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Dedicated to Best Buddies: Guaranteed Impact winner Ethan Greenberg
By Adam Fluck on 8/1/2017
Tags: just for fun chicago white sox give back guaranteed impact program guaranteed rate field
When he was just a freshman at Chicago's Jones College Prep, Ethan Greenberg founded the school's chapter of Best Buddies, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the social, physical and economic isolation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
He was just getting started. In the years leading up to his recent graduation, Ethan was an active member, fundraiser and event planner for Best Buddies. For his efforts, Ethan has been selected as one of ten Guaranteed Impact winners.
"He hit the ground running," Ethan's father, Leon, recalls. "He was an officer of the club all four years of high school. He created the website for the school's chapter and was an active fundraiser, bringing in thousands of dollars within weeks of its launch. Ethan has also been a terrific organizer for Best Buddies events."
Ethan even persuaded Elena Delle Donne, a former player for the WNBA's Chicago Sky and the league's MVP in 2015, to attend an event. According to his father, Ethan's final event was a Best Buddies prom, which was an enormous success.
While Ethan's recent graduation marks the end of an era, his work with Best Buddies is far from over. He is heading to Kansas University in the fall and he plans to continue his involvement there.
Ethan has long showed a compassion for others—prior to high school he was active in the American Youth Soccer Organization's VIP program, which helps children with physical or mental disabilities enjoy the game.
"His compassion and patience for kids with special needs is remarkable," says Leon Greenberg of his son. "As his father, I could not be prouder of him."
This season, Guaranteed Rate and the Chicago White Sox are teaming up to put heroic kids and teens in the spotlight. The Guaranteed Impact Program celebrates young people who are making a positive difference in their schools and communities. The program's goal is to encourage and empower kids and teens who are working to improve the lives of those around them. Recipients will be treated to a well-deserved day at Guaranteed Rate Field for a White Sox home game in a suite with 15 friends and family.
Applicant subject to credit and underwriting approval. Not all applicants will be approved for financing. Receipt of application does not represent an approval for financing or interest rate guarantee. Restrictions may apply, contact Guaranteed Rate for current rates and for more information. All information provided in this publication is for informational and educational purposes only, and in no way is any of the content contained herein to be construed as financial, investment, or legal advice or instruction. Guaranteed Rate, Inc. does not guarantee the quality, accuracy, completeness or timelines of the information in this publication. While efforts are made to verify the information provided, the information should not be assumed to be error free. Some information in the publication may have been provided by third parties and has not necessarily been verified by Guaranteed Rate, Inc. Guaranteed Rate, Inc. its affiliates and subsidiaries do not assume any liability for the information contained herein, be it direct, indirect, consequential, special, or exemplary, or other damages whatsoever and howsoever caused, arising out of or in connection with the use of this publication or in reliance on the information, including any personal or pecuniary loss, whether the action is in contract, tort (including negligence) or other tortious action. *Guaranteed Rate does not provide tax advice. Please contact your tax adviser for any tax related questions.
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Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant is operating normally
Despite the «meteor attack» partially destroyed one of the buildings of JSC «CZP» (CZP), work at a metallurgical plant is not stopped — according to representatives of the organization. «The shock wave knocked out windows in several infrastructure areas of the plant and partly destroyed the storage building from the Sverdlovsk tract. Apart from a few employees with scratches from broken glass and bruises, others affected in the enterprise is not «- he said in an interview with journalists, one of the managers» CZP «- Yevgeniy Ponomarev. «None of what environmental threat we are not talking, warehouse building is restored, work by the usual scenario» — said the representative of the Chelyabinsk plant.
OJSC «Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant» — the largest operator of the Russian market of non-ferrous metals (it accounts for more than half the total production of Zn in the country) and one of the most important suppliers of refined resource and its alloys in the global market (about 2%). On the basis of the enterprise carried out a complete production cycle of the zinc from the extraction and refining of ores — end up melting of metal products (pure Zn with a concentration of 99.995% and its alloys).
On Friday, February 15, around 9 hours and 20 minutes in the morning local time, the inhabitants of several regions of Russia and Kazakhstan have seen the fall of the meteorite, swept across the sky at a speed of 30−70 kilometers per second. The phenomenon was accompanied by bright flashes of light and a series of explosions, wave upon which the houses were broken glass in some areas of the cities of the Southern Urals, is in the immediate vicinity of the path of the car flying. Fortunately, serious casualties and damage phenomenon is not caused.
Analysts of the market of non-ferrous metals, watching the fluctuation of the price of zinc on the stock exchanges in the day state of emergency at the Chelyabinsk plant, marked a slight jump resource quotations (within one and a half per cent towards a rise in price). In addition, at the very end of the week has changed the price of shares of JSC «CZP» (this time we are talking about the negative dynamics of quotations on the Moscow and London stock exchanges — in the range 1.5−1.9%).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Saturday 04 December 2021 11:52 am
Telecom Italia is 'close' to picking advisers for £28bn KKR deal
By: Leah Montebello
The US bank's profits swelled nearly $3bn over the last year, climbing to around $7.7bn in the last three months
Telecom Italia is close to picking banks to advise it on a buyout offer approach from U.S. private equity group KKR and could even assign mandates this weekend, two sources said this morning.
A special committee set up to study KKR's non-binding bid approach, valued at 33bn euros (£28bn) including debt, met on Friday and will meet again over the weekend, the sources said. KKR's approach was made public on November 21.
A wide range of banks are still in the fray for an advisory role in what would be Europe's biggest ever private equity deal. Bank of America, Barclays and Intesa Sanpaolo division IMI CIB have emerged as front runners, the sources said.
The sources also told Reuters that no decision had yet been taken.
Divisions within Italy's biggest phone group are making it difficult for TIM to respond to KKR's offer after a shareholder row a week ago forced Luigi Gubitosi to step down as chief exec.
TIM's top shareholder Vivendi is pushing for a full board reshuffle after Gubitosi refused to step down from the board, sources said – a move that prevented new general manager Pietro Labriola being named chief last week.
Labriola is in line to become chief but Gubitosi or another director must first step down from the board to make way for him.
Taylor Wimpey's order book hits £2.5bn amid strong demand for homes
Asset manager Ashmore reports stunted growth as 'challenging' conditions plague emerging markets
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Previously floating a company of posting and marketing, one preferences to enjoy a cognisance of traditions files in addition to practices accountability that is certainly accessed because of the Federal government. Methods task is basically a tax burden or simply responsibility or perhaps settlement which usually has to get made that will government entities to get facilitating significance together with upload of products and also products. It is levied on selected items. It can be generally knew as your number with respect to help the amount of goods together with services exported or brought in. Customs obligation is levied by typically the methods of which is some office underneath Ministry of Trade managing plus managing typically the move about commodities such as pets, unique stuff and so on for and released with the country. They type an essential portion of often the profits about the federal government. The data about the made to order jobs levied with diverse possessions is cast as an important task throughout choosing the main importing and also exporting good to the actual sellers. A few practices data can be purchased upon the made to order duties levied on typically the numerous items. You can find made to order duties accessed regarding import together with move connected with survive animals. The actual are living wildlife consist of reside horses, butts, mule and also hinnies which can a good number of of often the physical, filling as well as transfer give good results. Typically the tailor made jobs with rooster, lamb plus goats happen to be also designed. The methods data also incorporates the assignments levied on trade of fish, molluscs and different aquatic types. Customized chores are actually accessed in dwell bushes as well as other plants, edible fruit and vegetables and specified roots and also tubers, harmless fruits and also walnuts; on various other sprouts like java, herbal tea, spouse together with spices, cereals, milling industry's products and services for example malt, starches plus on oilseeds and oleaginous fruits. Some items will be dealt with around considerable amounts and even thus the actual customs have proper care and attention with the dealings without bootleg strategies for stock trading or smuggling happen. The very business of prepared foodstuff such as sugar sweetmeat, alcohol, cacao forms, formulations associated with vegetable like well because fish, using tobacco designed merchandise, geared up cereals are billed below personalized responsibility simply by the Customs. Mineral supplements like pA�pite and metoder, chemical items, plastics and also articles, leather-based materials, real wood products, fabrics and textile articles, umbrellas, stone articles or blog posts, cement, plaster, precious gallstones, base metallic items and bottom part metal content articles and several other everything are incurred under traditions duty. The actual customs facts is effective in ways so that you can fresh men in business in order to really think and even strategic within the merchandise selecting to just trade around. The exact individual provides to comply with some most certain rules plus stipulation. Several exemptions usually are granted towards the traders on the custom duties on several commodities such as Accessories Protocols 1963, Observe of Quick Export Rules 1963, prohibition of export and scan of selected goods 1969, and Methods Rules 1975 etc.


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Q: Tooltips Problem with Infragistics UltraToolBar in child window Currently have an UltraToolBar displaying within a MDI child window currently all the buttons on the bar function but they do not show their tooltips when hovered over. I was wondering if anyone else may have dealt with this problem before and what they did.

A: Are you using the toolbar in Ribbon mode or in old toolbar mode?
If the toolbar is in on a child mdi form, you should probably be merging it into the parent mdi manager.
On your 'main form' you should use a UltraTabbedMdiManager class to open your child MDI windows. Get the main structure of you app set up right and the small stuff with fall out naturally.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I hate having to defend Joseph Haydn, but it's a position I find myself in quite often. A colleague of mine asked me in front of a pianist friend to choose, gun to my head, between the string quartets of Haydn and the string quartets of Mozart. I didn't hesitate for a second with my answer: Haydn.
The pianist complained that he is unable to hear the emotional depth that he hears in the Mozart quartets in the quartets of Haydn. I say he's listening in all the wrong places. Mozart was trying to be the most Mozarty version of himself he could be. Haydn was revolutionising genres every single time he gave it a go. Each quartet is a big swing for something new. He wasn't searching for perfection, he was searching for a new path with every piece. I think artists who keep refining, keep pushing in one direction are more easily understood and celebrated than the ones who push themselves by never making the same choice twice.
You can't smooth him out, the music loses it's edge if you do. I also think you can't stretch out the heartache moments like you can with Mozart because the form is so important to our expectations as listeners that if you distort it you miss the point. Tender moments are gone in a flash with Haydn, their fleetness giving them a special bittersweet quality.
I can talk about my love for Haydn all day and all night. He's a revolutionary with a smile, a master with humility. He was deeply loved by all who knew him (if we don't count his wife…sad story there), the musicians in his employ called him "Papa". His inventiveness never ceases to astonish me and he is responsible for the one time I was unable to continue a performance because I was laughing uncontrollably.
My mind was blown listening to this record the first time I heard it a couple years after it came out and to me it's still the gold standard of Haydn interpretation. Gut strings on Stradivari led by pioneering Dutch violinist Jaap Schroeder. Infectious rhythmic vitality, mature Haydn with total mastery of the genre.
Frequent OAE collaborator Frans Bruggen who sadly passed away in 2014 brings the funny with his own period orchestra that he founded in 1981. If you need to put something on repeat to avoid falling into the gaps that Haydn dares you to fall into, this is the record that holds up to repeated listening.
This was Haydn's biggest hit when he was finally super famous late in life. They had to carry him out in a chair over the audience after the first performance. It remains incredibly popular as the ultimate classical oratorio. The first time I performed it was with Maestro Weil and Tafelmusik so this recording is close to my heart. OAE played it with Adam Fischer in Budapest on New Year's Day 2017 and there was no better way to close the page on a lousy 2016 and rekindle my hope for humanity.
Tonight's soloist performs and talks about Haydn Piano sonatas (he's almost as eloquent a speaker as he is a pianist). Available for free download on Wigmore Hall's website! You need to hear Schiff play and talk about what this music means to him. It's as close as you can get to being in rehearsal with him as he revels in this repertoire.
Until someone comes up with the funds for us to record the concerto you're hearing tonight with Sir András, you're going to have to make do with this sparkly, exciting performance from Brautigam and our colleagues in Denmark.


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Leila Janah: The Equalizer
Social-justice advocate, entrepreneur and Samasource founder Leila Janah is harnessing the power of the Internet to change lives across the world.
By Laine Bergeson Becco, FMCHC | July/August 2013
"My dad used to lecture my brother and me about poverty and tell us to eat all our food because there were starving kids back in India," remembers entrepreneur Leila Janah, now 30. "We'd roll our eyes and be like, 'Oh my God, Dad, not again.'"
The Los Angeles native's perspective shifted while she was still in high school. "One local school had 99 percent white and East Asian students and 41 advanced placement courses," says Janah, who now resides in San Francisco. "Another school in the same district had 99 percent Latino and black students and there was not a single advanced placement course." It was then that she decided it was important to help level the playing field for the impoverished and underserved.
After graduating from Harvard in 2005 with a degree in economic development, Janah worked in the private sector for a few years. When she'd saved enough money, she left to found Samasource, a nonprofit business that connects people living in poverty with digital-work opportunities.
"We want to move from 3,500 workers paid and trained to 5,000 by the end of the year," Janah says. "Our team is working feverishly to make that happen."
The "Sama" umbrella also includes Samahope, a Kickstarter-type website for necessary (but rarely available) medical treatments in developing countries, and SamaUSA, which helps low-income community college students access digital work to supplement their income.
EL | What's the best way to help people understand the global impact of poverty?
LJ | There are 1.4 billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day. Several more billion people live on less than $2 and $3, and when you think of it that way, you realize that we live in a world with vastly unequal distribution of opportunity.
EL | What did you learn about the world's poor the first time you traveled abroad?
LJ | I graduated from high school a semester early and I spent the second semester of that year teaching English in Ghana. My students, who were blind and living in one of the poorest countries in the world, were incredibly articulate and just really capable at a level that surprised me. They could name U.S. senators. They could write well. They had read all sorts of interesting books.
I was really shocked because I'd internalized this myth about poverty — that poor people were either incapable or unable to work — and it struck me, as a teacher there, that all of my students would have been completely capable of doing all sorts of basic white-collar jobs. The people certainly were not charity cases and, yet, that's how we were treating them.
EL | When did you know that you wanted to turn your passions into a career?
LJ | I worked at a consulting firm for a few years after college and I'm really grateful to that company. I had fantastic managers, and many of them have become donors and supporters of Samasource, but my heart wasn't in it.
It was funny to me because when I was in high school, I was energized by having more work added to my plate. I ran multiple clubs and did a marathon and had tons of energy.
So it dawned on me when I was consulting that I was just deeply, professionally unhappy. It really had weighed me down. Now, getting a chance to do what I love, to tackle what I consider to be the greatest moral challenge of our time, is deeply fulfilling on a level that is hard to put into words. I feel like I've won the lottery.
EL | So the energy you first felt in high school returned?
LJ | Oh, my goodness. Back in full force — probably even too much force. Not only do I have more energy for work, but I've also found that I have a lot more energy to socialize with people and do all sorts of other things that I didn't do before.
I see a lot of people remove their morality from their work — they do something they don't really believe in, but then they give to their church, or they support all sorts of great nonprofit projects on the side, or they support their kids' school. It's a very bifurcated model: You discard your values at work and live them in your personal life.
I think that there's something energizing and deeply fulfilling, at the risk of sounding like a hippie, when you can exercise your values every day at work.
EL | What is your advice to someone who is looking to make more of a difference in his or her work?
LJ | The first phase is being introspective and sorting out what you'd like to see in the world, what sort of change you'd like to help effect. Then when you're clear on what your goals are, you can work backward from there and think, "OK, well, what are the strategies that I can put in place to hit those goals?"
Even if you are depressed at your job working in retail, you don't need to, say, quit and decide to go on a mission with your church. You can set aside time every week to write down your goals, think really clearly about the change you want to see in the world, and then craft a strategy around that. It's also important to remember that it doesn't always happen overnight. Some people take decades to figure it out, and that's OK, too.
EL | I imagine that, for a lot of Westerners, poverty and deep inequality feel like very faraway issues. How do you engage people in the developed world?
LJ | That's a tough question. I've found that, at the end of the day, you have to make the message positive, and you have to relate it to people's day-to-day experience in life. The first way you relate it to people is you bring them back to the idea that a human is a human, no matter where he or she happens to live, and that no human's fate should be determined by an accident of birth.
I think it is a very American idea to provide people with a level playing field and let them compete, and I've found that using that language, we've been able to get people to support our mission who would normally not be very concerned with international development or people on the other side of the world.
To learn more about Janah's social businesses and find out how you can contribute, visit www.samasource.org.
Laine Bergeson Becco, FMCHC Laine Bergeson is an Experience Life senior editor.
- Sports/Recreation -
Half-Pipe Humanitarian: Hannah Teter
By Laine Bergeson Becco, FMCHC
For world-champion snowboarder Hannah Teter, competition and compassion go hand in hand.
Up Your Boxing Game
By Sarah Tuff Dunn
Power your jabs and hooks with these expert boxing tips.
- Community -
The Good Life: Bert Jacobs
By remaining true to their optimistic natures, Bert Jacobs and his brother parlayed three little words into a multimillion-dollar, do-gooder business.
- Fitness Tips -
Shadowboxing Cardio Workout
By Nicole Radziszewski
Jab! Cross! Hook! Learn how to throw these punches — and combine them for a high-intensity workout.


The Rotary motto is "Service Above Self," and service is the heart of our Rotary Club. As Rotarian men and women, we strive to serve our communities, locally, nationally and internationally, with our time, our financial support, and our moral support.
Our hope is to help lift others in our community, country and world by providing selfless humanitarian service, exemplifying the highest integrity and ethical standards in our vocations, and fostering goodwill and peace. If you have a heart for service, why not join us?


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What is the interplay between liberal democracy and communism?
By Helen Smith Jan 14, 2016 1:46 PM ET
If this question intrigues you (or repulses you) you might be interested in a new book by philosophy professor Ryszard Legutko entitled The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. From the description:
Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades — and he fought alongside the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. But, having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture and human nature.
In The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between these two political systems, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals, albeit without the Soviet style's brutal measures.
Both systems, says Legutko, reduce human nature to that of the common man who is led to believe himself liberated from the obligations of the past. Both the communist man and the liberal democratic man refuse to admit that there exists anything of value outside the political systems to which they pledged their loyalty. And both systems refuse to undertake any critical examination of their ideological prejudices.
I read part of the book while on a trip and it is a fascinating read that is well worth your time if you want to understand the motivation and psychology of our our current liberal society. Here is an example of the author's insight:
The warriors of political correctness think of themselves in the category of the struggle between David and Goliath. Noting can be further from the truth. They belong to the mainstream, having all instruments of power at their disposal. On their side are the courts, both national and international, the UN and its agencies, the European Union with all its institutions, countless media, universities, and public opinion. The illusion they cherish of being a brave minority heroically facing the whole world, false as it is, gives them nevertheless a strange sense of comfort: they feel absolutely safe, being equipped with the most powerful political tools in today's world but at the same time priding themselves on their courage and decency, which are more formidable the more awesome the image of the enemy becomes.
These powerful political tools allow them to think it is okay to insult, harass and even physically assault others who do not share their groupthink. They often cross the line without thinking of the repercussions. But just as people have stood up to communism and totalitarian political systems, so must those of us who disagree stand together and say "enough."
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]
Helen Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee, and blogs at Dr. Helen.
Read more by Helen Smith


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Pyrowave is expanding its team to support next phase of growth
Press room | 2019-01-15
Montreal, Thursday January 15th 2019 - Today, Pyrowave Inc. a leader in microwave plastic recycling, announces the appointment of Jean-Michel Gires to the Board of Director, Virginie Bussières as Vice-President Communications, Marketing and Government Relations, and Sophie Morin as Vice-President finance. These nominations are pursuant to the recent successful Series A financing initiating the commercialization of Pyrowave's unique plastic recycling technology in the market.
Jean-Michel Gires appointed on the Board of Director.
Mr. Gires' extensive experience in the petrochemical and sustainable development sectors will be an invaluable asset as Pyrowave grows in the years ahead.
Jean-Michel Gires has a long 35 year international career in the energy and sustainable development business. His most outstanding achievements include positions in the promotion of renewable energies and rational use of energy with the French Ministry of Industry between 1986 and 1988, as a Director of Sustainable Development and Environment for the Total Industrial Group from 2003 to 2009, and as Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian subsidiary of the Total Group from 2009 to 2012.
Since 2013, Jean-Michel Gires has been a Canadian resident and is fully involved in supporting disruptive innovations for the energy and sustainable development business: as such, he serves on the board of directors of several Canadian (Questor, Roke) and American (Fluid Efficiency) corporations. He is also involved in artistic innovation (ByJeanMichel).
Jean-Michel Gires is a graduate of École Polytechnique and École des Mines de Paris (France) and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, one of the highest French civilian awards.
Virginie Bussières appointed Vice-President Communications, Marketing and Government Relations.
Mrs. Bussières has many years of experience in strategic counsel and management in communications and public affairs functions, including in the environmental and manufacturing areas. She holds a BA in Communications and in Political Science, as well as an MBA.
Prior to Pyrowave, Mrs Bussières as Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Eco Entreprise Québec (EEQ), a private non-profit organization that represents the companies that place containers, packaging and printed matter on the Quebec market in their responsibility to finance the costs of municipal curbside recycling services. Her unique experience with the various stakeholders of the recycling ecosystem including the brand owners as well as the various government and private institutions will bring significant value to the strategic positioning of Pyrowave in its commercialization phase. She will use her expertise and large network to contribute to the development and marketing of Pyrowave's innovative plastic recycling technology on the local and international markets.
Mrs. Bussières will be involved in Pyrowave's strategic positioning and lead the communications and representation activities with governments and business partners and will serve on various committees.
Sophie Morin appointed as Vice-President Finance.
Mrs. Morin cumulated over 25 years' experience in finance in the large manufacturing industry. She will be in charge of all operations involving optimisation of operations, accounting and controls. She will also handle account payables and various financial activities to support the growth of Pyrowave.
Mrs. Morin's career started as Finance Controller at Nabisco and Kraft. She became Head of Financial Control department at the Montreal's Casino before being appointed Director of Finance and Administration at Farinart. She has a rigorous, transparent and methodical approach to operations and finance and she was selected to build all aspects of controls and reporting required by the various partners.
Mrs. Morin holds a Bachelor in administration from HEC Montreal and Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She is a registered Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Certified Management Accountant (CMA).
About Pyrowave
A leader in microwave plastic recycling and a member of the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions, Pyrowave was nominated in the Global Cleantech 100 Ones to Watch List in 2017. Through a patented technology – the Catalytic Microwave Depolymerization –, Pyrowave processes locally value added products to be reused by the chemical industry in the production of new plastics. Pyrowave thereby provides an innovative circular economy solution to meet the global challenge of plastic recycling.
www.pyrowave.com
Our latest publications
Michel Iliesco joins Pyrowave
Pyrowave is proud to welcome in its team Michel Iliesco, as Vice-President, Business Development and Marketing. He was previously Manager of Marketing and Manager of Circular Innovation at Cascades Specialty Products Group. Within his new role and based on his in-depth knowledge of the recycling...
Article "Recycler le plastique numéro 6 : c'est possible" on Novae (French only)
PYROWAVE, Canada, PS recycling
Discover innovative projects of new plastic recycling technologies. Objective: to recycle more and improve the quality of the recycled material. These projects were presented on February 4 and 5, 2019 during the Plastic Solutions Forum organized by Citeo and EEQ.
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Tag: Russian Military History
HOI 4 – Historical Infantry Division Layouts – Early War #Hearts of Iron
In this video I will cover several Infantry Division Layouts from World War II. Although certain parts of the content is tailored for Hearts of Iron players most of the information is military history, only the initial remarks are mostly Hearts of Iron and methodology specific, so just skip ahead on click on the annotation on the screen.
Be aware though that these layouts are aimed at being as historical as possible within the Hearts of Iron division builder, thus I am not sure how well they work in HOI 4. This is first and foremost a military history channel, thus I am mainly here for the historical flavor, the German accent and not to support your ambitions in conquering the world, at least for now.
I won't use the division builder, since I generally try to avoid any copyrighted material and it would actually make everything more complicated and time-consuming. Yet, you will get in one shot the proposed HOI 4 setup and the historical setup together, so you can basically copy it and also learn a bit about the real units too. On the homepage, you can find the proper high resolution screenshots of these layouts see the link on screen and in the description.
Methodology & Accuracy
Some words about methodology and accuracy, if you want to discuss these layout listen to this section very carefully and if you can't wait for the layouts, you might skip ahead by clicking the button on screen.
Well, figuring out the correct layouts can be quite complicated. Here are a few reason why. You need to be aware that some divisions – especially tank divisions – changed quite considerably throughout the war, thus I usually provide a date for each layout. Another major pitfall is the naming, what one country called a regiment was sometimes something different in another, thus this it was not as straightforward as it seems. Also there were even quite some difference within each country, e.g., a German tank division in 1939 had way more tanks than in 1941, or an US Army Battalion in 1942 was usually larger than an US Army Battalion after the reorganization of September 1943, well, except for two divisions of sixteen armored divisions.
Hence my approach was as follows, it consisted of looking at the data in hearts of Iron, checking the historical division layouts then compare these information to equipment and manpower tables to see if the numbers match for different units.
This process revealed quite some interesting information about hearts of Iron too. First I looked at the data of Hearts of Iron, namely how many manpower and equipment each unit had. This confirmed my assumption that the so called support companies are more like support battalions, only the three smallest ones the engineer, AA and artillery company have 300 men, the others have 400 or even 500 men. Whereas companies were usually around 100 to 200 men. Furthermore, the number of artillery guns for an artillery battalion in game is 36, whereas in real life this was the number of three battalions at least for the German and US Army Infantry division. I don't know if this is an error on behalf of paradox or if an artillery battalion in game actually should represent a regiment or maybe it is for gameplay balancing reasons. For this video I assume that an artillery battalion in game, is also an artillery battalion historically, if this is not the case, just divide the number of proposed artillery battalions by 3 and you should be fine.
The second step was to look at the organization of these units and the third step was to look at the number of equipment tables and compare if it matches the organization, because the organization can sometimes be misleading. As an example. although an US Army infantry division didn't have a dedicated anti-tank battalion like a German infantry division, but it had 57 anti-tank guns whereas the German division had only a few more with 75, but some these were also part of the recon battalion, so one might argue that the US Army Infantry division should have a dedicated anti-tank unit in-game if the German Infantry division has one or both should have none.
As you can see it is a bit complicated, thus, take all the following information with a grain of salt, because I had to use a wide variety of sources of different quality and level of detail, which is problematic in itself, but additionally the chances for errors increases due the variety and amount of data. To balance this, I usually added a short explanation why or why not I went with the proposed setup and provide the basic data for my reasoning.
German Infantry Division 1940
So, let's get started, the Allied Grand Strategy in World War II was "Germany First" and it worked out, so let's begin with a German Infantry Division from 1940.
It consisted of an Engineer Battalion, an Anti-Tank Battalion, a Recon battalion, an artillery regiment, which consisted of a heavy artillery battalion and 3 artillery battalions, additionally a signal battalion and finally 3 infantry regiments each with 3 infantry battalions. Now the division didn't have a dedicated medical battalion, but it had 2 medical companies, a field hospital and two medical transport columns with almost 700 men in total, thus I would say this qualifies as a medical battalion. Additionally, it also had maintenance and logistics units attached. So this unit was very well equipped, the only unit type it definitely didn't possess was an anti-aircraft unit, the division used solely heavy machine guns for anti-air defense. Now, the German infantry division had almost 17 000 men, whereas most other divisions have less than 15 000 men, thus my proposed HOI setup would be as follows:
For support units, an engineer, anti-tank, recon, signal and medical unit. The regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions should get an addition of 2 battalions due to the large amount of men in the division and finally 4 artillery battalions.
Note that for all divisions the non-combat units: logistics, medical and maintenance are the most debatable, because in my sources this information is often not included or limited. Furthermore, their functions sometimes were performed by non-divisional units in several armies.
Source: Buchner, Alex: The German Infantry Handbook 1939-1945 (amazon.com affiliate link)
Soviet Rifle Division 1941
I hope you have your Hammer and Sickle ready, next is a Soviet Rifle Division from April 1941.
It consisted of an a signal battalion, a medical battalion, a supply battalion, an Anti-tank Battalion, an anti-aircraft battalion, a Light Artillery Regiment with 2 battalions, a sapper battalion, one Howitzer Regiment with 2 battalions and 1 heavy battalion, a recon battalion and 3 infantry regiments with 3 battalions each. Yeah, this one seems to tick off all boxes. Yet, in total the division had only around 14500 (14454) men.
But let's take a closer look at the data, now the number of five artillery battalions sound impressive and the firepower is also clearly more than that of the US and German unit. The number of heavy artillery above 150mm is the same, yet whereas the US and German units use 105 mm guns, the Soviets used 122mm howitzers although 4 less, but additionally they had several 76mm howitzers and cannons, which means that the firepower in artillery at least equal if not greater than the German division. Furthermore, the total number of 54 anti-tank guns is lower than the German division, but similar to the US setup.
Based on this data my proposed HOI setup is as follows:
For support units, an engineer, medical, recon, signal and logistical unit. Then the regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions, to these add one anti-tank and one anti-aircraft battalion. Finally, definitely 4 if not 5 artillery battalions.
Source: Sharp, Charles: Soviet Order of Battle World War II – Volume VIII
US Army Infantry Division 1943
Time for a little bit of freedom, so let's look at the US Army Infantry division layout from July 1943. It consisted of a Medical Battalion, an Engineer battalion, a divisional artillery unit with a heavy artillery battalion and three artillery battalions. And finally 3 infantry regiments each with 3 infantry battalions. In total this division had around 13000 men.
Now, here is the problem the US Army division had a recon unit, a signal company, a quartermaster company and a maintenance company, but all these units had less than 200 men unlike the German units before. Yet, looking at the data I realized that the division in total had 57 anti-tank guns, which was just short of the 75 from the German division that had some in deployed in their recon battalion, hence my proposed HOI setup is as follows:
For support units, an engineer, an optional anti-tank and a field hospital unit. Then the regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions and finally 4 artillery battalions. Now, the German recon unit consisted to large part of cavalry and only a few armored cars, whereas the US unit had halftracks and 13 armored M8 cars, thus only could also argue that a recon unit could be added as an additional support unit.
Source: Stanton, Shelby: Order of Battle of the US Army in World War II
British Infantry Division 1939
Next up something for those people that love tea, the British Infantry Division in 1939 of the British Expeditionary Force. Now the British unit names were a bit different, they used the names Brigades and Regiments, although those units were usually had the manpower of Regiments and Battalions, I will use the original names, but symbols that are closing in representing their actual strength.
The division consisted of a Division Cavalry Regiment that was mechanized, an Engineer Battalion, a Divisional Artillery Unit that consisted of 3 field artillery regiments and one anti-tank regiment, furthermore a Supply Unit and a medical unit. And finally 3 infantry Brigades each with 3 infantry battalions. In total the division had a bit short of 14000 men.
Based on this information my proposed HOI 4 setup would be:
For support units, an engineer, a medical, a recon, an anti-tank and a logistics unit. Now, although the number of anti-tank guns was only 48, the unit had a large amount of anti-tank rifles and the French provided anti-tank guns for the British divisions, thus an anti-tank unit seem justified. Then the regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions and finally 3 or maybe 4 artillery battalions, because the British division fielded 72 field guns of the 18 and/or 25 pounder type. Furthermore, the unit was quite well motorized and even mechanized with 140 Bren carriers, thus one actually could replace the regular infantry with motorized or mechanized infantry.
Source: Nafziger (Note: that it lists 147 pieces of the 25mm anti-tank gun, a number that seems completely off and likely is, because it was a French anti-tank gun and I doubt they received so many of them.)
Japanese Infantry Division 1940 Standard B
Now the war situation may not necessarily develop to your advantage, nevertheless let's look at the Japanese Infantry division Standard B around 1940, note that these division varied to a certain degree.
It consisted of an engineer regiment, a transport regiment, a recon or cavalry regiment, Division medical services, a field artillery regiment with 3 field artillery battalions and three infantry regiments with 3 battalions. Note that these artillery battalions were equipped with 75mm guns, thus having far less firepower than all other nations. Yet, these divisions had a very high amount of manpower, depending on the setup between 18000 to 21000 men, thus even outnumbering the German division by far.
For support units, an engineer, a medical, a recon and a logistical unit. The regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions should get probably an additional 6 battalions. Finally, I think one artillery battalion or at most 2 battalions considering the rather weak firepower of the 75mm howitzer in contrast to the equipment of other nations.
Source: Rottmann, Gordon: Japanese Army in World War II – Conquest of the Pacific 1941-1942
Italian Infantry Division 1940
Everyone loves Pizza, but I only can offer you one slice, time to look at the Italian Infantry division of 1940.
It consisted of an engineer battalion, a legion of fascist militia that consisted of two battalions, a regiment of artillery with light gun battalion, a light howitzer battalion and a regular howitzer battalion, finally two infantry regiments, which consisted of three battalions each. Yes, only two infantry regiments, this was the so called binary division layout the Italians used. It also had an anti-tank company, but in total just 24 anti-tank guns. In total this division had 13000 men. (In terms of artillery it had 12 guns with 100mm and 24 with 75mm.)
Now, my sources on this one are a bit varied, I have good German source with the overall numbers and high-level organization, but for more detailed information I rely on the Handbook on the Italian Military Forces from 1943, which was created by the US Military Intelligence during the war, so it might not be 100 % accurate, but so far these handbooks are usually quite reliable in terms of unit organizations.
For support units, an engineer unit and with three eyes closed an anti-tank unit. For infantry, we use the 2 times 3 infantry battalions and add an additional 2 battalions, but maybe a third or even fourth, because the total number of men is similar to that of an US Army infantry division, which had way more support units. Finally, I think one or maybe two artillery battalions, because in total there were 24 guns with 75mm and 12 howitzers with 100mm present.
Source: Schreiber, Gerhard: S.56-62, in Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 3; Germany and the Second World War – Volume 3: The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1942 (amazon.com affiliate link)
Soruce: Handbook on the Italian Military Forces, August 1943, Military Intelligence Service – TME 30-420
French Infantry Division 1940
Well, after some Pizza, who doesn't want to enjoy a baguette? So, let's look at a French Infantry division of 1940:
It consisted of a recon group, a field gun regiment with 3 battalions, a howitzer regiment with one heavy howitzer battalion and a regular one, 3 infantry regiments with 3 battalions each. Additionally, there were several anti-tank companies with a total of 58 anti-tank guns and 2 engineer companies, which were originally organized in a battalion but reorganized in 1939.
In total the division had around 17 500 men. But note that in this case my sources are quite sparse and of limited quality.
Hence my proposed HOI 4 layout is as follows:
For support units, an engineer unit, an anti-tank unit and a recon unit. The regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions should get an additional 3 battalions, because the division has more men than the German division and also less support units. For the artillery battalions, I think three are in order, because it had 36 field guns with 75mm, 12 howitzers with 105mm and 12 howitzer with 155mm.
Source: Sumner, Ian; et. al: The French Army: 1939-45
Source: Nafziger
Polish Infantry Division 1939
So, in case you want to go into space, here is the Polish infantry division organization for 1939. In this case my data is way more limited than with the previous divisions, especially in terms of the support units, so keep a bit more salt ready.
The division consisted an Engineer Battalion, a light artillery regiment consisting of two light artillery battalions and one regular artillery battalion. Yet, it also had a small detachment with bigger guns, but overall it couldn't compete with the US or German division in this regard. And as usually it had 3 infantry regiments each with 3 infantry battalions. It had several medical units, but I have no numbers, nevertheless I assume it would be sufficient for a medical battalion. Similar to the German division the Polish division has more than other countries with around 16 500 men.
The division had quite many companies attached, like several anti-tank, a bicycle, an MG, and a cavalry company. Thus, one could argue that these units qualify together as a recon and/or anti-tank unit, although the total number of anti-tank guns was only 27 guns, which is less than half of the US Infantry division anti-tank guns. Based on that data my proposed HOI setup is as follows:
For support units, an engineer, a medical, maybe a recon and with two eyes closed an anti-tank unit. The regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions should get two additional battalions, 2 artillery battalions and maybe a third artillery battalion.
Ellis, Johen	World War II – A Statistical Survey – The Essential Facts & Figures for All the Combatants, Edition: 1995 reprinted with corrections
Niehorster
Nafziger
Romanian Infantry Division 1941
And the last division layout for this video, the setup of the Romanian Infantry Division of 1941.
It consisted of a recon battalion, an engineer battalion, a field artillery regiment with 2 light battalions and a regular battalion, an artillery regiment with a light field artillery battalion and regular battalion and 3 infantry regiments with 3 infantry battalions each.
Additionally, it had an anti-tank and anti-aircraft company, furthermore each of the regiments had an anti-tank company, but these units were usually not sufficiently equipped. In total it would be around 30 anti-tank guns. About the signal and medical units, my source for the layout on the Romanian units is good, but it doesn't include any non-combat units. Yet, since the author notes that the communication and many equipment was quite poor, one can assume that there was no state-of-the art signal unit present and the medical services were probably lacking. The division in total was a bit short of 17 000 men, thus it is quite a large force, especially considering the low numbers of additional units. (Source: Axworthy, Mark: Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945, p. 39-42)
For support units, an engineer, a recon and with two eyes closed an anti-tank unit. The regular 3 times 3 infantry battalions should get probably an additional 3 battalions. Finally, I think two artillery battalions, because in total there were 36 field guns with 75mm and 16 howitzers with 100mm present.
Source: Axworthy, Mark: Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945
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Author MilHisVisPosted on June 17, 2016 June 17, 2016 Categories Hearts of Iron IV, Unit Organizations & Structure, World War 2Tags American Military History, British Military History, division, French Military History, Hearts of Iron IV, HOI, HOI4, Italian Military History, layout, organization, Romanian Military History, Russian Military History, structure1 Comment on HOI 4 – Historical Infantry Division Layouts – Early War #Hearts of Iron


food to remain in the stomach hours after it should have passed out.
than the number of yeast cells. In such cases of course this Dr. Habeeshon in reply stated his opinion that as a rule better known Dr. Richard Quain the editor of the dictionary.


text:
\section{Introduction}
The discovery of neutrino oscillations implied two significant departures from the standard model (SM) of particle physics, first being the existence of neutrino masses, and the second, the violation of individual lepton flavours. To explain the oscillations, SM had to be minimally extended to include heavy Dirac right-handed neutrinos as counterparts to extremely light ($\lesssim$ $\mathcal{O}$(eV)) left handed neutrinos~\cite{1ASAKA}. This extension entailed the possibility of rare `charged lepton flavour violation' (CLFV) transitions at loop level, but with extremely tiny branching ratio (B.R.), for e.g. for $\mathrm{{\mu}^{+} \rightarrow e^{+}\gamma}$ the B.R. in this minimally extended model is $\mathcal{O}$ $\mathrm{(10^{-54})}$ ~\cite{2petcov}. However, CLFV processes are postulated with an enhanced B.R. by some BSM theories such as supersymmetry, large extra dimensions and extended Higgs sectors etc.~\cite{3Calibbi,4cirigliano}. The CLFV B.R. postulated by such theories is within reach of the current generation accelerator based experiments. The $\mathrm{{\mu}^{-}N \rightarrow e^{-}N^{'}}$ conversion process is the most ideally suited for experiments due to its fixed energy conversion-electron signal at the muon energy endpoint. The COMET experiment at J-PARC~\cite{5Abramishvilli}
is one of the fore-runners of this search, with its higher statistical reach allowing for rare event searches other than CLFV conversion~\cite{7Mihara}. Al metal has been chosen as the target element for stopping muons, with possible use of Ti in future. Al offers the best combination of endpoint energy and decay time suitable for the experimental setup. The projected single event sensitivity (SES) is as low as $\mathrm{\sim 2 \times 10^{-17}}$ thus making many of the BSM predictions testable. The signals due to the 100 MeV and above electron-like events from non-conversion physics form the potential background to these BSM physics processes. The major backgrounds are classified based on their sources, with the most formidable being the intrinsic physics background due to known SM processes associated with stopped muons. The other two sources are either beam-related or those due to cosmic-rays and misidentification of tracks. Among the intrinsic backgrounds are 1) Decay-In-Orbit (DIO) electrons 2) Radiative Muon Capture (RMC) $\gamma$ s and 3) proton/neutron emission from nucleus following capture of bound muon. The DIO case is particularly interesting as both the bound muon and decay electron can interact electromagnetically with the nucleus and stretch the decay endpoint energy of electron very close to the muon rest mass. The neutrinos from the DIO event are not usually accounted in these considerations, but, in experiments designed for higher statistics of stopped muons, there is indeed a possibility of observing a charged current interaction of these decay neutrinos with target protons. In the following sections this possibility is explored with special emphasis on the particulars of the COMET experiment. In section II we discuss the muon decay and the decay neutrino characteristics and interactions. Section III discusses the rate calculations for their interactions with Al nucleus.

\section{Muon decay neutrinos and their interactions}

In SM, the muon undergoes flavour conserving three body decay, as follows:
\begin{equation}
{\mu}^{-} \rightarrow e^{-} + \nu_{\mu} + \overline{\nu_{e}}
\end{equation}
The three-body kinematics dictates that, for a decay-at-rest (DAR) muon the daughter particles share the available rest mass energy of muon ($\mathrm{M_{\mu}}$) and can have upto a maximum of 52.8 MeV ($\mathrm{\frac{M_{\mu}}{2}}$). Since, the experiments are concerned with the possibility of CLFV conversion, only $\mathrm{{\mu}^{-}}$ beam is used to allow a positively charged target nuclei to bind it in its orbit. Once the muon gets bound by the nuclear field it cascades down to a tighter 1s orbit with a radius $\mathrm{\sim \frac{1}{207}}$ times of that for $\mathrm{{e}^{-}}$, as it is about 207 times more massive. This transition happens within $\mathrm{\sim 10^{-13}}$ seconds. There are two competing SM processes for the muon to undergo in this state 1) Decay-in-orbit (DIO), which happens about 40$\%$ of the times and 2) Nuclear capture the remaining 60$\%$. This reduces the lifetime of muon from 2.2 $\mathrm{\mu}s$ to less than 1 $\mathrm{\mu}s$, and in the particular case of Al, it is 864 ns. The proximity to the nucleus means that
the DIO electrons can undergo EM interactions and have higher energies upto the total muon mass minus the few keV binding energy (B.E.) of the 1s orbit. Meanwhile, neutrinos from the decay don't feel any such force and are free streaming particles once produced. There energies still follow the original distribution upto 52.8 MeV~\cite{9EITEL} and average energy is $\sim$30 MeV; see solid blue histogram in figure~\ref{fig:Overlay}. In this energy range the muon neutrino can't produce a muon but an electron anti-neutrino has sufficient energy to produce positrons through inverse beta decay (IBD) interaction with a proton as follows:
\begin{equation}
\overline{\nu_{e}} + {p}^{+} \rightarrow e^{+} + n^{0}
\end{equation}
The positron then essentially takes away all the kinetic energy of the $\overline{\nu_{e}}$ for energies above the threshold for IBD i.e. 1.806 MeV. These positrons can potentially form a background on their own or through annihilation photons traveling further from the stopping target. On the other hand, such emissions can be studied as probes of $\overline{\nu_{e}}$ induced transition between nuclear states. The newly produced $\mathrm{{}^{27}Mg}$ is a beta decaying isotope with half-life of a few minutes, although, the endpoint energies and de-excitation $\gamma$ energies are only limited upto 2 MeV. These reactions can be of interest for nuclear, astrophysical and weak interaction studies.

\section{Calculation of positron event rate at COMET }
The calculations for neutrino interactions presented here apply to the operation of COMET for sensitivities comparable to or better than $\mathrm{10^{-17}}$ which is possible in its phase-II operation. Also these calculations can be scaled for the successor - `Phase Rotated Intense Slow Muons' (PRISM) experiment with projected SES $\mathrm{\sim 10^{-19}}$. For a full run of Phase-II operation of COMET an estimated $\mathrm{\sim 1 \times 10^{18}}$ number of muons are expected to be stopped in the target.
\begin{figure}[h]
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{./nu_EF.pdf}

  \caption{ Spectrum of $\mathrm{\mu}$-DAR neutrinos in blue (solid) histogram corresponding to 1 year of phase-II run statistics (left Y-axis scale) overlayed with IBD cross section in red (dashed) histogram for $\overline{\nu_{e}}$ (right Y-axis scale).}

  \label{fig:Overlay}
\end{figure}
As seen earlier, $\sim$40$\%$ are DIO candidates, reducing the potential $\overline{\nu_{e}}$ sources to $\mathrm{\sim 0.4 \times 10^{18}}$.
The $\overline\nu_{e}$ spectra and IBD cross section overlayed upon each other are shown in the figure~\ref{fig:Overlay}.
The orbit radius for bound muon can be approximated using the reduced mass coefficient multiplied to the Bohr radius of a 1s electron. As per the formula, for muons with mass `$\mathrm{m_{\mu}}$' and charge `e' the modified Bohr radius formula becomes:\\
\begin{equation*}
  r_{\mu} = (m_{e} / m_{R}) \times r_{e} \mathrm{~\r A}
\end{equation*}
where $\mathrm{m_{R} = m_{\mu} \times m_{Nucleus} / (m_{\mu} + m_{Nucleus})}$ and $\mathrm{r_{e} = a_{0} \times n^{2} / Z ~\r A}$ ( $\mathrm{a_{0} = 0.529 ~\r A}$: Bohr's radius for electron in H atom). Substituting these we get the radius of 1s orbit of muon in Al (Z=13) as: \\
\begin{equation}
  r_{\mu} = 0.0048 \times 0.529 \times (1/13) \mathrm{\r A \sim 19.6~fm}
\end{equation}

The inverse beta decay cross section for electron anti-neutrinos for folding with the $\mathrm{\mu}$-DAR neutrino spectrum is taken from reference~\cite{11Vogel}. The number of interactions (events) for one year of phase-II operation is given by:
\begin{equation*}
  W = N_{target} \times \varphi(E_{\nu}) \times (\frac{{\sigma_{IBD}}({E_{\nu}})}{A})
\end{equation*}\\
where, $\mathrm{N_{target}}$ is the number of target protons (13 for Al) available for each IBD interaction,
$\mathrm{\varphi(E_{\nu})}$ is the decay neutrino fluence over one year of operation ($\mathrm{\sim 0.4 \times 10^{18}}$) and the factor $\mathrm{\frac{{\sigma}_{IBD}(E_{\nu})}{A}~is~actually~a~integral~\iiint \frac{{\sigma}_{IBD}(E_{\nu})}{4 \times \pi \times D(r)^{2}}}$ in spherical co-ordinates, representing the probability of occurence of IBD with an Al proton, $\mathrm{\sigma_{IBD}}$ being the IBD cross-section and $\mathrm{D(r)^{2}}$ the stand-off distance. We neglect the possibility of neutrinos from different muonic atom decays impacting one another as the distance scale increases from fermi to angstrom levels and hence by inverse square law the intensity drops drastically as we move further away from one interaction center to another. For a single  $\overline{\nu_{e}}$-nucleus pair, we consider a non-negligible gaussian spatial distribution of protons and the $\mathrm{\langle D(r)^{2} \rangle}$ comes out to be $\mathrm{\sim r_{\mu}^{2}}$ with deviation only in the 3rd decimal place. The radius of the Al nucleus needed for the above calculation is $\sim$ 3.6 fm (using $\mathrm{r_{nucleus} = 1.2 \times (A)^{1/3} fm}$). The quantities $\mathrm{\varphi}$ and $\mathrm{\sigma_{IBD}}$ are both functions of neutrino energy and hence folded to obtain output spectrum of positrons.
\begin{figure}[h]
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{./nuEF_Mult.pdf}

  \caption{ Spectrum of the outgoing positrons.}
  \label{fig:final}
\end{figure}
The shape of the spectrum, as seen in figure~\ref{fig:final}, is obtained assuming isotropic neutrino flux. This assumption is based upon the argument that $\mathrm{d\Gamma/dcos\theta}$ = 1 when $P_{\mu}$ - the polarisation of muon is $\sim$0. This is true for orbit muons, as the drop of muon to the lowest orbit completely depolarises it. The final IBD rate from the above calculation comes out to be $\mathrm{7\pm1~e^{+}~events~per~10^{18}}$ stopped muons, assuming a total uncertainty of upto 15$\%$ due to uncertainties in stopped muon numbers, cross section and distances involved. A scaling up of the stopped muon numbers as anticipated for future experiments, will scale this rate proportionally. Before concluding the discussion it is necessary to point out that one of the key components to be added in the phase-II operation of COMET is the electron spectrometer for selecting only the high momentum $e^{-}$s ($>$70 MeV/c) rejecting most of the DIO electrons through use of a dipole magnet and DIO blockers. But for a relatively high energy positrons (or $\gamma$s) the dipole field and blocker behavior needs to be studied. Further, if the beam intensity is ramped up to phase-II levels while operating the phase-I setup there is higher chance of observing such events due to the absence of selective magnetic field. Thus, scanning for IBD positrons reaching the cylindrical detector setup (as designed for phase-I operation) can be a worthwhile exercise.
\section{Conclusion}
The COMET experiment at J-PARC to probe the CLFV is expected to start full Phase - I operation in 2022 followed by Phase-II start about a year later. The final target is to reach CLFV sensitivities 4 orders below the current limit through probe of nearly $\mathrm{\sim 1 \times 10^{18}}$ stopped muon events/year. The decay of these bound muons leads to a projected estimate of $\mathrm{7\pm1}$ IBD induced $e^{+}$ events/yr coming from interactions with protons in Al nucleus. This $<$100 MeV IBD interaction data may be useful simply for a background component estimate or can possibly be used for a low energy neutrino interaction study in context of nuclear-astrophysics.\\

 The author is thankful to Prof. S. Umasakar(IIT-B) for enlightning discussions on this topic.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
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Major General Sterling Price
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Sterling Price, born in Prince Edward County, Virginia on September 11, 1809, would become one of the most influential Missourians of the nineteenth century. In 1844, Price a wealthy tobacco planter and slave owner, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C. as a member of the Democratic Party. In August of 1846, after the start of the Mexican American War, Sterling Price resigned his seat in Congress to join a regiment of Missouri volunteers. By the end of the war, Price had gained the brevet rank of brigadier general and was known throughout the Midwest for his military successes. In 1853, Sterling Price was elected governor of Missouri. Despite his unwillingness to restrain the violence between Missourians and Kansas during the time known as Bleeding Kansas, Price became a popular and beloved politician and leader. During the secession crisis, the state of Missouri was torn not by geographical localities but by political loyalties. Most Missourians, whether they owned slaves or not, were conditional Unionists, meaning they opposed secession but believed that the U.S. had no right to force any state to remain in the union. Price was a very outspoken conditional Unionist. After the violence at Ft. Sumter and then the St. Louis Massacre, many, however, changed their minds on the issue of and threw their lots in with South. After personally witnessing the St. Louis Massacre, an event he considered to be one of the worst acts of his time, Price went to the capitol at Jefferson City and offered his services to pro-secessionist governor Claiborne Fox Jackson. Soon after, he accepted the commission of a military unit that fought on behalf of Missouri's secessionist leaning factions known as the Missouri State Guard. The Missouri State Guard troops under Major General Sterling Price fought mostly in Missouri, at battles such as the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the siege of Lexington, as well as many other engagements. Supply issues involving weapons, ammunition and food, constantly plagued the Missouri State Guard because they were not a part of the Confederate army and operated in a state that the Federal government never recognized as seceding. Confederate commanders, especially Benjamin McCulloch, Brigadier General of the only Confederate command in the Western Theater within distance to aid Price, believed that Price's Missourians were little more than an armed mob. These Confederate Regulars saw the Missourians as an untrained, unarmed, ill quipped collection of backwoods ruffians. Price and McCulloch would have a very contentious relationship that would contribute to the failure of Confederate plans in the west. After the Southern victory at Wilson's Creek, Sterling Price and his Missouri Troops separated from McCulloch's confederates. In January 1862, Price's Missourians held Springfield but by February 12, they were forced to retreat towards the safety of Confederate Arkansas due to Brigadier General Samuel Curtis' advancing Federals. Price joined the Confederate army at the Boston Mountains and when Earl Van Dorn arrived to take command, helped formed the Southern plan of attack and moved on the Federals now occupying areas around Little Sugar Creek and Bentonville. With Major General Earl Van Dorn now leading the newly named Army of the West Price and McCulloch's troops moved northward in an effort to skirt Curtis army and attack the Federals from behind. The night of March 6, Van Dorn and Price took half of this army and moved northward on the Bentonville Detour in order to move south towards the Federal rear via the Telegraph Road, while McCulloch moved eastward along the Ford Road. The goal was to join the two divisions at the intersection of Ford Road and Telegraph Road. This plan was unsuccessful because McCulloch's troops became occupied with fighting Federals at Leetown and Van Dorn and Price's troops had a difficult time moving up the ravines north of the Elkhorn Tavern, which were held by Federal troops. Price commanded his troops in the woods east of the Elkhorn Tavern and, by the night of March 7, his troops successfully outflanked the Federals and forced them to retreat south. During the day's fighting, Price was wounded in the abdomen and right arm but continued to command his men. When night fell, Price and Van Dorn set up headquarters at the Elkhorn Tavern and attempted to prepare their troops for fighting the next day, despite a lack of ammunition, food and other supplies. On the morning of March 8, the Federals and the Confederates faced each other in the fields south of Ford Road. The Federals forced the Confederates off the field after just two hours of fighting. For the remainder of the Civil War, Sterling Price participated in events such as the battles of Iuka and Corinth, and secured permission from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to allow him to return to Missouri and try to wrest it from Federal hands. Price's 1864 invasion of Missouri, called the Missouri Raid, ended in failure as he was forced to retreat all the way to Texas. When the Civil War ended, Price led what was left of his Rebel army into Mexico rather than surrender. Eventually he would return to Missouri and would die in poverty on September 29, 1867. Sterling Price is buried in St. Louis.
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Vavrinec Dunajský (born 15 July 1784 in Ľubietová, died 15 February 1833 in Budapest) was a Slovak sculptor.

He is most famous for his work called the statue of Corgoň at The Canon House in Nitra. Vavrinec Dunajský also built the main altar in The Church of the Holy Cross with its picturesque figurines of the Virgin Mary and Magdalene in Banská Bystrica.

References

External links
 Corgoň statue

Slovak sculptors
1784 births
1833 deaths
People from Banská Bystrica District

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90. Thorium: Bright Lights, Big City
18 Comments on 90. Thorium: Bright Lights, Big City
Alsos, Alvin Weinberg, Auergesellschaft, Candoluminescence, Carl Auer von Welsbach, Illumination, India, Jons Jacob Berzelius, Leslie Groves, Mythology, Nazis, New York City, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Oak Ridge National Labs, Radioactivity, The Manhattan Project
Sure, thorium could provide practically limitless clean energy, but then we couldn't build weapons of mass destruction.
Featured above: The most radioactive site in New York City.
Many thanks again to all of you who so kindly wished me well, and for waiting so patiently for a new episode. It means the world to me.
I'd love to get back to the every-other-week schedule if possible, but for now I'm planning on going a little slower than that.
Non-Lead-Based Plumbing: In Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky relates how Chinese well diggers discovered and employed natural gas a very long time ago:
By A.D. 100, the well workers, understanding that the disturbances were caused by an invisible substance, found the holes where it came out of the ground, lit them, and started placing pots close by. They could cook with it. Soon they learned to insulate bamboo tubes with mud and brine and pipe the invisible force to boiling houses. These boiling houses were open sheds where pots of brine cooked until the water evaporated and left salt crystals. By A.D. 200, the boiling houses had iron pots heated by gas flames. This is the first known use of natural gas in the world."
Jons Jakob Berzelius was apparently a big fan of Norse mythology. He's the one who named element 23 "vanadium," after the goddess Vanadis, and when he thought he discovered a new element in 1815, he named it "thorium," after the god of thunder.
Only one problem: he hadn't actually discovered a new element. T'was naught but yttrium phosphate. But he really liked the name. So when he actually did find a new element 13 years later, he used it again. That time it stuck.1 2
On the one hand, it's rather inappropriate to name element 90 after a god of war, because the only way it can be used as a weapon is if you throw it hard enough. But as an homage to the god of lightning, it's quite fitting, because thorium is absolutely crackling with potential as a source of electrical energy.
Today, we're collecting issues of the mighty thorium.
It's hard to imagine now, but there once was a time when we had more elements lying around than we knew what to do with. Not just ephemeral laboratory curiosities — relatively stable, naturally occurring elements that could be found as sand on a beach. For decades, thorium was one of them.
There wasn't anything wrong with it. Its properties are similar to lead — it's easy to hammer, weld, and work, it's silvery-white in color, it's heavy, and it's even pretty abundant. But lead is way easier to find, so there was no good reason to use thorium instead. Or at least, it took a long time for anyone to find a good reason.
The person who did was Carl Auer von Welsbach, whose name might sound familiar. He was a scientist of many accomplishments, but most notably, he discovered neodymium and praseodymium.3 4
He had other claims to fame, though. In his own time, he was appreciated for his innovations in artificial lighting.5
In the 19th century, gas lighting was all the rage. The technology was a significant improvement over lamps and wax candles, and electrical infrastructure didn't yet exist on any wide scale. But gas lamps were far from perfect. Notably, the light they produced was pretty dim.
von Welsbach was in the lab one day working with rare earth metals when he stumbled upon something brilliant. When he held those elements within the flame of a Bunsen burner, they glowed brightly — much more brightly than the flame itself. It's a phenomenon called "candoluminescence." That would provide the solution to the problem of dim streetlights.
There was a pretty clever method to hold the metals within the flame of a gas lamp: A bit of cotton is saturated with those rare earths and placed in the part of the lamp where the flame appears. The first time the lamp is used, the cotton burns away, leaving behind a delicate mesh of metals that greatly amplifies the light produced.6
von Welsbach experimented with various mixtures of metals. He tried oxides of magnesium, lanthanum, yttrium, and more, but the most effective — as you probably guessed — was thorium (with just a dash of cerium). Not only was its light more intense, but also a more pleasing color than the sickly green glow provided by earlier mixtures.
The use of thorium mantles declined by the 1900s, when electric lights became more common. The fact that thorium is radioactive had very little to do with it.
Every element after lead is radioactive, of course, but that can describe everything from protactinium-219's explosive half-life of 53 nanoseconds to bismuth lazily emitting a few alpha particles every day. Thorium is squarely between those two extremes, acting an awful lot like uranium.
So it was rather worrisome when the world's thorium reserves started getting snatched up by the Nazis.
Not all the news that came out of Nazi Germany could be taken seriously, like their claims that they had trained dogs to salute and say "Mein Fuhrer!"7
But the conversation necessarily turned quite serious whenever Hitler declared that Germany possessed "secret weapons." They had some kind of nuclear program, and the very real possibility that they would eventually manufacture atomic bombs made the Allies very anxious. 8
A team was assembled to gather intelligence on the German nuclear program, named "Alsos." (That was taken from the Greek for "Grove" as a little wink toward our old friend General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project.)9 10
In 1944, the Alsos team made a chilling discovery: The Nazis had taken over a French manufacturer and shipped its entire, substantial supply of thorium back to Germany. It had fallen into the possession of Auergesellschaft, an industrial conglomerate with deep ties to the German government.
(Incidentally, that's "Auer" as in Carl Auer von Welsbach — he founded the company in 1892, and it became wildly successful.)
It seemed obvious that the Nazis would use the radioactive material in their pursuit of the bomb — and this could indicate that their atomic program was far more mature than the Allies had previously thought.
There were two Germans in charge of that thorium reclamation effort, and agents of Alsos tracked them down to a border town in Belgium. Alsos was simply a division of the Manhattan Project, not some kind of officially backed foreign intelligence agency. They really had no authority to arrest, well, anyone, especially in another country — but that didn't stop them. They apprehended the two Germans of interest, along with a jackpot of secret documents.
That intelligence revealed exactly what happened to the stolen stockpile of thorium. The Alsos team was quite surprised to learn that it was not fuel for the Nazi's nuclear program. No, Auergesellschaft was going to use it for Doramad.
What was Doramad, you ask? Some kind of nefarious chemical weapon? Perhaps a poison employed by skulking assassins? Or maybe a new and powerful source of electrical energy?
No, Doramad was none of those things. Of course it wasn't.
Doramad was toothpaste. Radioactive toothpaste! Auergesellschaft was just as active in the commercial space as in the military-industrial complex, and they were all aboard the radioactive hype wagon, just like William Bailey or the many cosmetics companies offering radium-infused makeup. "Its radioactivity increases the defense of the teeth and gums," read the packaging. "The cells are loaded with new life energy, the bacteria are hindered in their destroying effect."11 12
Truly, this Nazi toothpaste was meant for the whitest of whites.
You probably don't need me to tell you that, at best, thorium does absolutely nothing for your dental health. But neither would it be as detrimental as those products infused with radium. Thorium's radioactivity is quite mild in comparison. Its most common isotope has a half-life around 14 billion years.13
Don't let that fool you, though. Thorium has the potential to be a radioactive superstar, with some calling it the green energy source of the future.
Thorium has a lot of qualities that make it appealing as a nuclear fuel. For starters, it's an awful lot cheaper than uranium, and a thorium-based nuclear reactor needs much less fuel than a typical uranium plant. For example, one ton of thorium could produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3.5 million tons of coal. It produces less waste, waste that's much less radioactive than what we use today, waste that cannot be used to create weapons. In fact, a thorium plant can even consume the hazardous plutonium waste produced by today's reactors. Thorium reactors are designed to fail safe and prevent a meltdown from ever occurring.14 15 16 17 18 19
The technology does have some drawbacks, but scientists have found ways to circumvent most of them in the past few decades.
So why doesn't the world enjoy limitless clean(-ish) energy from thorium reactors dotting the landscape? Well, because… reasons.
You can't blame Alvin Weinberg. He was director of Oak Ridge National Labs from 1955 to 1973, and he spent years campaigning for thorium power plants. But he met powerful resistance at every turn.
Most innocuously, there was already significant momentum behind uranium plants. A lot of time, money, and labor had been invested in their creation, and no one was too keen on switching horses.
Even the greater safety offered by thorium reactors couldn't sway some people. One Congressman told him point-blank, "Alvin, if you are concerned about the safety of reactors, then I think it may be time for you to leave nuclear energy."
It wasn't just about the money. There was a more critical reason the government preferred uranium-based reactors. Remember that plutonium waste that's a byproduct of the uranium plants? That's not a bug, that's a feature — depending on who you are and what you're trying to do.
Plutonium provided the core for the first atomic bomb ever detonated, the Trinity test bomb, as well as the bomb detonated over Nagasaki. And it would provide the cores for thousands more. When given the choice between safe, abundant energy versus weapons that unleash hell on earth, officials found the choice to be obvious.
Poor element 90 languished for decades, occasionally being used to process petroleum and as a mantle in some camping lanterns, but not much else.
A few countries have tried to start up a thorium nuclear program, but none of them have really gotten off the ground — at least not yet. India has had an on-again off-again relationship with thorium for seventy years. It would make a lot of sense for the country. It's home to only one or two percent of the world's uranium, but nearly one quarter of all known thorium.
Sadly, ballooning costs and ongoing delays have hampered progress. India's 22 nuclear power plants produce less energy than planned, and they're all uranium-based. Supposedly their first thorium plant will come online in 2022, or 2023, but it's already been delayed several times.
The future may look bright and clean thanks to thorium, but for now, the element's lasting legacy is a little dirty.
New York's hottest bar is Nowadays, a hipster hideaway that's got everything: twinkle lights, graffiti, an autobody repair shop, and human ninja turtles. What are human ninja turtles? You know, it's that thing where the building's previous owners dumped so much radioactive sludge down the sewer that the EPA names it a Superfund site.
That's not just the fever dream of some 2000s-era club kid, that's all true. Nowadays shares a building with Primo Autobody Repair in Ridgewood, Queens. From the 1920s until 1954, the building was occupied by the Wolff-Alport chemical company, where sand was imported from Congo and processed to extract rare earths. For much of that time, thorium — which constitutes around 8% of that sand — was seen as useless, a waste byproduct, and simply poured down the drain or buried onsite.20 21 22 23
And for a long time, no one did anything about it. It was the most radioactive place in New York City, positively soaked in gamma rays, and people lived, worked, and ate sandwiches there, just like any other block in the city.
By 2014, the EPA installed concrete, steel, and lead shielding to insulate against the radiation emanating from underground. Remediation is still not complete, though. The official plan "includes relocation of all on-site tenants, demolition of all on-site buildings, … and off-site disposal of all contaminated soils, sediment, and building materials."24
If that sounds like an ambitious plan, well, it might be. According to the agency's website, "EPA is hopeful that tenant relocations will begin summer 2021 and be completed by the end of the calendar year." At time of writing, it's now February 2022, and Nowadays is advertising events at least through the end of March, so the EPA may not wield as much influence as Ghostbusters would have you believe.25
So for now, all of that thorium sludge is locked beneath industrial-strength cladding, and whenever they do finally dig it up, they probably won't be terribly comfortable passing it out to the voracious hordes of interested element collectors. (There are dozens of us. Dozens!)
You're better off finding a natural source of monazite sand close to home. Technically, not all monazite contains thorium, but a lot of it does — and there's a lot of it located all around the world. You could get your hands on one of those thorium-laced lantern mantles, but those are getting harder to find as non-radioactive alternatives take their place.26
Applications for thorium being somewhat limited, the only other bulk sources are industrial in nature, subject to fairly tight regulation, and quite expensive.27 But that doesn't make those sources impossible to acquire — they're almost certainly easier to get your hands on than a tube of Nazi toothpaste.
Thanks for listening to The Episodic Table of Elements. Music is by Kai Engel. To learn how gas lighting was actually invented a few thousand years ago, visit episodic table dot com slash T h.
Thank you all for waiting patiently for a new episode while I dealt with some drawn-out medical issues, and for the well-wishes so many of you offered. I'm doing much better now, and got to add gadolinium to my own collection as a consequence. It may take a little time for me to get back in the groove of releasing episodes, but the next one certainly shouldn't take as long as this one did.
Next time, we'll move up from the minors with protactinium.
Until then, this is T. R. Appleton, reminding you to be careful what you pour down the drain.
The Royal Society Of Chemistry, Chemistry In Its Element – Thorium.
Elementymology & Elements Multidict, Thorium. Peter Van der Krogt.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Carl Auer, Freiherr von Welsbach. Last updated August 28, 2021.
World Of Chemicals, Carl Auer von Welsbach — Discoverer Of Gas Mantle & Neodymium, Praseodymium Elements.
Nature Chemistry In Your Element, Thorium Lends A Fiery Hand. John Arnold, Thomas L. Gianetti and Yannai Kashtan, May 21, 2014.
The Chicago Tribune, Gaslight Era Left Radioactive Legacy In Chicago. Michael Hawthorne, April 17, 2014.
The New York Times, Hitler's Talking Dogs. Maureen Dowd, July 12, 2011.
Manhattan: The Army And The Atomic Bomb, p. 280 (p. 304 of the PDF). Vincent C. Jones, 1985.
Oak Ridge Associated Universities Museum Of Radiation And Radioactivity, Alsos And The Nazi Thorium. Samuel Goudsmit, 1996.
ORAU Museum Of Radiation And Radioactivity, Alsos And The Nazi Thorium.
Oak Ridge Associated Universities Museum Of Radiation And Radioactivity, Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste.
Atlas Obscura, The Mysterious Case Of The Radioactive Toothpaste. Eric Grundhauser, May 5, 2017.
JLab Science Education, The Element Thorium.
Super-Fuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source For The Future. Richard Martin, 2012.
Wired, Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, The New Green Nuke. Richard Martin, December 21, 2009.
Chemical & Engineering News, Trying To Unleash The Power Of Thorium. Mitch Jacoby, July 6, 2015.
The Baltimore Sun, Thor's Nuclear-Powered Hammer. Dan Rodricks, May 9, 2011.
Discover, Why Aren't We Using Thorium In Nuclear Reactors? Adam Hadhazy, May 6, 2014.
Science Focus, Why Isn't Thorium Used For Nuclear Power? Helen Scales.
Atlas Obscura, Primo Autobody Repair. Eric Grundhauser.
Jalopnik, NYC's Most Radioactive Spot Is An Auto Shop. Raphael Orlove, February 26, 2019.
Curbed, Ridgewood's Radioactive Superfund Site Worries Neighbors. Nathan Kensinger, July 3, 2014.
Gothamist, The Most Radioactive Place In NYC Is In Ridgewood. Ben Yakas, May 7, 2014.
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wolff-Alport Chemical Company Radiological Site RV1.
nowadays.nyc
Gizmodo, The Thorium Lantern, Your Opportunity For Retail Radiation Exposure. Keith Veronese, March 2, 2012.
PeriodicTable.com, Thorium. Theodore Gray.
18 Replies to "90. Thorium: Bright Lights, Big City"
Leynia says:
This was terrific as always, and all too relevant. For your personal update, a hurrah with a long half-life.
Haha, thank you, Leynia! Hurrah indeed. 🙂
Vick L Gardner says:
You tell us absolutely zero about dose rates, therefore your story is woefully incomplete. Radiation is not an "on or off" quality… there are degrees of hazard that can only be understood with dose rate info.
Could we have a little respect? A tactful request to the provider of an excellent podcast? TR Appleton does not claim to present the encyclopedia on thorium. If you want to respectfully contribute your knowledge you are at liberty to do so. If you prefer angry criticism you can find plenty of better opportunities elsewhere.
How much you have helped me, you couldn't imagine. Chemistry was hard to understand. Glad I found this. Although I am now around half life (perhaps) its never too late. Chemistry is vast, but you put a human perspective to it. Thank you. And hope you feel a lot better and stronger. Life's been a roller-coaster, but your podcasts helps every now and then.. 😉 see you around.
Yvonne Lacy says:
Tom, I'm glad you're better. Also happy that we're back in our… elements
Thank you so much! I'm so glad to be back in the saddle!
I was super excited to see this back on my feed – even happier to learn you're doing better.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate that! 😊
Tjeerd Wierda says:
Welcome back and thanks a lot for another episode. Stay healthy!
Thank you very much, salud! 🙂
Emjay says:
Great to hear you're back!
I hope you are feeling well and wish you good health moving forward.
Thank you for the excellent podcasts, fascinating, educational and amusing listening!
Kind regards and best wishes from the UK.
Thank you so much for your kindness! I hope you continue to enjoy the show 😊
Oz says:
Thank you so much for making such an awesome podcast. I'm so happy to hear that you're feeling better.
I know I haven't gotten back to regularly publishing, but I am still here and working on the podcast!
John Fasano says:
Trevor says:
I've enjoyed listening to episodes you start to thorium for the past 2 months at every opportunity. This is the best podcast I've ever listened to. I continue to look for alternates while I await the next release however it's like comparing gold to lead on a regular basis. Thank you for setting the bar so high with quality and excellence. I hope you are well soon
Trevor, I agree with your clever comparison. I also underscore your good wishes for TR Appleton. TRA, I have thought of you many times, hoping for your sound recovery.
91. Protactinium: Decolonize Science


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A Who & How of Corporate Welfare for Convention Center Hotel Justifications #mplsmayor
I mentioned on the 22nd that the next wasteful taxpayer funded mega-project would likely be a huge hotel near the convention center, and that Mark Andrew is the candidate who'd most likely support that project.
This isn't a new idea. It's one that's been waiting for a mayor who's willing to justify redirecting taxpayer dollars from our city's neighborhoods to a major hotel chain.Watch Brothers (2015) Full Movie Online Streaming Online and Download
Betsy Hodges has made this a point of differentiation between herself and Andrew, as Maya Rao from the StarTribune reports:
Council Member Betsy Hodges said she would not back a publicly subsidized 1,000-room Convention Center hotel at a news conference Friday, in a veiled attack on mayoral campaign rival Mark Andrew, who has expressed support for the idea in recent months.
I tweeted this about that article:
It's pretty clear which #mplsmayor candidate is willing to justify wasteful corporate welfare spending as jobs bills. http://t.co/4qYTROuV8V
— Ed Kohler (@edkohler) October 26, 2013
The Editor of The Southwest Journal and The Journal (aka Downtown Journal), Sarah McKenzie, checked in with the Andrew campaign to see where Andrew stands on this and replied to me on Twitter:
@edkohler I checked with Andrew's campaign yesterday. He is against a $125 million subsidy for a Convention Center hotel as was suggested
— Sarah McKenzie (@smckenzie21) October 26, 2013
However, if we go back to Maya Rao's article in the StarTribune (update: this quote is actually an excerpt from Sarah McKenzie's coverage of Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO mayoral candidate forum), here's what Andrew had to say in response to Hodges' anti-corporate welfare position:
"I am not interested in subsidizing corporations or corporate welfare, but I am interested in smart investments that grow our city," Andrew said then. "When investing public dollars in any project we need to make sure there are significant public benefits, including job creation and workforce training opportunities for city residents. In the case of the Convention Center hotel, the devil is in the details."
What people don't seem to understand is that "subsidizing corporations or corporate welfare" isn't "subsidizing corporations or corporate welfare" if you call it a "smart investment". Smart, eh?
If we go back to August, here's what Sarah McKenzie from the Southwest Journal reported Mark Andrew said about Betsy Hodges' anti-corporate welfare for a convention center hotel stance:
Mark Andrew, a frontrunner in the race took several swings at Betsy Hodges, another leading candidate, at one point saying she "had the disease of a small vision" when the candidates were asked about whether they would push for a new hotel to help the Convention Center attract more business.
If you oppose redistributing city tax dollars from neighborhoods to a national hotel chain, you're not thinking big enough?
Andrew went on:
When investing public dollars in any project we need to make sure there are significant public benefits, including job creation and workforce training opportunities for city residents. In the case of the Convention Center hotel, the devil is in the details. As mayor, I will fight for the best deal for Minneapolis taxpayers.
The way to fight for the best deal for Minneapolis taxpayers is to do what Betsy Hodges is doing: don't support taxpayer subsidies a convention center hotel. But, Mark Andrew isn't doing that. Instead, he's claiming that he'll "fight for the best deal for Minneapolis taxpayers." Does that sound familiar? It should, because it's the same thing politicians who voted in favor of the Vikings stadium corporate welfare bill said.
Parallels with Vikings Stadium Corporate Welfare Justifications
It's pretty clear to me how this would go down if Mark Andrew is elected.
A major hotel chain would pitch Minneapolis on the opportunity to become a "world-class city" by having a mega-hotel next to the convention center that the private market can't justify. All we need to do is borrow $125 million and give it to them.
Downtown businesses would then lobby for a new hotel because it would be an indirect subsidy of their businesses.
Construction workers would show up to meetings in hard hats explaining that they need the work. Never mind that there are buildings going up all over downtown, along the LRT lines, and around the U of MN, and that construction job levels seem to be compared to the peak of the real estate bubble rather than reality. They'd also tell us that we'd be stupid to not do this now because construction costs keep going up every year. As if hotels won't be built in the future.
A council member would justify his/her vote by writing in a minority hiring requirement. When counting jobs on the site, they would use the inflated numbers by referring to how many unique people work on the site at some time during the project rather than full time equivalents.
Then, Mark Andrew would sweep in and say that he wasn't willing to support the deal until he twisted the hotel's arm and convinced them to put solar panels on the roof and/or dual flush toilets in the rooms, making it a green project. He'd then say that it may not be the perfect project, but it creates jobs and will be the greenest hotel ever built in the City of Minneapolis. Just the sort of thing Minneapolis supposedly needs to be a world class convention city. The hotel would commit to spending $125,000 on solar panels in exchange for $125 million in corporate welfare (a 0.1% concession).
The city would then borrow $125 million and commit city tax dollars to making payments on that enormous debt burden over the next 30 years. On top of that, the project would probably receive a TIF (Tax Increment Financing), meaning that the 1,000 room hotel wouldn't incrementally increase the city's tax base, thus putting city residents on the hook to subsidize the hotel another way.
Once built, some other hotels in town would shut their doors or cut staff, leading to a little incremental change in the number of available rooms or hospitality related jobs.
With that in mind, read Mark Andrew's statement again:
Andrew said Hodges "had the disease of a small vision" when the candidates were asked about whether they would push for a new hotel near the Convention Center.
It's clear to me that Mark Andrew, who's endorsed by the same unions that lobbied for the Vikings stadium, would find a way to justify giving city tax dollars to a national hotel chain.
If you polled Minneapolis residents and asked them where they'd rank building a 1,000 room downtown hotel near the convention center I doubt it would even be on the radar. But, if you polled Mark Andrew's campaign contributors you'd have a picture of why he plans to "fight for the best deal for taxpayers" rather than oppose such a ridiculous use of taxpayer dollars.
Author Ed KohlerPosted on October 27, 2013 September 4, 2018 Categories Minneapolis, Politics
5 thoughts on "A Who & How of Corporate Welfare for Convention Center Hotel Justifications #mplsmayor"
Kevin Watterson says:
The more I read the more Andrew comes across to me as someone whose word is completely untrustable.
Nathaniel says:
From the Strib Endorsement of Betsy:
"Andrew … his close affiliations with unions representing teachers, police and firefighters make it unlikely he would champion meaningful reforms in education and public safety. In addition, he has too often changed his campaign messages to suit his audience."
Phoenix Woman says:
Geez, he flip-flops like Marco Rubio.
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