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LGBT intolerance problem at Sandia? I was just checking glassdoor.com and noticed several comments suggesting intolerance to LGBT at Sandia...
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So did you SSVSP and why? Give details.
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Tax dollars gone to waste for the "chili cookoff" http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/100730.html Rumor has it this project didn't a...
66 comments:
They will just be replaced by acting heads. NA-10 is already headed by an acting career staffer. The ships won't flounder without captains.
As if the "Trump team" has the authority to remove anyone from government before the inauguration.
Trumpf innately pushes strongly for "return" baesd on lowering costs and increasing performance of suppliers.
This push is much needed in NNSA and the labs. It cannot be lead by current leaders. Will be new "Proposition 13" -style cutters.
As I understand it both Klotz and Creedon have to be explicitly asked by the incoming Trump administration to stay on after Jan 20. This has not happened, maybe it will in the next few days otherwise on Jan 19 they leave Forrestal and are done with NNSA.
The bigger issue is that the legislation authorizing the NNSA specifically prohibits non-NNSA (i.e. DOE) officials from managing NNSA employees. NNSA feds are only allowed to take orders from Klotz and Creedon or their (nonexistent) replacements.
It will take months to vet replacements and get them ready for Senate confirmation hearings, all the while NNSA, DOE, the White House and Congress should be working the FY18 budget request (released in March). So without a Klotz or Creedon, the NNSA budget request will be on autopilot as basically the Obama request that is currently working its way through NNSA and Congress staff offices.
In other words, if Trump wants to make significant changes to NNSA in FY18 he will need to have his NNSA political appointees in place and giving direction to NNSA staff on changes to the FY18 budget request - DOE Sec Perry and the Trump DOE appointees cannot legally do this directing of NNSA staff.
Now that is real irony; the words "Trump" and "legally" in the same sentence !
Now that is real irony; the words "Trump" and "legally" in the same sentence !
January 13, 2017 at 3:15 PM
Sufferer of extreme TDS. Sad.
Yes a "classic case" of TDS!
I have seen it before on CNN.
Our shivering, snivelling post Trumpf sufferers should follow the advice of the most successful modern president. "..fear is fear itself".
Look in the mirror. After thebego kick, you pick yourself up and keep up...your imagined fears will not be realized, they rarely are.
Obama left. Trumpf will walk away as well.
"Fake nukes!"
Donald Trump
haha good one
"DOE Sec Perry and the Trump DOE appointees cannot legally do this directing of NNSA staff."
I find this hard to impossible to believe. The Secretary of Energy cannot give any direction to the NNSA, even though it is a "semi-autonomous" agency? This makes little sense considering the DOE explicitly has a major roll, legally and otherwise, in nearly all aspects of the labs. Your opinion sounds like some BS circulated by career NNSA bureaucrats to "trump" up (no pun intended) their power and importance. Its sort of like Native Americans claiming to be sovereign states when paying taxes, but turning around and demanding massive welfare handouts at the same time.
"Fake nukes!"
Donald Trump
January 14, 2017 at 5:00 AM
This is precisely why Trump is a very dangerous and unpredictable next President. The thought that he as Commander in Chief would order the military to launch it's missies to only determine if his nuclear weapons are "viable".
"This is precisely why Trump is a very dangerous and unpredictable next President. The thought that..."
January 15, 2017 at 5:04 AM
He is "very dangerous and unpredictable" because of one of your thoughts?? Classic symptom of severe TDS.
NNSA moves to DOD in 2019.
NNSA moves to DOD in 2019? Is that based on the reading of tea leaves, bones or a Magic 8 Ball?
I would not be surprised if NNSA moves under DOD, and what is left of DOE gets refocused on oil and gas, if it survives at all.
Good lord, think of all of the property stickers that say DOE that would have to be replaced with DOD. Of course we went through the same when we went from AEC to ERDA to DOE.
To lose the civilian control of design and development of nuclear weapons would be a horrible mistake. The DoD does not have any desire to have nuclear weapons at all, let alone have total responsibility for them. They have little experience in running "captive" R&D contractors. Be careful what you wish for.
DoE doesn't really run R&D contractors either, not directly, NNSA does. If NNSA remains intact as a semi-autonomous agency within DoD, probably not much would change.
DoE doesn't really run R&D contractors either, not directly, NNSA does.
Really? How about Fermilab, Jefferson Lab......?
January 15, 2017 at 4:52 AM
Yes, the Sec of Energy cannot direct NNSA Staff, see the actually language in the Act/Law that established NNSA. Key words are "through" the NNSA Administrator in (a)(1)(A) along with (a)(2)....
-------------------
PUBLIC LAW 106–65—OCT. 5, 1999
TITLE XXXII—NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 3213. STATUS OF ADMINISTRATION AND CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL WITHIN DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.
(a) STATUS OF ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL.—Each officer or employee of the Administration [NNSA], in carrying out any function of the Administration—
(1) shall be responsible to and subject to the authority, direction, and control of—
(A) the Secretary acting through the Administrator and consistent with section 202(c)(3) of the Department of Energy Organization Act;
(B) the Administrator; or
(C) the Administrator’s designee within the Administration; and
(2) shall not be responsible to, or subject to the authority, direction, or control of, any other officer, employee, or agent of the Department of Energy.
------------
Seems pretty clear.
https://energy.gov/gc/downloads/national-defense-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2000-0
(a)(2) has been consistently ignored and violated from the beginning especially in areas like security/classification, environmental, non-proliferation, intel/counterintel, and several others. NNSA management has never been strong enough to do anything about it, and Congress couldn't care less.
This problem will fix itself when the organization formerly known as NNSA is moved to DoD.
If NNSA moves to DoD, nobody wins. Not DoD, who doesn't want it, not current NNSA or NNSA contractor employees, who won't like DoD micromanaging or lack of civilian employee benefits, and not the country, who will not understand the disaster of military control of nuclear weapon design and development until it is too late (hint: the military does not want nuclear weapons At all).
January 17, 2017 at 5:23 PM
Typical of the attitudes in the swamp. Not to worry, the draining starts at noon on this Friday!
I wish I could see your face the moment you realize how badly you've been played by Herr Donald. Just curious - he earned your trust by doing what? He earned your respect by behaving how? You know he cares about you because...? You know he's telling the truth because he's never lied about anything?
He's just taking his cue from Chico Marx: "Who are you gonna believe? Me, or your own eyes?" Don't say I didn't warn you.
He earned my trust by I believe the thousands of jobs he is bringing (even as Pres. Elect) to our great citizens in the Midwest and elsewhere.
A better question might be where have past Presidents (Bush, Obama) been at?
Yes the answer is (they were)shipping those jobs overseas (Globalism, Brexit). That is totally what the election was about (or partly about) and some people still do not get it?
It was about, "the Rust Belt".
Ohio,Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and yes Michigan.
The proof is in the pudding.
The pudding isn't in the oven yet, let alone baked. You have been played, as you seem to admit by not answering the questions.
You can't earn someone's trust by asking him to believe something. You either have a reason (factual) to trust or you don't.
By the way, 1300 jobs is what was gained by normal economic activity in 1/2 of one day in mid-August 2016. Not such a big deal.
"NNSA moves to DOD in 2019." (11:06 AM)
... and underground US nuclear testing resumes in 2020. Big changes are coming with the arrival of the Trump administration.
Like you know anything. Pfft!
6:36 PM, so did you trust Hilliar? If so, given that she is a proven liar, what (factual) reason could you possibly have? Or are you just the pot calling the kettle black?
By the way, 1300 jobs serving fries doesn't equal 1300 manufacturing jobs. You do know that America lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs under Owebama, don't you?
The manufacturing job loss had nothing to do with Obama, It was 1) large increases in manufacturing productivity, mainly due to automation and 2) large reduction of workers qualified to take increasingly technical manufacturing jobs. Manufacturers have been forced overseas by unions fighting these trends. Jobs aren't "stolen," they are voluntary moved overseas by US companies so they can continue to make money for their shareholders, who are mostly in the US. If you own stock in these companies (and if you have a pension or 401k, you probably do), you should be happy.
5:24, that's the Clintonomics point of view, that Obama did nothing to counter. That simply promotes greater and greater wealth inequality, which is exactly what we have been seeing for years. The rich get richer, stocks go up and up, companies make lots of money, but Mr. Average loses ground. That leads to doom, it cannot be sustained. A popular "progressive" fix is to raise taxes tremendously on the rich, and use the extra tax income to create make-work jobs. But if you try that, the wealthy will move their money elsewhere, so that is not sustainable either. Even Henry Ford understood a hundred years ago, you need to pull up Mr. Average if you want sustained economic strength. Obama didn't understand this.
5:24 is spewing pure liberal nonsense. The main reason manufacturing jobs MOVED offshore had little to do with automation. After all, automation should have decimated those offshore jobs too, not MOVED US jobs offshore. The real reason is because the playing field isn't level, manufacturing faces FAR fewer regulations offshore and lower taxes too.
Likewise, the availability of skilled labor had little to do with it. Is 5:24 really claiming that skilled labor is easier to find in Mexico or SE Asia? That's laughable. The big multinationals who invest abroad do so despite knowing that they have to train their new foreign workers.
Sheesh, why is it that liberals lag so far behind in their knowledge of just about everything?
you need to pull up Mr. Average if you want sustained economic strength. Obama didn't understand this.
January 22, 2017 at 5:48 PM
No, Mr Average needs to pull himself up, by not accepting being average; i.e., get a good education which leads to a good career, which leads to wealth, and stop having kids you can't afford. Wealth inequality is good - it incentivizes people, or should. Where are the non-wealthy going to get money? I insist on keeping mine.
After all, automation should have decimated those offshore jobs too, not MOVED US jobs offshore. The real reason is because the playing field isn't level, manufacturing faces FAR fewer regulations offshore and lower taxes too.
January 22, 2017 at 10:48 PM
Sounds like more of Trump's "alternative facts." Jobs did not "move overseas." US workers were laid off from manufacturing jobs because they were no longer needed due to productivity increases from automation. Workers were hired for overseas jobs and they are much less expensive than US workers (so automation need not be such a priority there), and that fact is not due to regulations. Simple economics. Companies are in business to make money, not to preserve American jobs. It's called the free market, just one of many freedoms Trump doesn't believe in (unless you count all the cheap immigrant workers he hires in the US).
9:34 is digging a deep hole for himself fecklessly trying to claim that automation caused these manufacturing job losses, when many of these lost manufacturing jobs did MOVE overseas. How do we know? US companies built factories abroad. Ford did, GM did, Chrysler was bought out by Fiat and some car production was moved to Mexico and Europe. Chrysler is now badging some Fiat-built cars as though they are Jeeps. Boeing built factories in China.
Labor costs are certainly a big driver behind offshoring but this directly contradicts 9:34 first phony post attributing the losses to automation. In fact, these jobs were MOVED offshore precisely because it was cheaper to move the jobs to places where labor is cheap (and the cost of regulations is low) than it would have been to automate and keep production in the US. They moved not because of automation but because it was TOO EXPENSIVE TO AUTOMATE.
HOW CAN ANYONE NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?????
Here are just a few random examples out of many hundreds:
Flextronics Americas in Stafford, Texas, laid off 147 workers because the jobs "are being transferred to Juarez, Mexico"
Jabil of Tempe, Ariz., laid off more than 500 workers making printed circuit boards. "We are in the process of moving several assemblies to other Jabil facilities in Mexico and Asia ...".
Joy Global of Franklin, Penn., laid off 245 workers making underground mining equipment because production is "being shifted to a foreign location, outsourcing increased imports, articles and services".
Phillips Lighting Company's Bath, N.Y., factory making finished lamps laid off 265 workers because "production is being shifted to a foreign country,".
Honeywell Process Solutions, manufacturer of electronic industrial control units in York, Penn., laid off 110 workers. "Per company officials most of the work is transferring to Mexico."
Nordex USA Inc., maker of wind blades in both Jonesboro, Ark., and Chicago, Ill., will lay off 80 workers because production is "being shifted to a foreign country,.
Tyco Electronics TE Connectivity/ ICT Division in Tullahoma, Tenn., a manufacturer of electronic connectors, laid off 33 employees because "production has been shifted to a foreign country,"
Cooper Interconnected, will laid off 56 workers from its Salem, N.J., facility. "..the plant activities are being transferred to a plant in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico,".
Sensata Technologies of Attleboro, Mass., is laying off 16 employees because it is "transitioning manufacturing of burn-in test socket products manufactured in Phoenix, Ariz., to locations in China and Korea,".
Motorola Solutions' Louisville, Ky., electronics repair facility will lay off 55 workers because their jobs "are being relocated and will ultimately end up in Mexico,".
Omega Engineering in Stamford, Conn., has laid off 40 employees making thermocouples. "In October, the company opened a Manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. The welding department located in Stamford, Conn., was downsized from 45 workers to five".
NONSENSE, 9:34.
Many of those jobs DID move offshore. How do we know? Companies have to file paperwork with the Government that that explains where the jobs went when they have a significant layoff. There are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of examples of companies that built facilities abroad or transferred jobs to foreign-owned offshore facilities. GM built factories in Mexico as did Ford. Chrysler was bought out by Fiat and now sells cars and SUVs that FIAT builds in Mexico, cars badged as Jeeps and Chryslers. Boeing built a factory in China. I posted about a dozen other random examples (out of perhaps a thousand) that added up to many thousands of jobs moved offshore but Scooby deleted the post. Too factual for him, I guess.
Too bad for the dishonest left, anyone with an interest can find lists of these offshored jobs on the Internet. You can too, 9:34 AM, and you should learn the truth before you mindlessly parrot any more liberal lies like "Jobs did not 'move overseas'".
Why did these companies move jobs offshore? It was precisely because the cost of moving to a cheaper and less regulated offshore location (which includes labor costs as well as the cost of regulations, taxes, training, health care etc. etc.) was less then the cost of automating. Those jobs did not move because of automation, they moved because it was TOO EXPENSIVE TO AUTOMATE and keep the production in the US.
You might want to research the Labor Dept.'s productivity numbers for the past fifteen or twenty years or so. If the same or more work can be done with fewer employees, that will always be the route employers take. Simple economics. The fact is that automation in US manufacturing HAS BEEN HAPPENING for nearly two decades or longer, depending on the industry. Those "jobs" did not "move" overseas. They are still here, being done by machines that don't get sick, don't do drugs, and don't go out on strike.
Also, jobs do not "move." If someone is laid off in the US, that job no longer exists. If a decision is made to hire someone overseas, then a new job has been created by that decision. If a US company decides to move its operations overseas, no one has "stolen" the jobs. If Trump moves to restrict such free market activity, he is the one who is stealing - the companies' freedom to maximize its profits.
PS: If you knew anything about economics, or politics, you would recognize that I am NOT a liberal. I am in fact much more conservative than Trump, who is a mercantilist, socially liberal autocrat.
You are trying to get out of the hole you dug for yourself by spewing more crap. STOP. You can't climb out of the hole by standing on your own feces. You're just sinking in and covering yourself from head to toe.
Manufacturing jobs have moved offshore. THEY ARE ACCOUNTED FOR in the WARN act paperwork. When an American facility moves abroad resulting in the loss of an American job with the subsequent creation of a job for a foriegner producing the same product in the offshore factory that, by definition, is a job that moved offshore.
By the way, my undergraduate minor was in Economics. I can tell that you are clearly a pretender. How do I know? You spring to defend the Obamanation by making nonsensical claims, you try to redefine standard terms, you make stuff up, and then you falsely claim that others must be wrong because they don't know Economics. That's standard operating tactics for liberals.
1:02 pm will be among the first to get clubbed to death in the civil war that will inevitably follow from continued emphasis on shareholder profits at the expense of US citizens doing useful work and getting paid for it. Just the way the world works, but perhaps they did not teach that in his economics and politics classes.
1:02 pm will be among the first to get clubbed to death in the civil war
January 23, 2017 at 5:07 PM
Unlikely. I own more guns than you own clubs. Plus I own the police dept and the US justice dept. If you are not using your money to buy stock shares instead of crappy Walmart plastic stuff for the kids you can't afford, and cigarettes and beer you also can't afford, you are a loser, and losers never win. Club all you want, the guns are on my side. So is all the money.
Absolutely pitiful. Two (or three) ignoramuses, each with a tiny bit of truth, talking past each other and refusing to hear the other's points. No learning happening here, jingoism at its best. Hooray for the USA!
It's good to know that LLNL has such an active economics department. The debates here are about as entertaining as those about NIF EOS measurements.
1:02 PM, I can see how the concept of jobs moving offshore would be so confusing to you. Oh wait,...no I can't.
If it were true, then people should be willing to move "offshore" to get their jobs back, but they aren't. Why? Not the same job!
Just finished reading a pseudo-scientific book by the late Marxist Stephen Jay Gould. He used the word jingoism. I didn'the know what it meant or where it came from, so I looked it up. 6:15, by labeling this thread jingoism, it seems like you don't know what it means either. You should look it up.
8:03, you should make a plan to move to Mexico or China and take the same job you do now, you know, your blog clown job.
No? You don't want to move? Did that fire your last working brain cell? Did you figure out why Americans don't want to move to Mexico or China to take their SAME JOB back, even if it was offered, which it wasn't?
Good God.
It seems to me that if a job pays a lot less, and the working conditions are much worse, it is not the same job. Which probably explains why no one in the US wants to move to take it.
The cost of living is far less, too.
Good God.
I fired my landscaper and hired a different guy who wanted less money. The new guy still does the exact same job that the old guy did, but he now cuts my lawn on Saturday instead of on Thursday.
The Demmy who wrote the post at 8:36 AM claims "it is not the same job" because the pay went down and some might consider his working conditions are worse because he has to work on the weekend. Of course, 8:36 is only saying this in a feckless attempt to defend his laughable claim that jobs don't move overseas.
Sheesh. No wonder fewer and fewer people believe anything that liberals say.
Maybe if the new guy did crappier job based on you paying him less money (I know I would) you'd feel differently. Econ 101: you get what you pay for.
Nope, wrong. Exactly the opposite. I fired the first guy because he was getting lazy. The bushes were all overgrown and the lawn was looking more like an untidy mat of weeds than a lawn. It's going to take a year for the new (cheaper) guy to fix.
What you liberals don't understand is the free market works. The new guy is already doing a better job AND for less money. I'm happy, he's happy, and the lazy guy is learning that he needs to work harder or he'll lose all of his business.
Econ 101 doesn't say you get what you pay for. Only a complete phony would claim that. If you're stupid and you don't make good decisions, you can pay more and get less. Like you stupid liberals who want to force everyone to pay the floor sweeper $15 per hour. That's just going to end up with floor sweeper losing his job and we'll all have to suffer with filthy floors.
Not if we also cap executive salaries.
Interesting how everyone who disagrees with January 26, 2017 at 8:55 AM gets branded a "liberal" as if conservatives, or even maybe libertarians, can't disagree with one another over a subject like economics. That is in fact what happens all the time in the profession, or any profession really, irrespective of political affiliation. It is an odd and unfortunate visual affliction when shades of grey are no longer discernible. Another thing those who are afflicted cannot see is how much damage they are doing to the country.
Stupid comment, 10:44. The floor sweeper is going to get laid off irrespective of who else has their salary capped. Why? Because the floor sweeper doesn't generate $15 per hour of value. He can be replaced with a floor sweeping robot for far less. Let's see what happens when you liberals try to replace the senior executives with a Roomba.
Good God.
Mr. Good God thinks anyone who disagrees with him is a "liberal" and therefore wrong and evil. I wonder what his God thinks of his attitude towards his fellow man.
2:59 needs a course in remedial arithmetic. A course in elementary book keeping wouldn't hurt her either.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
If NNSA moves to DoD, nobody wins. Not DoD, who doesn't want it, not current NNSA or NNSA contractor employees, who won't like DoD micromanaging or lack of civilian employee benefits, and not the country, who will not understand the disaster of military control of nuclear weapon design and development until it is too late (hint: the military does not want nuclear weapons At all).
January 17, 2017 at 5:23 PM
DOE is the KING of micromanagement. DOD gives you a mission and says GET IT DONE. That is their version of management for the years I worked with them. It was great.
DOD gives you a mission and says GET IT DONE. That is their version of management for the years I worked with them. It was great.
January 28, 2017 at 1:57 PM
Usually the wrong mission, such as fighting the last war. No one should trust the military to decide what the nuclear weapon design and development "mission" is. My guess: "Put everything in mothballs, but you 100 guys better make sure they work if we ever decide we want them again. Here's your $10 million dollars. GET IT DONE!"
The military already decides what the nuclear weapon design and development mission is, at a high level. They rely on civilians, especially at the national labs, for the technical details, but they are the customers that NNSA serves. And there are lots of military people embedded in NNSA, including at the top with General Klotz. Scientists who think they call the shots are deluding themselves.
Civilians should be "calling the shots." If they aren't, then the country is in trouble, and hopefully change is coming. If not in the right direction, then yet another election comes in four years. I don't want the military deciding my margin of life. They should fight wars and stay out completely of the weapons and strategies they are allowed to use. In the US the people decide what happens.
How embarrassingly naive, 6:47 PM, you made me spit coffee on my keyboard.
"In the US the people decide what happens."
Mob rule?
"In the US the people decide what happens."
Mob rule?
January 31, 2017 at 10:21 AM
No, actually that would be a democracy, which in fact we do not have in this country. Here we have a constitutional representative republic in which the people decide who decides what happens.
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