March 21, 2016--At first glance, "Democrats for Education Reform" (DFER) may sound like a generic advocacy group, but a closer review of its financial filings and activities shows how it uses local branding to help throw the voice of huge Wall Street players and other corporate interests from out-of-state.
What Is DFER, Really? Hedge Funders for "Education Reform"
DFER is a PAC, a Political Action Committee, which means it can (and does) play a direct role in state and local elections. Public school advocates like Diane Ravitch have been spotlighting concerns about DFER since its beginning.
Because DFER is not a charity, money given to it does not result in a tax write-off but--if successful in changing laws--that money could get the hedge funders who back it a return on investment through politicians and policies that redirect tax dollars from truly public schools to "education reforms."
Ed reform is fueling non-profit corporations paying lucrative for-profit style salaries to their executives and for-profit firms, such as the controversial K-12 Inc., which has made hundreds of millions while traditional public schools have faced budget cuts.
The Center for Media and Democracy has calculated that the federal government alone has spent more than $3.7 billion in U.S. tax dollars propping up the charter school industry, in addition to enormous amounts spent by states.
DFER has supported a number of Democrats in elections but its name could have been "Hedge Funders for Education Reform" (HFFER)--in much the same way that David Koch's Americans for Prosperity could have been called "Billionaires for Prosperity," or Americans for Greed, names with less popular appeal.
That's because DFER is backed by billionaires and millionaires representing well over $20 billion, at least, in investor money.
It was co-founded by hedge fund managers, even though DFER's board has been chosen to show the faces of a diverse group--of former or failed Democratic politicians. In fact, "former" is the first word in each of their bios on the DFER site.
DFER's new national president is Shavar Jeffries, a former and failed DFER-backed candidate for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is the leader of the "national staff" of DFER, which is located in Washington, DC, and he is also a partner at a big law firm, Lowenstein Sandler, which has offices in Rosewood, NJ, as well as DC and four other cities.
Not only is DFER led by Democrats who have failed to win their last elections, a number of DFER-backed candidates have lost in recent elections, as with the Colorado school board races in 2015.
On the other hand, DFER spent more than $4 million on TV ads in 2010 that attempted to blame New York teachers' unions for problems caused by the disastrous federal "Race to the Top" program. Among other things, DFER also spent $1 million on ads attacking the Chicago Teachers Union and supporting Rahm Emanuel in 2012.
DFER is actually the more well known PAC arm of Education Reform Now, Inc. (ERN), a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit, and Education Reform Now Advocacy, Inc. (ERNA), a 501(c)(4) social welfare group. Their acronym not only sounds like the word "earn," but also it has the backing of some really huge earners.
DFER co-founder (and founder of the T2 Partners hedge fund) Whitney Tilson explained the hedge funders interest in education noting that "Hedge funds are always looking for ways to turn a small amount of capital into a large amount of capital."
The Board of Directors for ERN consists almost entirely of Wall Streeters who made their fortunes through financial groups and hedge funds, such as Sessa Capital, Gotham Capital, Covey Capital, Charter Bridge Capital, Maverick Capital, Cubist Systematic Strategies, and Sanford C. Bernstein.
As the New York Times reported: DFER's supporters have included "the founders of funds like Anchorage Capital Partners, with $8 billion under management; Greenlight Capital, with $6.8 billion; and Pershing Square Capital Management, with $5.5 billion."
However, ERN and ERNA do not disclose who its major donors are and how much those big donors give to fund its operations and ambitions.
It is known, though, that FOX's Rupert Murdoch gave at least $1 million to ERN. Murdoch has expressed his desire to get in on education "reforms," stating "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone...."
The most recent federal tax filings of ERN/ERNA show that it had more than $12 million available to push education reform ($7.4 million for ERN and $5 million for ERNA) in 2013. Its non-profit filings from the most recent major election year, the 2014 mid-terms, or last year are not available.
What is known from the 2013 is filings is that, in that year, ERNA disclosed that it spent $1.7 million in political expenditures, nearly all of which went to DFER. These funds were used for expenditures, like mass mailings or ads supporting particular politicians but that were "independent" and not to be coordinated with the candidates' campaigns.
ERN/ERNA's leader Joe Williams has been paid a for-profit like salary as its executive, with $398,500 in total annual compensation in 2013. He's also listed as "Executive Director Emeritus" for DFER and on DFER's board. Williams stepped down from his staff position at DFER in 2015 and also became a director at the Walton Education Coalition that year. That's Walton as in Walmart's Walton family.
Because non-profits like ERN/ERNA do not have to disclose their major donors to the public, even when ERNA is active in supporting electoral activities the public is left in the dark about which hedge funder is actually helping to fund state and local ads and mailers during the election.
Even though privately held corporations and hedge funders do not have to disclose their donations to operations like ERN/ERNA, a CEO's charitable foundations do have to disclose whom they give grants to.
That's how it is known that the Walton family, of Walmart fame or infamy, has backed such efforts. In 2011, for example, ERN/ERNA received $1.1 million from the Walton Family Foundation. The total amount from all such CEO-controlled foundations given to ERN/ERNA to date is not known.
As Matthew Fleischer noted in the Frying Pan News (reprinted by the Huffington Post) that hedge funder Tilson has followed the Waltons' lead: "in a 2010 documentary, A Right Denied, Tilson suggested that DFER was created because of Walmart patriarch John Walton's support of vouchers and "school choice.'"
[A]ccording to Steven Brill in his book Class Warfare, around this time [in 2010] the hedge-fund alliance for education reform really began to take off. That April, for instance, Education Reform Now's Joe Williams and Bradley Tusk schmoozed over drinks with Paul Tudor Jones II and other hedge-fund billionaires at Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone's Five Avenue apartment, where they planned a successful campaign to secretly spend millions through a 501(c)(4) political action fund and win the charter cap increase [in New York]. As with Families for Excellent Schools' mostly secret financing today, Brill notes that Education Reform Now's donations never became public, and that in May a room full of eager billionaires was able to push the legislature to authorize increased charter-school expansion."
Despite or perhaps because of this reality, the DFER arm in a state where ads are run merely discloses to the state authority that it received contributions from ERNA, not the hedge funders.
So, the ERN/ERNA/DFER operation is like a shell game when it comes to the public being able to pierce through the layers of non-profits to find the name of a particular billionaire or uber-rich hedge funder whose money is propping up a particular electoral candidate being backed by DFER.
Similarly, DFER in the states has been known to partner with other groups that have similarly murky or occluded funding sources.
Take California and Colorado, for example.
In the last presidential election year, DFER's state leader got heavily involved in pushing a California state proposition that would have undermined the power of workers' voices in elections, Proposition 32.
DFER's California arm was led by Gloria Romero, a former state legislator from Los Angeles, who was termed out from running for re-election after leading the state senate.
Romero failed in her bid to become the state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2010, and then, like so many other failed politicians, she was welcomed as a leader for DFER.
DFER began filing election disclosure forms in California in 2012. Some of its most high-profile activities under Romero were in partnership with other secretive groups.
Ultimately, it turned out that Romero was not just fronting for the ERN/ERNA/DFER hedge funders but also for non-profits closely tied to the controversial billionaire Koch brothers. And as the Center for Media and Democracy has documented, Charles and David Koch's antipathy toward public schools and unions runs deep and is part of their multi-decade agenda to re-shape America.
To try to win Prop 32, DFER's Romero worked with a group called "Americans for Responsible Leadership" (ARL), which received more than 97% of its $24 million in funding from another group called the "Center for Protect Patient Rights" (CPPR).
"spent nearly $9.8 million in the 2012 elections, including $3.2 million against President Obama's re-election bid, according to reports it filed with the Federal Election Commission. The rest was spent supporting Obama's rival, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, and 20 other Republican candidates, most of whom were running for Senate seats ... ARL also gave $11 million to a group working on a California ballot measure and nearly $1.4 million to organizations fighting two Arizona ballot initiatives," including one on redistricting.
So, a major Republican-backing operation spent millions aiding the objectives of a group with the word "Democrats" in its name to thwart unions? No wonder some in labor created "Democrats in Name Only for Education Reform" or dferdinos.com.
At the time of the election in 2012, the full extent of the connections to the Koch network's CPPR was not known to the public.
As Open Secrets stated, "the state of California ... demanded to know, under state law, who donated the $11 million that ARL sent to the Small Business Action Committee, a group that was fighting a tax-hike initiative and supporting a measure to cut the influence of labor unions. Under order from a state judge ARL eventually revealed that it received the funds from CPPR; CPPR in turn got the money from Americans for Job Security, another dark money group."
As Open Secrets detailed: "The state of California wound up fining ARL and CPPR a total of $1 million and requiring the Small Business Action Committee to disgorge the $11 million to the state."
DFER's Gloria Romero appeared in ads backing both of the Koch network-backed propositions.
So she was asked by Matthew Fleischer, before the election, "about her political alliance with the Koch brothers and other wealthy supporters of Proposition 32, and she conspicuously avoids bringing up their names."
As he noted, "I have sat in the belly of the beast," she says. "I have seen the realities of money and its influence."
Fleischer also reported: "'Money is the mother's milk of politics,' Gloria Romero tells me on the phone. 'It's flowing to both sides. Government isn't about drawing lines. It's not about saying you're on that side and you can't come over.'"
Operatives funded or directly employed by the Kochs have made similar claims in their efforts to destroy clean election law limits on corporate influence and the coordination of election groups funded by dark money tied to corporations or CEOs.
Romero's comments echo the Team Koch mantra.
Plucked from obscurity by libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, Noble was tasked with distributing a torrent of political money raised by the Koch network, a complex web of nonprofits nicknamed the Kochtopus, into conservative causes in the 2010 and 2012 elections. Noble handed out almost $137 million in 2012 alone-- all of it so-called dark money from unnamed donors--from his perch atop the Center to Protect Patient Rights, a group run out of an Arizona post office box...."
That story also highlighted this telling excerpt: "I must tell you that Sean Noble from your group has been immensely helpful in our efforts,' a California multimillionaire wrote to Charles Koch in October 2012 about Noble's help for Prop 32 in an email to Charles Koch" asking for him personally to write a check for more money. That email surfaced after the election.
In fact, it was not until nearly a year after the 2012 elections that the general public learned that the Koch brothers and their operatives had created a behemoth that injected more than $200 million into the 2012 elections, called the "Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce." CMD detailed the Freedom Partners' shell game here.
For those keeping score, that's like at least four layers of Koch-hood: Freedom Partners to TC4 to CPPR to ARL to Prop 32. That proposition--the proposition these very special interests tied to the billionaire Koch brothers and their network of billionaires were underwriting--was actually branded the "Stop Special Interest Money Now" proposition.
And it was DFER's Romero who appeared in ads for Prop 32 that were paid for by the special interest money behind that proposition.
In the meantime, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party asked DFER to stop using the word "Democrats" in its name, and the state Democratic Party passed a similar resolution of condemnation.
So, to recap, DFER routinely funnels out-of-state hedge fund money into state political fights and, in 2012, the leader of DFER-California was working with another murky group funded by yet another group--one operating out of an Arizona mail drop box--funded by still other groups that were part of the Koch network of big secret money in elections.
To be clear, Romero was not working for the Kochs technically; she was working with the Koch network on the DFER effort that appears to have taken much of her time in 2012.
But that may be a distinction without a difference when it comes to sharing a political agenda--even though Romero and the Kochs failed in their 2012 quest in California.
DFER's California leader, its public face, was the public face of key components of that joint but unsuccessful proposition campaign.
In 2013, Romero left DFER's employ to create the "California Center for Parent Empowerment," named after the bill she gained fame pushing into law: the "Parent Empowerment Act," which is better known as "Parent Trigger."
* "[T]hat California law was based on a proposal from Ben Austin, a policy consultant for a small non-profit education organization called Green Dot Public Schools, which manages charter schools for the city of Los Angeles."
* "Austin subsequently formed Parent Revolution, which promotes these laws across the country. But this is not your local PTA. Parent Revolution is backed by big money, including receiving funding from the conservative Walton Family Foundation (think Wal-Mart), which has spent over a billion to promote school privatization."
* "The rabid pro-privatization Heartland Institute quickly took up the Parent Trigger idea in 2010. The Heartland version of the bill (PDF) went a step further and gave parents the authority to trigger a school's restructuring regardless of whether it is 'failing' or not."
The Heartland Institute has spent untold sums promoting "education reforms" that undermine public schools in America, though it is more infamous for its extremism in climate change denial--even equating those who recognize that climate change is happening with the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.
In 2013, Romero began collaborating with the state affiliate of ALEC's sibling group, the State Policy Network (SPN), and also helped it pull the trigger in other communities.
That SPN affiliate, the California Policy Center (CPC), has promoted Romero's help with Parent Trigger. SPN has also touted Romero its publications. Romero has also been a featured speaker for another SPN affiliate, the Cascade Policy Institute in Oregon.
SPN has received funding from the Koch family foundations. Although SPN distributes some of the funding it receives to its 60+ state affiliates, it is not known if the CPC has directly received any Koch cash.
Meanwhile, Romero's new group, whose website is parentempowerment.org, was granted non-profit status in 2015, but because it is so new, any tax filings about its revenues and expenses are not public. However, its donors would not be revealed in such filings, so it is not known who is now funding Romero or what she is paying herself for education reform.
And just last year, SPN's CPC--the California Policy Center--announced that Romero had joined it as its "Director of Education Reform," in addition to her work at her own organization. CPC advances the ALEC/SPN agenda and opposes a progressive Democratic agenda in almost every way.
Democrats for Education Reform-California, meanwhile, continues on without Romero, with Steve Barr of Green Dot as board chair.
DFER's Jen Walmer Used Out-of-State Cash for Election Materials Dubbed "Raising Colorado"
Colorado provides another example of how DFER's leaders operate in a state to advance the agenda of big out-of-state financial interests.
Jennifer (Jen) Walmer, a Colorado native, describes herself on LinkedIn as the "Colorado State Director" for DFER and lists this as her only job for the past two years.
Like many DFERs, she's a former public servant who has taken the revolving door out of public service to help corporate interests influence public policy to their advantage. She used to be the Chief of Staff for the Denver Public Schools and used to be a staffer under the golden dome at the capitol.
DFER-Colorado's actual address is the KIPP headquarters for its Denver charters, "1390 Lawrence Street, Suite 200." KIPP is a chain of non-profit charters that operate like a franchise that is spreading nationwide. KIPP-CO's board includes reps from for-profit firms.
Also sharing that address is another "education reform" group called "America Succeeds." Its locally-denominated affiliate, called "Colorado Succeeds," describes itself as a coalition of business leaders pushing "education reform."
Interestingly, the national DFER's website notes that donations to it for "reform" candidates in Colorado are managed in the state by a group called the "Democrats for Education Reform Small Donor Committee" (DFER-SDC). That group is registered as a state PAC that describes itself as devoted to the effort to "fundamentally reform public education."
Financial disclosure filings with the State of Colorado show that DFER-SDC has raised only about $14,000 over the course of five years from small donors located in Colorado, each of whom is identified. The vast majority of money spent by DFER-CO is emphatically not money from grassroots people in Colorado; it's from ERNA's big secret donors.
DFER-SDC's address is listed as "1576 Sherman St., Ste 300," in Denver.
That's actually the address of the "Capstone Group," a PR and lobbying firm. It bragged: "the Capstone team launched Democrats for Education Reform - Colorado."
Although Walmer joined DFER in August 2013, none of DFER's disclosed expenditures indicate that she received any salary from DFER itself, according to state and federal disclosures since then and through this year.
DFER is the only recent gig listed on Walmer's LinkedIn account, which does not mention working for the non-profits ERN or ERNA. Notably, DFER's federal PAC in Colorado was terminated in April 2014, according to the Colorado Secretary of State. It reported having only about $7,800 in the bank during 2013, and no expenditures. Notably, when Walmer has worked for other entities required to file election disclosure forms expenditures for her work were publicly reported.
Raising Colorado? From Brooklyn by Way of K Street?
Meanwhile Walmer has been the point person for another ed reform group called "Raising Colorado." That group is what's known as an "independent expenditure" committee, which has been required to disclose its donors and its expenditures. As with DFER, no expenditure for her salary is listed in the balance of accounts for Raising Colorado.
What are listed on Raising Colorado's filings are huge checks from ERNA.
In the 2015 election cycle, Raising Colorado received funding totaling $375,000 and spent $361,343.03. A substantial amount of this funding was spent on the eve of the 2015 elections.
Since registering in 2014, Raising Colorado raised and spent nearly a million dollars to influence Colorado elections.
The address listed for Raising Colorado is a residence in Littleton, but none of the major vendors in this electoral effort focused on electoral races in Colorado was actually from Colorado.
That is, the money for Raising Colorado in the most recent election came from ERNA and was deposited into checking accounts in Colorado managed by Walmer from Littleton, but the money spent on backing Colorado "education reform" candidates was spent on activities of out-of-state firms which were basically throwing the voice of out-of-state hedge funders seeking to influence the local races in Colorado designated by DFER's Walmer.
A small amount, such as $397 to a Littleton firm for web design to support the candidates, was spent on in-state vendors, as noted by Todd Engdahl of Chalkbeat.CO, but the overwhelming amount of expenditures went to out-of-state vendors--despite the localized name "Raising Colorado."
* $375,000 to Raising Colorado from ERNA, which is located at 325 Gold Street in Brooklyn, NY.
** Digital ads targeting Coloradans to back DFER/Raising Colorado candidates, by Three Point Media, which is located at the same K Street lobbying street address as Brushfire.
That's a classic front group operation.
With the big sums ERNA/Raising Colorado injected from out of state into local school board races, they were successful in the Denver Public School and Aurora Public School races. But other education "reform" candidates lost big in 2015 in Colorado, including candidates aided by the Koch Brothers' American for Prosperity operations in the state.
As Chalkbeat noted immediately following the close of the 2015 elections: "In Jefferson County [JeffCo], a hotel ballroom exploded with chants and tears as three conservatives elected as a slate in 2013 were recalled in a rout. In Douglas County, six years of dominance by a boundary-pushing board finally showed cracks as three opponents broke through, forming a solid minority promising a more open and diverse board. In the Loveland-based Thompson district, animus over a teacher contract dispute propelled union-backed candidates into power. Elsewhere, a conservative attempt to take over a moderate board in Colorado Springs was repelled...."
Jeff Bryant of the Campaign for America's Future detailed how parents, teachers, and kids organized together to defeat the big money-backed education "reformers," noting: "The success of this recall has been a true testament to what grassroots can accomplish," Jeffco parent activist Jonna Levine tells me in an email. "We sent a strong message that community can win over big corporate machines like the Koch Brothers."
That's just one more snapshot of the ERNA/DFER/Raising Colorado operation, and its defeat, in the last election cycle in just one state.
ERN/ERNA/DFER has targeted more than a dozen states, and their "ERNA"/hedge-funded activities in the 2016 elections loom on the horizon.
CMD's Zachary Peters contributed to this article, which has been updated.
Excellent explanation of following the money. However, if you do an update, you might want to add the following "education reform" groups to the 1390 Lawrence location: 1) A plus Denver (now morphed into A plus Colorado), a fake citizens oversight committee, whose CEO used to be employed by ERN 2) Catapult, non-Union leadership training program whose CEO is a hedge fund supported Denver Public Schools board of education member (and former lieutenant governor of Colorado) 3) Gates Family Foundation - the umbrella non-profit, no relationship to Bill and Melinda - which employs a former DPS board of education member and which employed a current board of education member . 4) And the ones you've mentioned: DFER - CO, KIPP, and the chamber of commerce supported "Succeeds" organizations. The only missing reformsters are Stand for Children and Teach for America who seem to have enough money to rent their own space.
Amazing. I am disheartened for the teachers in this country and the kids. I wish people could just do the right thing. Also, Why hasn't there been an expose on this in the national or local media? Don't people care about public education? Its an important part of our history and success of our country. What can we do to help?


2011 will be the year when the likes of Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Robin Soderling and Andy Roddick look to end Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer's hold on men's tennis.
The years first major is just two weeks away and the world's best only have a few tournaments to prepare for the Australian Open, which is why it's a surprise to see just two of the world's top ten in Qatar this week.
Nadal and Federer head the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open betting and Nadal is the slight favourite at 11/10 to win this week with Federer 5/4 to win in Qatar.
It's a sign of their dominance that their nearest competitor in the betting market is Nikolay Davydenko, available at 8/1 with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga priced at 10/1.
Davydenko and Tsonga safely negotiated their first round ties, and the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open betting market suggests Nadal and Federer should do the same.
Both players are priced at 1/100 to beat their first round opponents, the shortest odds possible, and should either Thomas Schoorel (facing Federer), or Karol Beck (facing Nadal) win, it would be a mighty shock.
So punters need to look elsewhere in the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open betting to find some value, and a first round match-up that offers potential value is Ivan Karlovic vs Lukas Rosol.
The 25-year-old Rosol is a Czech qualifier who will be hoping to upset Ivan Karlovic, who has suffered a dramatic loss of form and has slipped to 73 in the world rankings.
Karlovic is 8/15 to beat the qualifier, but it may be worth taking on the Croat and Rosol is available at 11/8 to beat Karlovic.
Whatever happens, the first tournament of the ATP calendar looks set to be a predicatable Nadal vs Federer final.
A £10 stake on Nadal winning this week would return £21. New customers can sign up here for a free £10 bet.


You would not believe the state of the winter paddock at home with all this constant rain. It's an absolute swamp. I fear I have hippos at home and not horses.
Just to show you what I mean I have taken a photo of my horse 'April' after she came in from her grazing the other day.
I nearly died when I saw the state of her and she wasn't the only one sporting the mud monster look. All three had kindly had a roll in the swamp and swaggered in feeling very pleased with themselves much to my horror.
It's not just the state of the horses rugs that mud affects. I've just had to invest in pair of small clippers which will take the horse's 'feathers' off their legs.
The feathers on a horse are the dangling bits of hair near the heel area (pastern) of the lower leg and they stop the legs drying out properly.
This is to help prevent mud fever - which is an infection from bacteria caused through prolonged wetting.
Trimming off the feathers near the pastern helps legs to dry off and prevents sores. Which can help to prevent mud fever. It's not a definite preventative but it might help a little. Ideally you wouldn't turn them out in these conditions but with clay soil and little drainage there's not much you can do.
I don't believe in boxing horses up all winter. My horses would go crackers like that. I know some that are quite happy to live like that though.
I was going to trim the horses at the weekend but with the fantastic frosts (oh yes, I get excited over frosts as it means the ground is crunchy rather than swampy) I wanted the horses to have turn out so I'll do it later this week.
The clay soil tends not to drain as well as sandy soil and although it seems to grow better grass in the spring - it really is horrible for horses.
I know I keep saying it but roll on spring and please can we order some dry weather?


This Vegan Peanut Pasta Salad is a little spicy, quick and full of veggies. It's a delicious way to use up leftover spaghetti noodles!
** Note: If you need to make noodles, then this recipe will obviously take you a little longer.


text:
Sultan bin Ahmad al Busaidi (died 1804) was the Sultan of Oman, the fourth of the Busaid dynasty, ruling the country between 1792 and 1804.

Early years

Sultan bin Ahmad was the son of the Imam and Sultan Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi.
Early in 1781 he and his brother Saif  took control of the forts of al-Mirani and al-Jalali that guarded the harbor of Muscat.
When the governor of Muscat tried to recover the forts, Sultan and Saif began a damaging bombardment of the town.
The two brothers gained the support of the powerful Sheikh Sarkar, who marched on the capital in April 1781.
Their father agreed to an amnesty, letting his rebellious sons hold both the forts. He changed his mind and took al Mirani, while the brothers held al Jelali for some months.
Sultan and Saif then kidnapped their brother Said bin Ahmad.
The Imam, their father, hurried to Muscat which he reached in January 1782. He ordered the commander of Mirani to fire on Jelali, and his ships joined in from the east of the fort.
While this was happening, Said bin Ahmad bribed his jailer and escaped. Isolated and without a hostage, the two brothers agreed to surrender.
The Imam took Saif and held him under surveillance to prevent a fresh rebellion.

On his father's death in 1783 Said bin Ahmad was elected Imam and took possession of the capital, Rustaq.
Sultan and Saif called on Sheikh Sakar of the Shemal tribal group to help them gain the throne.
The Sheikh took the towns of Al Jazirah Al Hamra, Sharjah, Rams and Khor Fakkan (all in today's UAE). Said fought back, but was unable to regain these towns.
However, the brothers felt it was safer to leave the country.
Saif sailed for East Africa, intending to set himself up as a ruler there.
He died there soon after. Sultan sailed to Gwadar on the Makran coast of Balochistan.
The ruler of that state granted him protection and gave him Gwadar.

Said bin Ahmad became increasingly unpopular. Around the end of 1785 a group of notables elected his brother, Qais bin Ahmad, as Imam.
This revolt soon collapsed.
In 1786 Said's son  Hamad bin Said managed to get control of Muscat, with its fortress.
One by one the other fortresses in Oman submitted to Hamad.
Said no longer had any temporal power.
Hamad took the title of Sheikh and established his court in Muscat. Said bin Ahmad remained in Rustaq and retained the title of Imam, but this was purely a symbolic religious title that carried no power. Hamad died in 1792.

Reign

Sultan bin Ahmad, who had returned to Oman from Balochistan, took control in Muscat. To avoid family disputes, at a meeting in Barka he confirmed his brother Said as Imam in Rustaq, and he ceded control of Sohar to his brother Qais bin Ahmad.
In 1798 Sultan made a treaty with the British East India Company.
In 1800, Oman suffered from an invasion by Wahhabis from the north, who occupied the Buraimi oasis and besieged Sultan's brother Qais in Sohar.

Sultan died in 1804 on an expedition to Basra. He appointed Mohammed bin Nasir bin Mohammed al-Jabry as the Regent and guardian of his two sons, Salim bin Sultan and Said bin Sultan.

References
Notes

Citations

Sources

18th-century Arabs
18th-century Omani people
19th-century Arabs
19th-century Omani people
1804 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Place of birth unknown
Al Said dynasty
Omani imams
Sons of Omani sultans
Sultans of Oman

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


June 5, 2011 Baseball, Jason Lieser.
A day after needing a walk-off RBI single from Nolan Fontana to oust Miami, the Gators hammered the Hurricanes 11-4 to advance to the NCAA super regional.
Miami was hopeless in Sunday's game, falling behind 11-0 after three innings.
Florida now has eight straight wins over the Hurricanes, including five this year, and has won 11 of 12 dating back to 2009. The Hurricanes squandered an opportunity to end that streak Saturday when they committed four errors in a 5-4 loss.
The Gators (48-16) started with Preston Tucker's three-run home run in the top of the first, then added eight more in the third for a quick 11-0 lead.
Up next, Florida will host a best-of-three series against the winner of the Atlanta regional starting Friday or Saturday. The two teams remaining in Atlanta — Georgia Tech and Mississippi State — play tonight.
It was brutal. By the end, O'Sullivan was letting anyone in the stands that could fit in a uniform on to the field.
Nice of U to stop by, but U overstayed ur time.
handle it! Was a blessing that UF was in the Catbird seat!
In wait of the Canes!
Bring on da "BAIT" ….. CHOMP CHOMP!!!!!!!!!!
Great job by the Lady Gators softball team advancing to the championship series for the second time in three seasons in the Women's College World Series.
It was a great evening for watching Gator ball – the men on ESPNU putting the finishing touches on the destruction of Miami and being able to flip between pitches to watch the Lady Gators hit two early home runs against Bama on ESPN2 to get an early lead.
can u spell that Cane fan ?
I am still waiting to see how Canesrule spins this one.
Woodstrock, I was also flipping between the NBA Finals where Haslem and Miller were helping the Heat to victory. Cory Brewer on the bench for Dallas and it was the Gators universe yesterday.
Sure thing Hoosierboy. You want some math, figure out the winning % of 11 out of 12. Hey at least u still have that womens tennis victory over UF a few years back. Keep on living in the past. The here and now is sooooo much better.
We spanked them, end of story! Canesrule you go ahead and keep counting on the days of old if it makes you feel better; it certainly has no effect on us.
Canesfool… U have been owned and still don't know when to shut up.
Take a lesson from Rawviral. Atleast he knows his place in the pecking order.
lemme guess, if the Gator Baseball or softball teams lose a game, U'll be here to tell us all about it huh ? U have so much to look forward to since ALL Cane sports are done U absolute slunk meat day old bloody douche reminant.
Lake Alice, it is Great to be a Florida Gator.
I sort of feel bad for Cane fans. I've never had to suffer through a year (years actually) where there was absolutely nothing at all going well with my alum. To be completely skunked in all sports….must stink.
Some things will never change. Canesfool thinks it's 2001, while the rest of the world watches the Canes athletic program devolve into a full on dumpster fire.
On the whole, the Gators have more championships than UM, but Gator fans don't bother with those statistics because all that matters is what's been done lately. Canesfool, if it helps you sleep at night ignoring the storm of felonies committed by Canes players in the last 60 days and how Miami leads the State in criminals playing for the school, I say good for you. Do whatever you can to ignore that nightmare – it only gets worse from here.
You played that tune for the football team. How did that song end?
What did we expect out of the canesfool? It was a given that 4>0. Of course none of that has anything to do with yesterday's game, this year's series or even the current 11 out of 12 Florida win streak. Shoot, half of the titles happened more than 25 years ago before Miami was even in a conference – not exactly relevant to today's players or game.
By the way – on Wednesday of this week the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships are being held. Look for another strong showing by the 16 athletes from UF who qualified for the finals, including Jeff Demps who finished first again in the Men's 100m in the preliminaries.
CANES,, Those were the days my friends, I thought they never END!! LMFAOFFFFFFF!!!
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Good ultrafilters produce topological ultraproducts which enjoy a strong Baire category property (depending upon how good the ultrafilter is). We exploit this property to prove a "uniform boundedness" theorem as well as a theorem which says that, under the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis (GCH), many ultraproduct spaces have families consisting of closed discrete sets of high cardinality such that every nonempty open set contains one of these sets. In another section we relate the strong Baire properties to the infinite distributivity of Boolean Algebras of regular open sets. Finally, we prove that, under the GCH, a great many topological ultrapowers are homeomorphic to the corresponding ultrapower of the space of rational numbers; and we show further that the GCH is indispensable to the proof. A purely model-theoretic application of our methods solves a problem related to the Keisler-Shelah Ultrapower Theorem.
General Topology and its Applications, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May 1979): 121-137. DOI.


Australia, get ready for the spring and summer with backyard garden sheds home delivered – to your door. Asics Pas Cher But these beauties aren't just home delivered. They are Australian made, by an all Australian made company, and offering you and incredible warranty that will ensure that you will probably be retired by the time you have to call them and make an enquiry about your "man cave"…… But there are some things you'll probably want to know about your shed before you go out there and buy one. Hollister France Here are a couple of items you may need and want to know: How do I put it together? Well with Absco, the shed comes with a snaptite assembly system. nike air max 2017 pas cher This means that instead of fiddling around with nuts and bolts, you put the walls up and it snaps into place. No need for hammers or screwdrivers and this also means a reduced chance of an injury when you accidentally hit your thunb when you are trying to hammer something into place 🙂 I live in Queensland where we get cyclones in the summer, is it going to hole up ok? Well these sheds are tested to hold firm for up to 147 km/h gusts of winds, so it is guarenteed to hold up to that sort of pressure. nike air max 2017 zwart What sort of material is it made from? Well the good news is that it is made from good o'l fashioned Australian Blue scope steel. Considering it is made by an all Australian owned and serviced company, they only want to deal with Aussie materials, so you are guarenteed that if you ever need parts or service from Absco you wont have any issues getting it delivered to you're front door. nike tn requin How strong are these garden sheds?– The walls are a galvanised steel, so they are built to last! and as they come with a 20 year guarentee, I dont think you are going to have any problems with them. And because they are galvanised they won't rust. nike air max 90 femme What colours do they come in? Because the steel is blue scope steel there is a colour selection chart available where you can have a look at the colours and decide which one will best suit your garden. As you are looking at getting your garden ready for spring and summer, then you should seriously consider having a look at Absco, not just for the quality but you are also looking at supporting Australian jobs.


International trends of the Video Art, starting from a retrospective on Wolf Vostell, from the Fluxus Movement to Fabrizio Plessi, exploring the works of contemporary artists.
Some historical videos of the German artist will be presented exclusively. Leading figure of the Fuxus Movement, his videos, along with those of the Korean Nam June Paik, are at the base of the birth of video art in the world.
The first thematic stage takes into consideration the female universe with the works of video artists from Iran, Italy, and Argentina.
The theme will be that of the relationship between image and sound, with live experiments.
Two artists who have made from collage their expression of video art, starting from photos, film clips, graphic elaborations.
The last day is dedicated to the relationship between the aspects of political and social commitment, of which video art has been one of the most common languages, and those linked more to the aesthetic and emotional dimension of visual language.
The day will be an original dialogue of great interest among one of the most trendy collective of the language of contemporary video art, Nastivicious – which contains graphics, collage, urban music, all between individual conscience and social denunciation – and the great master of Italian art video, Fabrizio Plessi, pioneer of the fluid and installative language of Italian video art.


Born on December 3, 0000 .
Passed away on April 15, 2004 .
This memorial website was created in memory of our loved one, Eva Dalaba 2003 years old , born on December 3, 0000 and passed away on April 15, 2004. We will remember her forever.
Mom you are not for gotten. For each day I remember you.


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Grand Blanc Schools to Implement "No Cellphone" Policy for Upcoming School Year
Tony LaBrie Published: June 24, 2022
Photo: GBHS Facebook
Grand Blanc Schools aren't messing around this year when it comes to cellphones and electronic devices in the classroom.
For the upcoming 2022/2023 school year, Grand Blanc Schools will implement a "NO cellphone policy" in all classrooms.
According to an email sent to parents on Thursday night, cellphones, headphones, and smartwatches will not be allowed during class time.
This isn't something that will be based off a teacher's discretion either. No student will be allowed to have their devices out in any classroom. All devices must be on silent mode and put away for the entirety of the class period. These devices have to be placed in the student's bag or somewhere else. They can't keep the devices in their pockets or anywhere else on their bodies.
Grand Blanc Schools:
While we recognize this will be a tremendous adjustment for our students, we believe that the growth in academic focus and positive behavior will be the beneficial outcome as research shows it can take the brain up to ten minutes to re-engage after responding to a cell phone distraction.
What Happens if a Student Get Caught With Their Electronic Devices?
1st Offense -If phones/earbuds/smartwatch/device (or other electronic devices as identified in the student handbook) is seen/heard by any supervising adult during class time, the device will be confiscated. The item will be sent to the office for student pick up at the end of the day. Teacher contact will be made with the student's guardian. Detention will be assigned by administration.
2nd Offense - If phones/earbuds/smartwatch/device is seen/heard by any supervising adult during class time, the device will be confiscated. The item will be sent to the office for guardian pick up at the end of the day.1-Day ISS will be assigned by administration.
3rd Offense - If phones/earbuds/smartwatch/device is seen/heard by any supervising adult during class time, the device will be confiscated. The item will be sent to the office for Guardian pick up at the end of the day. 1-Day OSS will be assigned by administration.
Personally, I feel this is long overdue. I don't feel my kid needs to be on his phone while in the classroom. It's nothing more than a distraction. It's not like he'll be without a phone, he can literally keep it in his backpack while in class.
While my kid's not happy about the new policy, I sure am.
This 10,000 Sq. Ft. Grand Blanc Home is a Real Jaw Dropper
This massive 10,000 plus sq. ft. stone and brick ranch home is located in Grand Blanc's prestigious Golf course community of Kings Pointe Greens. Let's have a look.
See How School Cafeteria Meals Have Changed Over the Past 100 Years
Using government and news reports, Stacker has traced the history of cafeteria meals from their inception to the present day, with data from news and government reports. Read on to see how various legal acts, food trends, and budget cuts have changed what kids are getting on their trays.
What is Actually Happening With The Jewel of Grand Blanc?
The Jewel of Grand Blanc has been sitting abandoned since it was purchased by Statewide Management, LLC. earlier this year.
Every Buick Open Champ at Warwick Hills in Grand Blanc Since 1958
Grand Blanc, Michigan has seen the world's greatest golfers come through Warwick Hills to play the Buick Open sing 1958. Here's the complete list of Champions.
Filed Under: Grand Blanc Schools
Categories: Michigan News, School
Grand Blanc Schools Move to Remote Day Leading Up to Thanksgiving
CNN Features Grand Blanc Board Member Over Alleged Qanon Support
Grand Blanc Announces Plan to Bring Students Back to School
Grand Blanc Elementary's 'You Raise Me Up' Is Exactly What You Need Right Now [VIDEO]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jim Rice, Executive Director and President of the Bell Arts Factory, speaks with Our Ventura TV host, MB Hanrahan, about their nonprofit organization, vision and activities, with a focus on community.
The seven deadly sins are interpreted by Fine Artist, MB Hanrahan, through her show, The Seven Deadly Fascinations.
Jackie Woods exhibits her fine art photography at the The Tool Room Gallery, within the Bell Arts Factory, in Ventura, CA. The Tool Room is an industrial space available for artists who seek an alternate space to showcase their work.
Ventura Cultural Affairs Commissioner, Phil Taggart, talks with Our Ventura Host, MB Hanrahan, about the Ventura Cultural Affairs Commission and the Ventura Cultural Plan. The Commission endeavors to expand the role of the arts within the cultural fabric of Ventura.


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Illicit major is a formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion.

This fallacy has the following argument form:
All A are B
No C are A
Therefore, no C are B

Example:
All dogs are mammals
No cats are dogs
Therefore, no cats are mammals

In this argument, the major term is "mammals". This is distributed in the conclusion (the last statement) because we are making a claim about a property of all mammals: that they are not cats. However, it is not distributed in the major premise (the first statement) where we are only talking about a property of some mammals: Only some mammals are dogs.

The error is in assuming that the converse of the first statement (that all mammals are dogs) is also true.

However, an argument in the following form differs from the above, and is valid (Camestres):
All A are B
No B are C
Therefore, no C are A

See also
 Illicit minor
 Syllogistic fallacy

External links
Illicit Major The Fallacy Files

Syllogistic fallacies


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Part Two: Elizabeth Shares more Damning SeaWorld Photos & Information
Ike's damaged mouth from jaw popping. Photo: Elizabeth
At our last blog, here, you met marine biology student, Elizabeth, who uses her proximity and season pass to access SeaWorld's California orca "collection." She has the goal of collecting forensic evidence and sharing truth regarding the conditions of captivity. Elizabeth is a cetacean lover who imagined becoming an orca trainer, at one point, but now advocates for captive whales and dolphins using a camera. We're honored to publish more of her photographs this week and pleased to share more information on Elizabeth's personal story via a brief Q&A session. In her own words:
I witnessed a very aggressive attack between two orcas that changed the way I viewed them in captivity. After years of doing my own research on the captivity industry and learning how SeaWorld obtained many of its orcas I decided to take action. I'm currently in school for marine biology... Before I decided to go to school I really wanted to be a SeaWorld trainer.
Photo by Elizabeth shows extensive rake marks on Makani
Q: Elizabeth, when did u first recognize the dental problems of captive killer whales?
A: I've noticed it since I was young. I even remember asking a trainer as a kid and getting the typical SeaWorld public relations (PR) answers. I started documenting each individual orca's teeth to show the public just how bad they are and still continue to decline.
Q: Dr John Jett and I have written several papers that discuss this issue. Have you read any of those?
A: Yes, your and JJ's paper in 2011, Keto & Tilikum Express the Stress of Orca Capvitity
This solution was reportedly dripped into the eyes of a captive dolphin at SeaWorld, presumably for infection
Q: Have you witnessed teeth irrigations and how often do the trainers flush the broken teeth
A: Flushing of teeth is hard to capture since trainers don't typically want the public to see this. But I have seen trainers do it. Normally teeth irrigations are performed after shows since the orcas received fish that can get impacted in the open [bore] holes. But this isn't always the case [that they do it after shows].
With mouth open, a captive orca is preparing to have her teeth flushed out. Fish gets trapped in the open bore holes
Captive orca is getting her broken left maxillary teeth flushed out by a SeaWorld trainer. Photo by Elizabeth
Q: Have you witnessed orcas jaw popping or biting down in the steel gates?
A: I have seen many orcas chewing on gates. I even have video of Kalia doing it. I also see Ike and a few others jaw popping. They do it a lot out of boredom.
Photo by Elizabeth shows the damaged mouth and jaw of Northern Resident killer whale Corky
Q: Elizabeth, your research is valuable. Thank you for sharing this photographic evidence. How many hours or days of observations have you done in the past year or years?
A: Oh gosh... I've been doing this on and off for a while. But I really cracked down on documenting it all since late 2015. I go to SeaWorld at least 2-3 times a month. Each visit lasts for about 5 hours; unless security chases me away.
Elizabeth's photo shows Shouka's damaged lower jaw with Amaya next to her.
Q: Have you watched the whales grind their teeth on concrete?
A: Yes, I have. They often do this under the water so it's hard to capture it on film. But normally you will see paint left on their teeth
Drs Visser, Jett & Ventre could not determine what this photograph of Orkid's teeth depicts. Pigment vs tooth?
Q: What message would you like to share with the people who will be appreciating & viewing your teeth photographs?
A: Always speak up. The more voices we have talking about this issue the more changes we will see. People sometimes forget that SeaWorld is a for profit & publicly traded corporation, not a conservation organization. Profit and attendance means everything to them. So the more people that speak and share this information... the more aware the public becomes & the more pressure it puts on the company to change its ways.
Posted by JV at 2:42 PM 7 comments:
At Voice of the Orcas, Carol, John, Samantha and I continue our evidence based advocacy work via writings, interviews, symposiums, consultation, sponsoring legislation, journal articles & Superpod conferences. We also partner up, when we can, with young leaders.
On 24 February 2010, and as former SeaWorld (SW) trainers, we were compelled to speak out when it became apparent SW was misinforming the public and skewing facts surrounding the death of their star trainer. The captivity giant is also famous for spreading misinformation regarding captive orca longevity, dental health, collapsed fins, social strife and more. Note the rake marks on Amaya's head below.
Image from Elizabeth shows a fresh and fairly deep rake mark on Amaya's head
Participating in the captivity debate has taken us abroad, and it's been the young people we've met, globally, that give us hope. The younger generation gets it. It gives us great pleasure to link up with students who shifted their dream from "orca trainer" to animal advocate.
Photo by Elizabeth: Shows two collapsed dorsal fins on Keet & Ikaika "Ike"
This blog features Elizabeth, a young marine biology student who, like us, felt the need to speak up for the orcas at SeaWorld. She does her work of taking high quality still images and videos, with a camera. After this paragraph, we turn the blog over to her, including images she wants you to see and the inspiration for her work. Note that she lives in San Diego and uses her access to the park to collect these photos, all from SeaWorld's California "collection"
From this view, Corky has no viable mandibular teeth. You can see bore holes and evidence of teeth grinding on concrete. Photo by Elizabeth
Hi, my name is Elizabeth...
I was that kid… Entranced by the lights, the music and the energy that was so thick you could feel it in the air. But most of all I was mesmerized by the raw power of the Killer Whales. As I got older I realized the truth that SeaWorld so desperately tries to hide.
A fresh rake make (still red in color) is seen on the right dorsal surface of Keet's body (caudal to the dorsal fin)
I witnessed a very aggressive attack between two orcas that changed the way I viewed them in captivity. After years of doing my own research on the captivity industry and learning how SeaWorld obtained many of its orcas I decided to take action. I'm currently in school for marine biology to help bring change for these animals. Before I decided to go to school I really wanted to be a SeaWorld trainer.
The skin covering Nakai's lower jaw has not healed properly since it was scraped or bitten off
Some may call me a hypocrite... but the way I see it, I was blinded, like many, when it comes to SeaWorld. My goal is to help people wake up. Or at least give them accurate information so they can decide for themselves what they think.
Rake marks are unusually prominent on this young orca, Makani
My goal isn't to have SeaWorld shut down. But to have them cycle out big animals that are not suited for captivity and urge them to do right by "their" animals. I've collected numerous photos and videos that show the truth. These animals suffer every single day. Collapsed dorsal fins are not "normal" as most trainers would have you believe.
Fungal infections seen here on Kasasata are caused by stress, in-discriminant antibiotic use and water quality issues, per the Merck Veterinary Manual
Broken and worn down teeth are not "normal." It's time we all stand together and put an end to this. Even if you don't have a degree or have any experience, you can still do something to help these animals. Speak up for them at school or online. Go to protests and help sign petitions to end their suffering.
"We all have a choice to do right by them and we all have a voice to speak for them" Elizabeth
Another perspective on Amaya's rake marks. Photo by Elizabeth
Part Two: Elizabeth Shares more Damning SeaWorld P...
Elizabeth Shares Her SeaWorld Orca Images with the...


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Synthetic Esters: Engineered to Perform
Tyler Housel, Inolex Chemical Co.
The lubricant industry generally treats synthetic esters as a monolithic class of Group V base oils with well-defined properties. It is not difficult to find a chart that lists esters as having "fair" hydrolytic stability, "good" biodegradability, "very good" lubricity, "excellent" oxidative stability and so on.
Sometimes diesters and polyol esters are listed separately, but there is seldom further differentiation. However, the nature of esters defies such oversimplification. There are endless varieties of esters that can be built from commonly available acids and alcohols, so almost anything is possible.
Figure 1. The esterification reaction
Modern synthetic esters can be "tuned" to perform in nearly any environment and application. Whether you seek excellent hydrolytic stability, oxidative stability, biodegradability, lubricity, high viscosity index or low-temperature properties, all of these are possible with the right synthetic ester.
Synthetic esters are manufactured from carboxylic acids and alcohols, which are very common chemical building blocks. They provide almost unlimited structural and performance possibilities.
The Ester Reaction
Figure 1 shows the basic chemical reaction used to synthesize all esters - a carboxylic acid and an alcohol react to form an ester and water. Organic chemists call this a reversible reaction because water can react with ester groups and break the ester into its components. This is known as hydrolysis.
The raw materials used to make esters can be linear, branched, saturated, unsaturated, monofunctional, difunctional or polyfunctional. There are hundreds of potential acid and alcohol building blocks, and the number of combinations is almost limitless. Attempts have been made to classify esters in categories such as diesters and polyol esters or simple and complex esters, but the technology is far ahead of the terminology.
The building blocks often define the maximum performance potential of an ester, while the manufacturing savvy determines whether the ester reaches its potential. For example, a synthetic neopolyol (alcohol) can produce an ester with outstanding oxidative stability, yet the oxidative stability of the ester may be diminished with inferior ingredients, contaminants or poor processing techniques.
Thermo-oxidative Stability
Oxidation is a degradation process that occurs when atmospheric oxygen reacts with organic molecules. For synthetic esters, this normally occurs at high temperatures, but it is possible to find esters that oxidize without heating. It has been known for centuries that linseed oils form a solid coating when exposed to air at ambient temperatures. These are called drying oils because they can be painted on wood and cured to a hard, protective varnish. Room-temperature polymerization relies on oxidative cross-linking of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
While varnish enhances the appearance of antique furniture, it is not beneficial on industrial equipment. Synthetic esters are the best choice to provide clean, varnish-free lubrication at temperatures up to 600 degrees F (300 degrees C). The only way to engineer a superior high-temperature lubricant is to understand and eliminate structures that are oxidatively unstable.
It has already been established that polyunsaturated fatty acid components must be eliminated, but unsaturated fatty acids such as oleates are commonly used in lubricants. In fact, oleates have many good properties including lubricity, low volatility, cold flow, biodegradability, renewability and a low price. The oxidative stability is also much better than that of drying oils. However, unsaturated esters, including vegetable oils, are still limited to lower temperature applications.
Saturated esters are required for use at higher temperatures, but there is more to consider. High-temperature oxidative stability depends heavily on the amount and configuration of hydrogen on the beta-carbons in the molecule. The beta-carbon is the second one from the carbon-oxygen bond of the ester group.
The beta-hydrogen is very reactive toward oxygen, so esters with no beta-hydrogen are more thermally stable. These are known as neopolyol esters, with their name derived from their structural similarity to neopentane. Neopolyol is shortened to polyol esters and abbreviated as POE. All POEs have good oxidative stability because they have no beta-hydrogens (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Polyol ester
Although unsaturated fatty acids cannot perform at high temperatures, it is not enough to simply substitute saturated fatty acids such as stearic acid. Synthetic short-chain carboxylic acids offer a greater degree of oxidative stability and are much better at low temperatures than saturated fatty acids. Shorter branched fatty acids are used when exceptional thermal stability is required.
By eliminating the oxidative weak points, synthetic esters can be designed to operate at high temperatures and will tend to evaporate cleanly before undergoing oxidative polymerization so they will not form deposits and varnish.
Chemists find many examples of the link between viscosity and molecular weight. From linear alkanes to polymers, bigger molecules are expected to be more viscous. However, this simple rule of thumb does not always apply to synthetic esters.
The viscosity is strongly dependent on the amount of branching, aromaticity, functionality and ease of rotation of the bonds that make up the molecule. As the structure becomes more branched, it is more difficult for the molecule to bend around and flow over itself.
Aromatic esters are extremely viscous because of the rigid aromatic ring. So while it's true that molecular weight is related to viscosity, there are also ways to break this relationship when desired. This is particularly useful when the volatility profile requires a specific molecular weight and the application demands a certain viscosity.
Molecular weight is not the only factor that determines the viscosity of a synthetic ester, but it can certainly be used to increase viscosity when necessary. If the component acids and alcohols each have more than one reactive group, esters can be polymerized to any length.
Although the lubricant industry doesn't employ rigid polyesters that are made into bottles, the same principle can be used to build molecular weight and therefore increase viscosity. These are called complex esters or CPE.
Biodegradability and Hydrolytic Stability
The rate of the hydrolysis reaction is highly dependent on both the chemistry of the ester bond and the environmental conditions. Synthetic esters can be stable for a few hours or thousands of years, so it is impossible to classify them using words such as "fair" or "good."
To manage hydrolysis, it is important to understand the type and purity of the reactants as well as the manufacturing process.
Remember that esters are made from alcohols and carboxylic acids, and that water is a byproduct of the esterification reaction. All ester reactions are reversible, so water can break ester back into the acid and alcohol components. Once ester is broken into the alcohols and acids, bacteria can complete the digestion of the components.
Typically, increasing the amount of natural components such as vegetable-based fatty acids helps biodegradability. When synthetic acids and neopolyol alcohols are used, the ester becomes more inert and the rate of biodegradation is reduced.
It is possible to chemically block the hydrolysis pathway using branched carboxylic acids. These esters are extremely stable in water and act like mineral oils in typical hydrolysis tests. In fact, a computer simulation shows that the rate of hydrolytic degradation is measured in hundreds of years.
Smoke Point, Flash Point, Fire Point and Volatility
Synthetic esters are prized for their ability to lubricate at high temperatures. One of the main reasons for this is that they have a much lower volatility than other lubricant base oils at a given viscosity. Volatility is strongly related to smoke point, flash point and fire point, which are part of ASTM D-92.
As the temperature rises, the amount of evaporation increases until there is visible smoke and eventually enough smoke to support a flash or fire in the presence of a flame. The table on page 40 shows the relationship between flash point and viscosity for several common types of synthetic lubricants.
Volatility is also dependent on the distribution of molecular weight in a lubricant. It has been proven that a small amount of flammable solvent will still be flammable even if mixed with other inert components. The mixture will ignite as long as there is enough flammable vapor in the air.
Likewise, the most volatile components of a lubricant base oil determine flash point. Esters can be designed to have a very pure composition so there are few small molecules to smoke and flash. An added benefit is that viscosity stays in grade because no light ends evaporate from the lubricant.
Volatility and Deposits
From a chemical standpoint, volatility is related to molecular weight, polarity and chemical stability. While molecular weight and polarity are well-known effects, chemical stability is often overlooked because it considers only small organic molecules. However, a high-temperature lubricant is made from larger molecules that do not evaporate readily, so stability becomes important.
Oxidative and thermal degradation begin to occur between 200 to 300 degrees C. At these temperatures, base oil evaporation is a slow process. However, oxidation can break the molecule into small, volatile fractions. A large percentage of the weight loss in evaporation tests such as ASTM D-2595 comes from oxidation.
Not only does oxidation cause weight loss, but it also causes varnish. The decomposition products in the vapor phase are often free radicals or reactive molecules. Deposits and varnish can form as the radical groups in the vapor condense and create a polymer varnish on metal surfaces. These polymers can also form sludge if they reach a high enough concentration to be insoluble in the bulk oil.
Synthetic esters reduce varnish and other deposits because they have outstanding oxidative stability and do not form many radical decomposition products. Furthermore, they are good high-temperature solvents and tend to dissolve the varnish back into the liquid phase so it can be filtered out.
Lubricity, Polarity and Additives
The key property of a lubricant is that it is expected to lubricate. Lubricity has to do with how easily the molecule flows over itself and how well it competes for and coats the metal surface.
Esters are generally considered good boundary lubricants because they associate with metal surfaces and reduce the amount of metal-to-metal contact during sliding motion. Structural factors that impact lubricity include the chain length, the amount of branching and the location of linkages within the molecule.
Longer carbon chains, less branching and good polarity all favor boundary lubrication. Ester linkages are polar but can be less surface active if they are shielded by carbon chains. Synthetic esters are designed from different acid and alcohol feed stocks, so the location of ester groups and type of carbon chains can be selected independently.
The lubricity of the ester base stock depends on the interaction of the ester with the metal surface. Esters have good lubricity, but under severe conditions, anti-wear and extreme-pressure additives are used to carry the bulk of the load.
Some say esters compete so vigorously for the metal surfaces that they crowd out necessary additives. However, many additives are active enough to displace an ester from a surface. Expertise and experience are important here, as some additives do not work well with synthetic esters.
It is also important to choose an ester that is appropriate for the application. If the application involves boundary lubrication where metal surfaces grind together under pressure, lubricity is a key concern.
But if the application involves only hydrodynamic lubrication where there's no metal-to-metal contact, lubricity is less important. Esters are great for high-temperature hydrodynamic applications because they can survive in extreme environments where no other lubricant can.
Manufacturing, Chemical Stability and Application Suitability
To this point, the role that chemical structure plays in ester properties has been discussed. However, a second factor is equally important: the manufacturing process and the residuals it can leave behind.
Residual Acid Value
Ester manufacturing always starts with an acid and an alcohol, both of which may be volatile. It is impossible to achieve 100-percent conversion in any chemical reaction, so there is always some residual carboxylic acid or alcohol in the final product.
If this is not properly controlled, it can alter the initial properties of the ester and can also cause the lubricant's properties to change during storage and use.
Carboxylic acids are the primary concern because they can accelerate hydrolytic breakdown of the lubricant. This is especially problematic in metalworking fluids where water is a main component.
Figure 3. Residual acid left after manufacturing shortens ester life dramatically.
Figure 3 shows the effect of residual acid on hydrolytic stability. This is an accelerated hydrolysis test that holds an ester and water in a sealed tube at 125 degrees C. Ester 1 (blue) has an acid number of 0.03 milligrams of potassium hydroxide per gram (mg KOH/g) and shows almost no degradation over the duration of the test.
Ester 2 (purple) starts with an acid number of 1, while Ester 3 (red) begins with an acid number of 3. Esters 2 and 3 are highly degraded by the end of the test.
Catalyst Residue
Esters are usually made with a catalyst to accelerate the synthesis, but ester catalysts also accelerate the degradation of ester in the presence of water. Therefore, it is essential to remove or deactivate the ester catalyst at the end of the manufacturing process to ensure that the ester will maintain its quality during storage, formulation and use.
Moreover, mineral acids and certain active metals must be avoided because they can break down any type of ester. Most ester lubricants are not recommended for applications in which they will come in contact with strong acids and bases.
Figure 4. Residual catalyst significantly reduces hydrolytic stability.
Figure 4 shows the effect of mineral acids and metals on hydrolytic stability. The three samples all started with virtually no acid present. One sample (purple) was treated with a mineral acid, while metal fines were added to another (red).
As shown on the left, the strong mineral acid completely hydrolyzed the sample within 24 hours. Metal fines were not as fast but had the same effect. The untreated sample (blue) retained its integrity.
In conclusion, it is a good idea to consider the expertise and experience of your ester supplier. Esters can be designed and manufactured to work in almost any environment, but this means the selection process is critical.
Work with someone who knows the science and technology of esters and is willing to take the time to understand your requirements. This is the only way to ensure you are getting the right product for your lubrication needs.
Tyler Housel
Machinery Lubrication (4/2014)
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