MenuBar {
        return <Menus.MenuBar>Controls.BaseControl.createIn(Menus.MenuBar, $container, {
            items: this._createMenubarItems(),
            executeAction: Utils_Core.delegate(this, this._onMenuItemClick)
        });
    }

    private _createMenubarItems() {
        var items = [];

        items.push({ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.NEW_NOTE, text: "New", title: "New Note", showText: false, icon: "icon-add-small" });
        items.push({ separator: true });
        items.push({ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.EDIT_NOTE, text: "Edit", title: "Edit Note", showText: false, icon: "icon-edit" });
        items.push({ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.REFRESH_NOTES, text: "Refresh", title: "Refresh Notes", showText: false, icon: "icon-refresh" });
        items.push({ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.DELETE_SELECTED_NOTE, text: "Delete", title: "Delete Notes", showText: false, icon: "icon-delete" });

        return items;
    }

    private _onContextMenuItemClick(e?, args?) {
        this._onMenuItemClick(args);
    }

    private _onMenuItemClick(e?) {

        var command = e.get_commandName();

        switch (command) {
            case NotesView.MenuCommands.NEW_NOTE:
                this._createNewNote();
                break;
            case NotesView.MenuCommands.EDIT_NOTE:
                this._editNote(this._grid.getSelectedNote());
                break;
            case NotesView.MenuCommands.REFRESH_NOTES:
                this._refreshNotes();
                break;
            case NotesView.MenuCommands.DELETE_SELECTED_NOTE:
                this._deleteNotes(this._grid.getSelectedNotes());
                break;
        }
    }

    private _updateGrid(notes: Notes_Contracts.Note[]) {
        this._clearError();
        this._grid.setSource(notes);

        var noteExists = notes.length > 0;
        $(".no-notes").toggleClass("vssf-sdk-sample-hide", noteExists);
        $(".add-first-note-link").toggleClass("vssf-sdk-sample-hide", noteExists);
        $(".notes-content").toggleClass("vssf-sdk-sample-hide", !noteExists);
    }

    private _setSelectedNote(noteToSelect: Notes_Contracts.Note) {
        $.each(this._notesService.notes,(i: number, note: Notes_Contracts.Note) => {
            if (note.id == noteToSelect.id) {
                this._grid.setSelectedDataIndex(i);
                return false; // break
            }
        });
    }

    private _onSelectedNoteChanged(e?, selectedNote?) {
        this.delayExecute("updateMenuItems", 250, true, this._updateMenubarItems);
    }

    private _onNoteDoubleClick(e?, note?) {
        if (note) {
            this._editNote(note);
        }
    }

    private _showNoteDialog(title: string, note: Notes_Contracts.Note, okCallback: any) {
        Dialogs.show(Notes_Dialogs.NotesDialog, {
            height: 600,
            width: 600,
            resizable: true,
            okCallback: okCallback,
            title: title,
            note: note,
        });
    }

    private _updateMenubarItems() {
        var selectedNotes = this._grid.getSelectedNotes();

        this._toolbar.updateCommandStates([{ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.EDIT_NOTE, disabled: selectedNotes.length !== 1 }]);
        this._toolbar.updateCommandStates([{ id: NotesView.MenuCommands.DELETE_SELECTED_NOTE, disabled: selectedNotes.length === 0 }]);
    }

    private _onDataLoaded() {
        this._updateGrid(this._notesService.notes);
    }

    private _createNewNote() {
        this._showNoteDialog("Create Note", null,(newNote: Notes_Contracts.Note) => {
            this._notesService.createNote(newNote,
                () => {
                    this._updateGrid(this._notesService.notes);
                    this._setSelectedNote(newNote);
                }
            );
        });
    }

    private _deleteNotes(notes: Notes_Contracts.Note[]) {

        if (confirm("Are you sure you want to delete this note?")) {
            $.each(notes,(i: number, note: Notes_Contracts.Note) => {
                this._notesService.deleteNote(note,
                    () => {
                        this._updateGrid(this._notesService.notes);
                    }
                );
            });
        }
    }

    private _editNote(note: Notes_Contracts.Note) {
        this._showNoteDialog("Edit Note", note, (editedNote: Notes_Contracts.Note) => {
            this._notesService.updateNote(note, editedNote,
                () => {
                    this._updateGrid(this._notesService.notes);
                    this._setSelectedNote(editedNote);
                }
            );
        });
    }

    private _refreshNotes() {
        this._notesService.refresh();
    }
}

Controls.Enhancement.registerEnhancement(NotesView, ".notes-view");

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Alexander Galloway in "Language Wants To Be Overlooked" argues of digital code to "not to exclude the cultural or technical importance of any code that runs counter to the perceived mandates of machinic execution, such as the computer glitch or the software exploit, simply to highlight the fundamentally functional nature of all software (glitch and exploit included)." In other words, how might glitches and exploits in computer programs, particularly in video games, be theorized as queer? Video games in many ways are normative, structured, and deeply protocological even as gamers and game developers evince their promises of power, freedom, play, and agency. This paper takes the glitch as more than an accident, interruption, or unwanted malfunction. Looking at the 2012 video game-inspired animated feature Wreck-It Ralph, the "minus worlds" of Super Mario Brothers, and indie games like merritt kopas's Lim, this presentation imagines the glitch as potentially denaturalizing, productively destabilizing of the technonormativity of games and considers the perils of "fixing" these queer glitches.
This is one of a series of four panels dedicated to critical game studies. The panel features a range of approaches varying from the historical and theoretical to the artistic. Participants include both game designers and scholars. The function of the series is to analyze how games operate in contemporary information economies and undertake a rigorous analysis of how games as a cultural as well as technological apparatus speak to larger political, cultural, and aesthetic issues.
In April 2013 an article made its way around the internet with the startling title "How a Single Android Phone Can Hack an Entire Plane." Less interesting than the truth value of this article was the provocation it presented: that commercial air travel is now dangerously unmanned. Aircraft have always depended on a litany of complex, networked technologies to give passengers more or less smooth, reliable flight. Yet the perceived threat posed by an ordinary phone reveals weird anxieties about a situation that has always been, in a sense, post-natural. In this paper we look at several new media contexts that comment on the mundane and naturalized dimensions of contemporary air travel. In addition to the above article, we consider airport scenes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead, and Max Payne 3, the rhetoric around the Boeing Dreamliner, and two quasi-surveillance sites called "FreakJet" and "passenger shaming." These texts stage compelling conflicts between the technological, the biological, the social, and the environmental. Human flight is itself arguably a post-natural phenomenon (enabled by technological ingenuity and Empire), one that is now of central concern to questions of sustainability. Typically air travel seems either to be accepted as inevitable because extant, or seen as complicit in and axiomatic of an always already occurring fossil fuel driven disaster. Carving a space between these two positions, this paper meditates on the strange place of flight in a digital ecology and post-natural imaginary.
The title of this paper draws from the description Electronic Music Foundation President Joel Chadabe gave to electricity's contribution to music production: "the great opening up of music to all sound." In a similar way, computational representations of natural environments open up new orientations toward the environment that easily read as fantasies of capitalist frontier expansionism enabled by the reduced material constraints of the digital. The origins of a continuously expanding ecology might be seen in the early text-based Internet's ability to add rooms to a MOO or MUD with a single command. Mojang Specification's Minecraft takes a different approach to ecological generation, with procedurally expanding environments that are theoretically infinite but bound in practice by the data types used to calculate their generated "chunks." This plentiful ideal is reflected even in the game's crafting system, in which resources open up into increasingly small parts of themselves: one block of wood, for example, will yield 4 wooden planks, which can be crafted into 8 sticks total, and so on. At the same time as it creates a world ripe for the calculation of yield values, Minecraft's algorithms produce stunning empty vistas that substitute spawning "mobs" (short for mobile units) for reproduction, stagnation for evolution, drop probabilities for history. Oriented away from heteronormative and capitalist temporalities, this algorithmic ecology–a postnature itself–opens up nature not only to human occupation for productivity, but to the trivial, nonproductive wanderings of digital inhabitants.
This entry was posted in #firstyearfaculty, Conferences, Gaming, Queer, Technoculture and tagged Amanda Phillips, queer glitches, SLSA 2013, Timothy Welsh, video game studies. Bookmark the permalink.
Banned Books Week! September 22-28, 2013!


text:
Gmići (Bugojno, BiH)
Gmići (Prozor-Rama, BiH)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Truncation error using Taylor series How can we use Taylor series to derive the truncation error of the approximation
$$f^\prime(x)\approx\frac{f(x+h)-f(x-h)}{2h}$$

A: Hint: Start by taking the Taylor polynomial of degree 2 for $f(x+h)$ (as a function of $h$), and then substitute $-h$ for $h$ in this...


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Depending on the purpose of your visit to Germany please check with our site the appropriate visa type you need to apply for, the visa fees and all the required documents. Complete and sign the application form and collect all the required documents before applying.
* Please ensure that you complete the form in full, – please also print, sign and bring with you when attending for your Visa appointment. Handwritten forms will not be accepted.
It is mandatory that you book an appointment before you can go to the Application center to submit your documents for a German VISA. All visa applications are accepted only if you have made the prior appointment.
After you arrive at the Application Center, your appointment letter will be verified and you will be issued a token. Please be on time, the embassy may not be able to process your visa request if you are late for more than 10 minutes.
You will be asked to collect another token if the visa application form is incomplete, you have not arranged the documents in the required order or you have not provided all the necessary photocopies of documents.
If the application is complete your passport, application form and documents will be held temporarily by the application center. Please note that you can not take the passport during the application process with you if you have to take your passport for whatever reason the application will be canceled and you will need to re-apply.
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