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Tuesday, September 5, 2017

And this is why no credible institution will partner with UC going forward for LANL.

UC did not remove McMillan earlier, and that has doomed their chance for any future with NNSA.


“Charlie McMillan has led Los Alamos National Laboratory with a rare combination of commitment, intelligence and hard work,” said Norm Pattiz, Chairman of Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS). “Because of his passion for the Lab, its missions and its people, he agreed to stay on as Director at the Board’s request, past his originally planned retirement date. We appreciate Charlie’s commitment and believe he has put this iconic institution in a strong position to continue serving the country for many years to come.”

102 comments:

Anonymous said...



Could the NK situation be why they are getting rid of McMillian now? Are they starting to take the labs seriously again? Or is this just some move by Bechtel to show "see we are taking action".

Anonymous said...

I could see Terry Wallace just beaming with glee and joy in his chair during the announcement, like he just saw gold at the end of a rainbow. Finally, his opportunity has come.

Anonymous said...

I'm beginning to wonder if this guy Norm Pattiz exists, we hear decisions from other people, him but never see him, the phantom of the nuclear Labs. If he does exist, it's obvious he doesn't want to get his alligator shoes dirty walking in this honky town called Los Alamos. Beverly Hills is where it's at for Norm.

Anonymous said...

It is sad to see that the LANL press shop was so desperate for positive items during McMillan's term that they used creative math in their press release. They picked the lowest year for budgets as well as the highest year for budgets on his term and claimed that the growth was due to his leadership. Even the Santa Fe newspaper caught this sleight of hand!

Shame on you LANL press shop for trying to put lipstick on a pig and spin something positive from six years of McMillan's failures. It is clear that the only people that think McMillan was a successful Director are Pattiz, Napalitano and the rest of the UC crowd. Everyone, yes everyone, else sees it for what it was and isn't afraid to call him the worst Director ever. Even Nanos was better.

Anonymous said...

"I could see Terry Wallace just beaming with glee and joy in his chair during the announcement, like he just saw gold at the end of a rainbow. Finally, his opportunity has come"

What is odd is that all the managers seemed very excited by this. I could understand
Terry thinking he might have a chance at interm Director but not the average Joe division leader. I heard Gibbs is getting it anyway.

Anonymous said...

Shame on you LANL press shop for trying to put lipstick on a pig and spin something positive from six years of McMillan's failures. It is clear that the only people that think McMillan was a successful Director are Pattiz, Napalitano and the rest of the UC crowd. Everyone, yes everyone, else sees it for what it was and isn't afraid to call him the worst Director ever. Even Nanos was better.

September 6, 2017 at 4:37 AM

Hey give these guys a break, the nicer the going away comment the worse the director. They probably said something like this about Caligula on this "retirement" from the Roman empire. Everyone knows McMillan was fired. My understanding was this decision was made after WIPP but after the loss of the contract they said there was no point and than FedEx Pu shipments occured and they said sorry you are out.

Anonymous said...

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-irma-united-states-hurricane-warning-puerto-rico-leeward-islands-0



McMillan, 62, a nuclear physicist with a $1.5 million annual salary, has headed the laboratory since 2011. He is also president and CEO of Los Alamos National Security, a private consortium that has managed the lab’s more than $2 billion annual budget since 2006 and is composed of the University of California, Bechtel National, BWX Technologies and URS Corp.



Jay Coghlan, director of the watchdog group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said, “We like to call him McMillion for the annual paycheck he was receiving while running the lab into the ground with an exploding radioactive waste drum at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and ongoing nuclear safety lapses at Los Alamos’ plutonium facility.

“He’s the poster child for why the profit motive should not run nuclear weapons facilities,” he said.

With the lab management contract out for bid, Coghlan and others, including the University Professional and Technical Employees union, have questioned the for-profit management model at the lab, which began when Los Alamos National Security was hired in 2006 to run LANL.

“The problems at Los Alamos didn’t start under McMillan; they got worse under McMillan,” he said. “And it would be nice if we were closer to fixing them.”

Anonymous said...


So Charlie came in and made more than 10-12 million dollars in 7-8 years at LANL. That is more than all the other lab directors combined. Can some please tell me a single advantage that the for profit model has brought to LANL or LLNL?

Anonymous said...

When he ascended to the directorship word was that Charlie had a 10M, 5 year contract, with 2.5M bonus if he stayed on til the end. Haven't seen anything on the UCOP meeting minutes recently on what he got for his 6th year, or what his LANS severance package will look like. Don't forget that he also has his special UC retirement package from LLNL on top of whatever his LANS retirement package will be.

Anonymous said...

Feds in the NNSA approved and paid McMillan's (unearned) salary. The problem lies with NNSA/DOE, they are so bad they didn't recognize that they were paying $1.5 million per year to a lightweight.

Anonymous said...

The problem is not a for profit or a not for profit contractor, the problem is the quality of the leader. ORNL, NREL and other Battelle operated sites pay the Director well above a million per year, however, they place top quality leaders in those positions. The root cause of the LANL failures of the past six years was that UC chose a third rate candidate to be Director.

Anonymous said...

Charlie was a great B division leader and, before that, an exceptional experimentalist at LLNL. The problems that the LANL people had with him say more about them than they do about Charlie. LLNL people didn't even want to work down there but they had to for the sake of the country and to save LANL from itself. Charlie probably would have been happy being a AD at LLNL for the rest of his career. You guys should be thankful for his service. And by the way, your designers are clowns that routinely made fools out of themselves at JASON meetings. Charlie must have had a lot of patience with those guys, being from the division at LLNL that created the modern nuclear warhead without LANL's help or interference.

Anonymous said...

before that, an exceptional experimentalist at LLNL.

September 6, 2017 at 3:57 PM

Methinks you garbled the sentence, it shold be " before that, an exceptional LLNL experimentalist." which just about says it all.

Anonymous said...

$10 million for five years is outrageous, crossing into obscene. Compare this with what Agnew or Hecker made, adjusted for inflation. Was the lab really managed ten times better under Charlie? This, and the similarly outlandish pay packages for the rest of the upper management, basically led to the culture of looting: stay on for as long as possible, help yourself to the taxpayer money, then by the time the place falls apart, walk away with a massive special pension. This has attracted greedy and vicious personality types, rather than outstanding scientists and engineers.

Anonymous said...

...being from the division at LLNL that created the modern nuclear warhead without LANL's help or interference.

September 6, 2017 at 3:57 PM

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!! Good one!! Is that the same division that took the W-80 because they couldn't think of anything else to do?

Anonymous said...

It's true, by Livermore standards, Charlie was, "an exceptional experimentalist". He would not be able to keep up with the average technician at LANL. How many weapons did he design? Zero. How many underground tests? Zero. You could skip a stone in the main auditorium and hit four or five people more qualified to be director.

Anonymous said...



Charlie has absoutly ZERO VISION, brought in a generation of less than worthless leaders, was bad for moral, bad for diversity and bad for the United States. He made very good money, helped Bechtel bring in hundresed of millions of completely free money for nothing. Tell me one good thing that Charlie ever did for the lab, the only reason that he is not the worse director of all time is due to Nanos. What the hell has happened to the labs? Every study ever done by the national academy, external science advisors ect has pointed to the utter decline of both labs. The last leader of any credibility at LANL was Sig Hecker.

Maybe places like NK, Iran, Russia and China are watching what we have been doing to the labs are thinking that maybe that US deterrent is not very credible. But hey Bechtel is getting rich, we are FOR PROFIT, the right managers are paid off, the county and state are paid off, it is all good, of course until it is not.

Anonymous said...

But hey Bechtel is getting rich, we are FOR PROFIT, the right managers are paid off, the county and state are paid off, it is all good, of course until it is not.

September 6, 2017 at 6:42 PM

It is "not" right now, since Bechtel and LANS are out, permanently. Find a lifeboat or learn to swim; if you hitched your horse to Bechtel's wagon, its wheels just fell off.

Anonymous said...

It is "not" right now, since Bechtel and LANS are out, permanently. Find a lifeboat or learn to swim; if you hitched your horse to Bechtel's wagon, its wheels just fell off.

September 6, 2017 at 8:08 PM

I hope you are right. A few things I have heard, (1) UC is planning on putting in
a bid but they will be the major lead 75-80%. (2) Bechtel may do exactly the same thing where they are lead and the plan is to blame UC for everything that did happen.

In any case I agree with several of the other posters the for things to improve we need to get a fresh crop of mangers. The issue is that the ones have have just been in the system to long and simply don't know anything else.

Anonymous said...

IS this move so he can be part of the bid team for UC?

Anonymous said...

"$10 million for five years is outrageous, crossing into obscene. Compare this with what Agnew or Hecker made, adjusted for inflation. Was the lab really managed ten times better under Charlie?"

Right, and don't forget that after LANS took over not only did management compensation packages skyrocket, but the number of such positions exploded. Entire new management layers were created to accommodate more snouts at the trough.

NNSA must insist that the fraction of the budget spent on management overhead return to what it was under Sig.

Anonymous said...

Bechtel is just plain bad for LANL. They dump useless managers here with no pressure to produce. As an example, in a recent senior management meeting, the Bechtel PM spoke about there recent successes in "rebaselining" an effort a few months before. In the weeks since the baseline (4 to be exact), they were 4 weeks BEHIND schedule. When asked about the critical path, the PM could not articulate what the critical path was or how they would recover. The Bechtel folks are here until the company finds something else, move that bad crop in and bring in another equally bad crop. And when the work, all they do plan about is why they are not moving up the management chain, or why they don't get bonuses.

For things to get better here will require new management with a sense of purpose, no bull shit, and a dedication to do the right thing. Right now we have managers that are just checking the box and no sense of accountability or responsibility.

Anonymous said...

UC is just plain bad for LANL. Over 90% of the useless managers at and above the AD level are UC. McMillan, one of the two worst lab directors ever, is UC.

It's sad when over 90% of the problem is clearly weak UC managers that a minor partner gets blamed.

Anonymous said...

When you consider that the "management fee" is directly taken from the Lab's overhead budget (as opposed to being money added to Lab's budget by NNSA)it a crime of rape that the fee is so out of wack compered to other national lab M&O contracts. Especially frustrating is that Bechtel takes its cut of $20 million and pockets it, where UC at least puts its money (for CY2016 is $23 million) back into UC direct research at the Lab or scholarship grants for students to work at the Lab. Specifically UCOP allocated it $23 million as:
$15 M - UC funded research at LANL & LLNL (including Grad Fellowships at the Labs)
$4.9 M - UCOP oversight of LANL & LLNL
$3.1 M - Post contract contingency fund
$2.2 M - Compensation for LANS & LLNS Employees in UC-Designated Positions
$1 M - Accelerated Therapeutic Medicine collaboration between UCSF & LLNL
$0.3 - Livermore Lab Foundation a nonprofit UC created in 2016 to support science & education programs at LLNL

Anonymous said...

...A few things I have heard, (1) UC is planning on putting in a bid but they will be the major lead 75-80%. (2) Bechtel may do exactly the same thing where they are lead and the plan is to blame UC for everything that did happen.

In any case I agree with several of the other posters the for things to improve we need to get a fresh crop of mangers. The issue is that the ones have have just been in the system to long and simply don't know anything else.

September 6, 2017 at 9:10 PM

I really pray that you're right about #1.

Also Bechtel has zero chance without a solid research institution in their team. My big fear is that Bechtel somehow gets Battelle to join them. DOE at least really likes Battelle, not sure about NNSA but Battelle is a partner in LLNS.

As such the smart move bu UCOP would be for a UC-Battelle LLC (with a defined role industrial subpartner that is well liked by NNSA...Honeywell? maybe...specifically hired by the LLC to handle nuclear operations and pit production). This would allow some cover for the LLC... if problems occur during the life of the contract in nuclear facilities run by the subpartner, the LLC can hire someone else...Lockheed-Martin... maybe?... and keep repeating this blame the "subcontractor" approach until the contract is over. Seems to work for the Feds.

Anonymous said...

and keep repeating this blame the "subcontractor" approach until the contract is over. Seems to work for the Feds.

September 7, 2017 at 11:08 AM

Classic strategy for the weak, but very real and true.... Guess what, Nuke production work is dangerous and hard. Anybody shocked?

Anonymous said...

As such the smart move bu UCOP would be for a UC-Battelle LLC (with a defined role industrial subpartner that is well liked by NNSA...Honeywell? maybe...specifically hired by the LLC to handle nuclear operations and pit production).

September 7, 2017 at 11:08 AM

Battelle does science, why would they need UC? Answer is they don't. UC doesn't bring anything to the table. UC better come begging because I agree with your premise that DOE loves Battelle.

Anonymous said...

The "tell" may be in history. Who brought in Battelle to LLNL as an "integrated subcontractor"? Relationships matter.

https://www.battelle.org/laboratory-management#LLNL

Anonymous said...


Classic strategy for the weak, but very real and true.... Guess what, Nuke production work is dangerous and hard. Anybody shocked?

September 7, 2017 at 4:42 PM

Than we should not be doing it. Too much risk and no upside, beside who cares? We have always had nukes and we will have have nukes, just as we have always had iphones and always will have iphones, they just are.

Anonymous said...

Battelle does science, why would they need UC? Answer is they don't. UC doesn't bring anything to the table. UC better come begging because I agree with your premise that DOE loves Battelle.

September 7, 2017 at 4:51 PM


Could be but I am hearing that UC is teaming with Battelle or possibly Honeywell. Look we can all agree that UC ran the labs well, I mean extremely well for 60 years, this is not up for debate. After 60 years the labs go to a for-profit model with Bechetel and it all goes to hell at both LLNL and LANL, even NNSA can see what the problem is. Despite what some trolls may say NNSA sees exactly who caused the problems.

Anonymous said...

...at both LLNL and LANL

September 7, 2017 at 6:48 PM

What hell is there at my LLNL? I don't see it...

Anonymous said...

Could be but I am hearing that UC is teaming with Battelle or possibly Honeywell.

September 7, 2017 at 6:48 PM

Why would either go with UC? Wouldn't the powerhouse play be Battelle and Honeywell?

Anonymous said...


What hell is there at my LLNL?

Of you forgot the RIF thing a few years back? Also LLNL is no longer the lab it used to be by a long shot.

Anonymous said...

Of you forgot the RIF thing a few years back? Also LLNL is no longer the lab it used to be by a long shot.

September 7, 2017 at 9:24 PM

No longer the lab it used to be? By LANL standards I assume... baaahaaahaaa

Anonymous said...

The LANL contract was rebid in 2005 because UC was mismanaging the lab. Remember Nanos? He was hell-bent on destroying the lab.

DOE correctly determined that UC did not have the personnel to run either LANL OR LLNL without adding external help. DOE chose LANS, at least in part, because they felt a private company would have skin in the game and would be more responsive to NNSA than UC had been as a not-for-profit. That led to nonsensical PBIs and malicious compliance by LANS. LANS, led by UC, was by everyone's accounting a total failure. Of course NNSA shares a big part of the blame but NNSA is in charge. They will blame UC for the failure as there is no one else they can credibly blame except themselves. They're not going to blame themselves.

UC will not be a part of the winning bid, you can take that to the bank.

Anonymous said...

The LANL contract was rebid in 2005 because UC was mismanaging the lab. Remember Nanos? He was hell-bent on destroying the lab.

The lab was already going to be rebid when Nanos came in. The lab was rebid because corporate American wanted everything to be privatized so they could make money. DOE never wanted to privatize anything but they where forced to. If LANL was the problem they why did they also privatize LLNL? It was only about money. Many people in DOE and NNSA realize what an utter disaster the whole thing was and many want it to go back to the way it was before, when things worked. UC is bidding because they know they have a chance, so don't be surprised if they win. You have been wrong about literately everything when in comes to LANL and LLNL this will be no exception, you can take that to the bank.

Anonymous said...

Your poor writing skills are just just one of the things that makes you come off sounding like a fool.

Listen up, DOE/NNSA made the decision to rebid LANL, not "corporate American (sic)". Corporate America is something that exists only in the brainwashed minds of easily manipulated Socialists and Communists. There are corporations in America, and that's a good thing, but Corporations aren't part of some centrally controlled Borg. That's just crazy.

In the real world, Gubm't bureaucrats, often incompetent bureaucrats like D'Ag and Tyler P, make these decisions and they "where" (sic) not forced to do it. That's just another story you mindless poor spellers tell.

Anonymous said...

On April 30, 2003, according to the Washington Post in a May 1, 2003 article, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said "the University (of California) bears the responsibility for the systemic management failures that came to light in 2002," a reference to the fraudulent purchases by lab employees and the attempts by lab management to cover up those findings by firing two investigators who had been hired to look into such activities.

That, along with other UC management failures, led to John Browne's immediate resignation and the selection by UC of Admiral Nanos, the worst Director in the history of LANL. Nanos, as we all know, blamed LANL's problems on "Arrogant Butthead Cowboy" staff when we all know the real problem was UC's declining quality of management, Nanos himself being a prime example.

Unfortunately, this trend of declining UC management was never fixed as, arguably, McMillan is the second worst LANL Director ever, and McMillan has, without doubt, the very weakest management team ever.

Anonymous said...

On April 30, 2003, according to the Washington Post in a May 1, 2003 article, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said "the University (of California) bears the responsibility for the systemic management failures that came to light in 2002," a reference to the fraudulent purchases by lab employees and the attempts by lab management to cover up those findings by firing two investigators who had been hired to look into such activities.

The problem is that this was all proven to be false, absolutely false. Also everyone agrees that firing Walp and DORN was completely right decision. There was no culture of theft
as stated by these clowns, there was no Mustang, in fact there was a latter report showing that
LANL had an order of magnitude lower issues in terms of theft than comparable institutes. Abraham was Bush baby wand wanted everything privatized for $$, they where also trying to bring down Richardson, and Richardson was going to throw everyone overboard to stay. Again the big giveaway is that LLNL was also privatized, it was always about money and politics, UC had nothing to do with this. By the Nanos was not a UC pick, again it was forced on them, everyone knows this. NNSA should beg UC to come back and run the lab for non-profit.

Anonymous said...

OK, the "Dorn" idiot is back. Prepare for this thread to be closed. He'll just move to another one with his single-minded nonsense grievances.

Anonymous said...

The Dorn idiot is back to lying. Walp and DORAN sued UC AND WON. It was determined by the court that UC DID inappropriately fire Walp and DORAN. UC issued a public statement acknowledging their wrongdoing.

So who should we believe, the court and UC itself or the lying, crazy asshole?

Anonymous said...

Infallable has it right about Walp and the other ex-cop. What got them in trouble was that they were known to be leaking personnel information from their investigations. When the word of this got out, people wouldn't talk to them. By their own actions, they made it impossible for them to perform their jobs. Their termination was justified. The real problem was that UC was spineless in dealing with this!

Remember that these were the people who told the press the LANL was a "den of thieves." In the end, there was no Mustang and only a few thousand dollars of $30M of credit card purchases could not be proven to be correct.

Never forget that the line between cops and crooks is very thin.
# posted by Blogger darhtman : 12/07/2005 07:48:00 AM

Anonymous said...

From the Santa Fe Reporter: “The lab wastes multi-billions of taxpayer dollars, and nobody seems to care,” Doran says. “They flush money like it’s toilet paper. "

This does confirm what is being said about Doran and Walp in this thread. No ability to understand what the Lab does, nor any evidence of logical thinking. They recall several cases of petty theft at a complex $2 billion enterprise. From here, they make a logical leap that the entire two billion a year is wasted.

Sure, it's bad that among the 10,000+ workers there were a few bad apples. But there was no culture of corruption or embezzlement. The vast majority of the workers were honest, dedicated people, working to defend this nation. To assert that all of them were stealing billions of taxpayer dollars is not only false it is an outrageous slander.

"The lab’s operators knew that if the Department of Energy discovered the magnitude of the situation—and the fact that they had been looking the other way—they could lose their multi-billion dollar contract to run the facility."

More misunderstanding, mischaracterization and BS. The "operators" were University of California. Their fee for running LANL was a symbolic $8 million/year. If you figure in that UC provided very generous pension benefits to the lab employees without taking any contributions for many years, the taxpayers were getting an amazing deal.

Fast forward 15 years. The contract change did not fix the petty thefts (Beth Sellers anyone?). The new contractor fee is almost 10 times more. The free pension benefits from UC are gone. The workforce is demoralized and the best and brightest have been leaving in droves. Do Doran and Walp realize that they caused much more harm to this nation that the woman who embezzled $1,800?

Can they realize this?

Anonymous said...

It was determined in a court of law that UC WRONGFULLY fired Walp and Doran. UC had to pay Walp almost $1 million. Doran was offered, and accepted, a position at the University of California in charge of security at all of UC's facilities (including LANL). UC admitted wrongdoing in a public statement.

18 top UC managers were fired or forced to resign. Pete Bussolini was convicted of embezzling over $328,000 in equipment. Browne was forced to resign. UC lost the LANL contract.

END OF STORY.

Anonymous said...

September 8, 2017 at 5:22 PM

If you look at youtube there is a video of these guys on the Bill 0'Reily show. It is utterly shocking, not only are they beyond stupid, they said utterly crazy things about the lab, UTTERLY CRAZY, and we all know it was false. These guys are as corrupt and soulless as it gets, a complete disgrace to law enforcement officers everywhere. You have to remember that they said that LANL was a den of thieves with a culture of theft, this was BS, and what makes these guys so contemptible is that must have known this was BS as well. Everyone who ever interacted with either of these guys or Chuck Montano for that manner has had only horrible things to say about them. Both Walp and Montano went on to write books to cash in even further and all you have to do is read just a small excerpt from either to know that will continue with their lies in order to make a buck. They are true villains and have no problem selling out the United States and they saw LANL as their lottery ticket. If you don't believe this than ask why 15 years latter these guys are back pushing a bogus reopening of the suicide of Burirk. They dam well know that it is BS but they want to get some more money. These are very sick sick people. As for the court of law we all know that really means nothing especially once you get lawyers involved. 1 Million seems like but it is actually very small for such a case and after the lawyers get their portion it was probably on the order of 350k, more than Bussolini I grant you but not worth selling your soul to the devil. Again if you do not believe me just type their names into google along with Los Alamos and the quotes you get from them tell you all you need to know about their agenda.

One of the most disgusting these these guys are doing is trying bring up the Burick case again, it just disgusting that they are doing this and it beyond obvious why.
https://www.abqjournal.com/624528/lanl-theft-fraud-scandal-back-in-focus.html
read it for yourself. See bit below.

"Montano, Walp and Dorn focus on Richard Burick, whose LANL jobs had included lab deputy director before he retired 2002. He died a year later from what the Los Alamos police said was a self-inflicted gunshot in the parking lot of the Pajarito ski area.

The three whistleblowers contend there were connections between Bussolini and Burick that weren’t known when the purchasing scandal was investigated. If a deputy director like Burick had a role, they say, that means the purchasing scandal extended to the upper echelons of lab management.

A woman who took a call to Bussolini’s phone number this week said there was no connection between Bussolini and Burick other than that Burick was “somebody at work.”

“This has been rehashed and rehashed,” she said. “There was no connection between them.” Before she quickly hung up, she added, “We’re not interested in talking to anyone and I don’t want to hear anything about it, either.”

"Burick’s death lends an air of mystery to the Montaño/Walp/Doran scenario – they maintain the investigation of the death was botched. Doran did his own probe that says the handgun used was found in an unusual position, with the gun cylinder open and a discharged bullet cartridge halfway out, that can’t be duplicated.

The Los Alamos police have denied any problems with the case or any doubt it was a suicide, including in a Santa Fe Reporter article in 2012. (Burick’s widow didn’t return a phone message this week, but she told the Los Alamos Monitor in 2011, “He had cancer and he was on medication, and I am absolutely certain that it was nothing other than a suicide.”)"


"18 top UC managers were fired or forced to resign"

BS

" UC lost the LANL contract."

Than came back to win it!

Anonymous said...

Get your crazy tome down to a few paragraphs and maybe someone might read it. Probably not me but there might be someone.

Anonymous said...

Get your crazy tome down to a few paragraphs and maybe someone might read it. Probably not me but there might be someone.

September 8, 2017 at 10:05 PM

Ah it's just Chris Michele's diatribe on the UC. He a regular on the New Mexican Website complaining about everything and anybody in New Mexico.

Anonymous said...

THE Organization is better if no one partners with UC. More focussed. Less duplicate oversight.

The weakness is in the lack of widespread political support during proposal evaluation. Fewer $10,000 donstions to congressional caucuses. Less pork means less support.

This is federal contracting after all. Shekels need to be paid to politicians for the priviledge to serve.

Anonymous said...


Charlie is an excellent leader of a difficult laboratory. It competes with an excellent laborstory.

Good people are very hard to recruit and retain in New Mexico. When they do leave their spouses and families behind for a while they are supported in some areas by a mediocre cast of undiciplined workers and an ineffective organizational structure designed for survival rather than success.

St. Pete, a poor-state Southwest politico, was a brutal dishonest pork-dependant Lord-of-the-Realm who cultivated patrimony loyal existance rather that excellence.

LANL is a turkey pen. It tends to make a leader a turkey.

Anonymous said...

Charlie excellent? "Laborstory"? Rant about St. Pete who has been gone for how long now?

Maybe a few too many eye-openers for you?

Anonymous said...

Doran was offered, and accepted, a position at the University of California in charge of security at all of UC's facilities (including LANL).

September 8, 2017 at 5:22 PM

Except that only a short while later, LANL was not a "UC facility" it was a LANS facility, and LANS brought in Paul Sowa, a Bechtel guy from Pantex, to run security at LANL. Nobody in security at LANL ever heard of Doran after he was fired.

Anonymous said...


I thought the problem with Walp and Dorn is that they where leaking personnel information from their investigations to the press. Sounds like a major violation and even criminal. I bet the only reason they where doing that was to try and make themselves out as heroes who brought down a lab. They knew the press was all over LANL during this time period and maybe they figured that they could take advantage of the situation by spreading rumors and than following it up with outrageous lies, but it backfired on them.

These guys remind me of the Duke lacrosse DA Mike Nifong, who wanted to make a name for himself by going after the Duke Lacrosse team. At that time the press had already decided that the lacrosse team was guilty so he thought he could capitalize on this. My guess is Walp and Dorn also thought something very similar with in the case of LANL in that the press had already decided LANL was a den of thieves so they could just say whatever they want and the press would love to hear the confirmation. Well in the end there was no rape by the lacrosse team and it has been proven that there was never a culture of theft in the labs.

Anonymous said...

Walp and Doran (not "Dorn") shared an insular "get the perp" cop culture that excluded and eclipsed almost every other aspect of their jobs at LANL. They failed to understand that the institutional security investigation/inquiry function is not a police function. There are, and were, police for that.

newmexicopanda said...

And I thought this was about McMillan, who I actually tried to do a good job. He certainly was concerned about the people at the lab. I think he has his faults like everyone else, but I think he really cares for the lab.

It is unbelievable how vitriolic this discussion has gotten and how off topic.
Sad to think that some of these people might be my colleagues.

newmexicopanda said...

Correction on my previous post, should read:

And I thought this was about McMillan, who I actually think tried to do a good job.


Anonymous said...

Looking back, it is obvious that UC's actions 15 years ago were spineless, shameful, and reprehensible. Choosing to side with Doran and Walp, joining the media hysteria about "the culture of theft" at LANL, installing Nanos and not removing him as soon as it became clear the guy had shut down the lab under false pretenses were all unprincipled and despicable actions. UC should have never been allowed to run the lab after all of this. Instead, they were permitted to stay and, what's really shocking, to bring along a corrupt cement company. None of what happened under LANS LLC should have been a surprise.

NNSA finally has a chance to fix their mistakes and to kick UC and their buddies from Bechtel out for good. "We profusely thank you for your decades of service. Your services will no longer be required here."

Anonymous said...

"And I thought this was about McMillan, who I actually tried to do a good job. He certainly was concerned about the people at the lab. I think he has his faults like everyone else, but I think he really cares for the lab."


McMillan never tried to do "good job" he tried to keep as much money going to certain parts of LANs. He never had any interactions with the people at lab and tried everything in his power to avoid them. Interacting with people at the lab was not part of this his job. His jobs was to bring in money to the certain partners of LANS and he was well paid to do it. Everyone has said how utterly disconnected from the lab he was, even the most hardcore weapons people. He had to avoid everyone else he would hear about problems. His jobs was not find problems at the lab, tell congress and DOE about them, his jobs was to bring in as much money to certain parts of LANS and that is why he was paid 2 million a year. He was paid that amount of money to "not care about the lab". You have to remember that unlike Hecker, Agnew, Bradley or even Brown, people like McMillan can only exist in either LLNL or LANL, they have no outside credibility, no science visibility ability, no engineering accomplishments, nothing at all. Guys like Hecker, Agnew, Bradbury, and Oppenheimer where world famous scientist who had loads of options at Universities all over the United States and the world. Do you think there is even a single 4th tier university who would touch a guy like McMillan, not a chance and this is precisely why he was chosen, because he would obey if for no other reason that he has no other options. Did he care about the lab... I would say he never really understood either LLNL and LANL.

>It is unbelievable how vitriolic this discussion has gotten and how off topic.
>Sad to think that some of these people might be my colleagues.

I don't mean to sound mean and yes maybe you are a very competent and nice person who just wants to see sunshine everywhere, but you statement is beyond naive. You better be Godamm glad that you have colleagues that can see through. To be honest I have found few people say anything positive about McMillan so the NNSA labs have hope. The issue with McMillan is that Nanos set the bar so low that even the biggest loser on earth is better than Nanos. It says a lot that we have let LLNL, Sandia, and LANL sink to the levels that they have. Sorry but even Younger is not the brightest guy and certainly not a particularity respected scientist as compared to some of the previous lab directors. Hey all empires die and the United States is no exception, we may be coming to the end of the great experiment called democracy and freedom but lots of people got rich as the ship goes down. Hell maybe NK is finally going to call our bluff, perhaps he has been reading all those Fox News and NYT stories and thinking " they are turning on their own deterrent, yes...YES!!"

newmexicopanda said...

September 9, 2017 at 8:04 PM


I get from your writings that you do not like McMillan, but this influences your judgement.
Comparing McMillan with people like Oppenheimer and the others is pretty unfair, the times those guys run the labs were different and will never come back. No NNSA, no congress which puts more and more emphasis on some bogus metrics instead of science, the list goes on.

However some of the change was absolutely needed, most of the cold war nuclear weapons sites are still reeling from the sins of environmental negligence and lack of oversight (Hanford comes to mind) , so the spotlight has changed somewhat.

So, take a deep breath before you hit the keys again, and I hope the sun shines were you are. It certainly shines here, where I am drinking my morning coffee.

Anonymous said...

You can compare McMillan to previous LANL directors by evaluating them on how they handled the challenges of their time. On this score, McMillan is still one of worst LANL directors of all time. He isn't the very worst, that's clearly Nanos the Terrible, but it's hard to think of any other director that McMillan would outscore.

All of the recent LANL directors, with the singular exception of Sig Hecker, would probably rank in the bottom half.

Anonymous said...

UC's actions WERE reprehensible, but UC didn't side with Walp and Doran. UC FIRED Walp and Doran. That's what was reprehensible.

It was determined in a court of law that UC WRONGFULLY fired them. UC had to pay Walp almost $1 million. Doran was offered, and accepted, a position at the University of California in charge of security at all of UC's facilities (including LANL at the time). UC admitted wrongdoing in a public statement.

18 top UC managers were fired or forced to resign. Pete Bussolini was convicted of embezzling over $328,000 in equipment. Browne was forced to resign. UC lost the LANL contract.

END OF STORY.

Anonymous said...

UC's actions WERE reprehensible, but UC didn't side with Walp and Doran. UC FIRED Walp and Doran. That's what was reprehensible.

Excuse me but not only should they have been fired they should have gone to jail. UC did the right thing.

Anonymous said...


"I get from your writings that you do not like McMillan, but this influences your judgement.
Comparing McMillan with people like Oppenheimer and the others is pretty unfair, the times those guys run the labs were different and will never come back."

People use this argument all the time but I simply don't get it. It goes something like this, "during the cold war we needed excellence, but that is over so let the labs be as mediocre as possible". Yet the mission has not changed, what is at stake has not changed, and the challenges are the same. Why not demand excellence now?

As for McMillan, we can skip the Oppenheimer comparison, however why not still compare him to Agnew, Bradbury and Hecker? Why cant the lab have a lab director on par or at least closer to these people. McMillan is simply way out of his league. The biggest complaint coming from the mission side of the lab is just how disconnected he is, I am not sure if he does not care, simply cannot understand it or what, he certainly is not a hard worker by any means.

In many ways I think it would be better to have a broad minded scientist in charge who is smart enough to figure out all aspects of the lab, has enough standing that they can always leave for another positions rather than compromise themselves, and most importantly have an understating of the outside world. My understanding is that this is what DOE wanted the last time but they chose McMillan instead and Steve Chu himself was not very happy about this.

Anonymous said...

Infallable has it right about Walp and Dorn. What got them in trouble was that they were known to be leaking personnel information from their investigations. When the word of this got out, people wouldn't talk to them. By their own actions, they made it impossible for them to perform their jobs. Their termination was justified. The real problem was that UC was spineless in dealing with this!

Remember that these were the people who told the press the LANL was a "den of thieves." In the end, there was no Mustang and only a few thousand dollars of $30M of credit card purchases could not be proven to be correct.

Never forget that the line between cops and crooks is very thin.

Anonymous said...

Never forget that the line between cops and crooks is very thin.

September 10, 2017 at 8:23 AM

Only if the cops are crooked. And no, most aren't. You only think that if that's your world. Welcome to it. Mine is different.

Anonymous said...

Mine is different.

September 10, 2017 at 2:43 PM


Very very different, and not in a good way.

Anonymous said...

8:23 AM is mitaken. Pete Bussolini was convicted of embezzling almost a third of a million dollars, much of it with credit card purchases.

Anonymous said...

8:23 AM is mitaken. Pete Bussolini was convicted of embezzling almost a third of a million dollars, much of it with credit card purchases.


I don't think Walp and Dorn where actually the guys that did that case. They like to brag about but I think that was actually mostly done by another investigation team.

Anonymous said...

Very very different, and not in a good way.

September 10, 2017 at 5:08 PM

So thinking most cops are not crooked is "not good"?? That's your world?

Anonymous said...

Pretty sure that Dorn didn't investigate Bussolini. Why? Well, as you already know you crazy (and not in a good way) troll, Dorn doesn't exist.

Doran, on the other hand, WAS involved.

Anonymous said...


Doran, on the other hand, WAS involved.

September 10, 2017 at 10:13 PM

I am only saying Dorn to because it easily triggers you , however if you know anything about this case you would agree that Walp and Dorn did not play nearly as big as role as you think. Again if you look at the statics the idea LANL was a den of thieves as they have said is complete nonsense. Yes Bussolini was bad and got caught however if you compare the amount of incidents at LANL or LLNL to other organizations of comparable it is far far lower at the labs. This is the biggest issue is that Walp and Dorn basically lied through their teeth when they went to the press and said that the lab was a crime den with a culture of theft. This was total bs, they even knew it and YOU KNOW IT. For that not only should they have been fired but criminally charged. END OF STORY.

Anonymous said...

You are a pathological liar, and I say that not in a good way.

From an LA Times Story "Fraud Confirmed at Los Alamos Laboratory" dated January 31, 2003:

"(LANL) employees stole or lost at least $1.5 million in government property at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and lab supervisors later warned their staff to "resist the temptation to spill your guts" about the wrongdoing, according to an Energy Department investigation released Thursday.

The probe by the Energy Department's Office of Inspector General represents the first official confirmation of widespread financial fraud at the New Mexico nuclear weapons research lab and management's failure to address it. The facility is operated by the University of California under contract with the Energy Department."

Anonymous said...

(LANL) employees stole or lost at least $1.5 million in government property at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and lab supervisors later warned their staff to "resist the temptation to spill your guts" about the wrongdoing, according to an Energy Department investigation released Thursday.

This was total BS and fraud was "not confirmed". I thought almost off this was shown to be nonsense. You know that there never was a stolen Mustang don't you. In fact the accused person won case after case for this nonsense, funny how you never mention Walp and Dorns involvement in this. These guys are a shameful lot who saw LANL as a lottery ticket to money. That fact that you even try to defend scum like them is disgusting. Why are the back trying to drag the Burick family through more pain? It is about money.

https://www.wired.com/2003/06/los-alamos-clears-fraud-suspect/
Last year, two former police chiefs, Steven Doran and Glenn Walp were brought in to Los Alamos to examine several alleged cases of fraud. Anaya's was among the most prominent.

But Walp and Doran quickly ran afoul of lab management by being too aggressive in their investigations. Disputes over the handling of the Anaya case – and others – led directly to the firing of Walp and Doran by Lab management. (Doran was subsequently given a new position at the University of California.)

Former LANL Worker Sues CBS
By Raam Wong, Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer

A Phoenix auto parts company has settled with a former Los Alamos National Laboratory worker who claimed she was duped into buying a souped-up Ford Mustang with a lab credit card.

Before the alleged scam became known, the purchase triggered congressional hearings and sensational media coverage depicting Lillian Anaya as a rogue lab worker spending taxpayer money on fast cars.

After she was exonerated, Anaya filed a defamation suit against LANL and media outlets, as well as All-Mustang Performance and its owner.

All-Mustang settled with Anaya in November, according to court documents. John Boyd, Anaya's attorney, said he couldn't discuss the confidential settlement, while an All-Mustang attorney could not be reached Friday.

https://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apsettlement08-02-06.htm
LOS ALAMOS — The University of California will pay $475,000 to a former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee who said she was wrongly accused of trying to buy a souped-up Ford Mustang using a lab purchase card.

Anonymous said...

You think the $1.5 million in stolen and missing property was all from the Mustang? How much do you think Mustangs cost?

Anonymous said...

UC had a million and a half dollar theft, mismanagement, and corruption problem. The Dorn moron puts up a $25k Mustang defense.

Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

You think the $1.5 million in stolen and missing property was all from the Mustang? How much do you think Mustangs cost?


I though the 1.5 million was bs.

In any case Walp essentially still 1 mill from his lawsuit, Dorn got a job he should not have but than lost that, Montano won some lawsuit of about 100k, the Mustang women got 400k from LANL, so yes 1.5 million was lost from LANL thanks to Walp and Dorn.

Look the bottom line is that they said that there was a culture of theft and that turned out to be total BS and that is why they got fired and why everyone hates them to this day. They lied, they got busted, end of story. Of course in todays world some parasites can always get a payout from a court but that is the price you have to pay when dealing with parasite scum like Walp, Dorn and Montano. Everyone knows exactly what their game is. Fortunately for us most people have some ethics and honor and will never stoop to the dark levels that these villains have. In the end of the day LANL and the United States are still around and beat, I mean BEAT these scum, so score one for the good guys! Our nation and LANL will be around long after these slimy thugs are long gone and forgotten. They tried their best to fight the good people of LANL and the United States but they lost...LOST. UC and America came back and screwed them for 17 years and may screw them for 20 more years! Justice in the universe works that way sometimes. Sure you may cheat humanity a few times and make 500k to blow on a fake Phd but it will come back on you just as it has came back on Walp, Dorn, Montano and Hook. You know it is just like in movies, the good guys may lose some battles but they always win in the end :)


Anonymous said...

LANL/UC lost all credibility with the DOE, UC lost the Walp/Doran lawsuits, UC publically apologized for their wrongdoing, UC had to hire Doran back WITH A PROMOTION THAT PUT HIM IN CHARGE OF ALL OF UC'S FACILITIES, all 18 UC managers who had anything to do with their firing were themselves fired or forced to resign (including John Browne), and UC lost the contract.

In your twisted world somehow that adds up to LANL beating Walp and
Doran?

Seriously, Dorn dude, there is something really wrong with you.

Anonymous said...

LANL/UC lost all credibility with the DOE, UC lost the Walp/Doran lawsuits

If they lost all credibility than why did UC win the bid and possibility going to win another bid. Trust me on this DOE was very very happy to get rid of these guys. By the way where did you get 18 managers fired bit, that is just wrong. John Browne was removed because of WHL. If you have to defend Walp and Dorn than something is very wrong with you.

Anonymous said...

I thought you said Bechtel leads LANS. Inconsistent much?

Spencer Abraham said UC could not be trusted because of how they treated Walp and Doran. Browne was removed within months. Wen Ho Lee was indicted 4 years before that, you lying asshole.

You can find the 18 UC managers who were removed in newspaper articles online. Do your homework for a change.

Anonymous said...

Browne was removed within months. Wen Ho Lee was indicted 4 years before that, you lying asshole.

September 12, 2017 at 9:27 AM

You have no idea what you are talking about. Browne inherited the WHL debacle from Hecker. The investigation was in full swing for years while Browne was Director. The computer forensics results, the classified reports from the intel community that could not be responded to effectively in public, the endless pressing queries from Congress, DOE, and the press. Browne dealt with it on a daily basis, giving up most of his nights and weekends with his family. There was no respite. Bill Press took over most of the day to day running of the Lab. John Browne shouldered it all, and paid the price when UC decided it had had enough negative publicity, after offering zero help on the problem. People need to recognize that what they read in the newspaper or hear as rumors, or get from third-party sources, is never, never, the whole story on anything. Especially when much of the story is and remains classified.

Anonymous said...

Wen Ho Lee was released from prison 2 years before John Browne was asked to resign. WHL was OVER, he had even written his memoirs by the time Browne was asked to leave.

Browne was resigned because of the Walp and Doran debacle. Browne even told his staff that.

You aren't fooling anyone with your laughable lies.

Anonymous said...


Dorn and Walp had nothing to do with Browne leaving. Dorn, Walp and to a lesser extent Montano are despicable liars, they are on the wrong side of justice, history and basic human decency. These guys lied about the lab having a culture of theft, and they must have known this was not true, they went to to press to cash in, it was utterly disgusting and contemptible and it was all for money. Their big push was that LANL was a den of thieves and this was PROVEN false, END OF STORY on these scum, history has judged them very harshly as they always blamed UC, yet DOE saw right threw these so called men and gave the contract to UC again, perhaps it was just to spite them!!

Providence has given the middle finger Walp and Dorn. LANL has won, UC has won, the United States has won, and most importantly all the is good and decent in humanity was won. Villains like Walp, Dorn have always been around, we all know the names Iago, Aaron the Moore, Bellatrix Lestrange, Qyburn, Reza Aslan, Yoko Ono, Ganon, Judas Iscariot, Pete Nanos, Crella de Vil, Benedict Arnold, Sheev Palpatine, Jane Fonda, Herod Antipas, Hans Gruber, Kim Kardashian, Veruca Salt . Their lies allow for some short term profit but in the end they always lose.

Anonymous said...

Browne was resigned because of the Walp and Doran debacle. Browne even told his staff that.

Nope Browne never said that, it was WHL everyone knows that. In any case why would Browne or anyone else be fired because of the Walp Doran stuff? It just makes no sense and certainly not was said at the time. Walp-Doran seemed like minor players who happened to get fired during he whole fire/disk thing and WHL thing so they extra milage out of that. It was clear that there was nothing to the culture of theft and again everyone knew that. As I understand it these guys got fired for leaking personal information to the press. Not a good idea, does anyone know if they got charged with crimes?

Anonymous said...

Your claim that Browne was forced to resign because of WHL is a flat lie. UC did NOT let Browne continue for 2 years after WHL was released from prison and then ask him to resign. LAUGHABLE NONSENSE. How do we ALL know?

In the announcement of Browne's departure, University of California President Richard Atkinson called Browne's departure "a mutual decision."

He added that "Browne deserves full credit for recognizing that recent allegations regarding [Los Alamos] BUSINESS PRACTICES (emphasis mine) were distracting from his many accomplishments and the work of the laboratory's extraordinary scientific community."

Business practices, you lying asshole, NOT WHL.

By the way, that last thing with your list of real people and fictional characters is flat crazy. "Crella de Vil (sic)?", "Sheev Palpatine?" You have shit for brains.
Yoko Ono, short term profit only? Today she is worth $600 million.

Scooby, it's way past time to ban this CRAZY, LYING ASSHOLE.

Anonymous said...

September 13, 2017 at 9:21 AM


Dude you starting to lose it, take chill pill or five. Browne left because of WHL, everyone knows that. Walp and Dorn had nothing to do with it, despite being legends in their own minds. Lets just all agree they are pretty much cartoon villains and leave it at that. Ever seen them on TV, yup Cruella de Vil and Lady Tremaine certainly come to mind, vain, whiny, narcissistic, spoiled, delusional, and ugly as sin. The ending for all of them was the same as well ;)

Anonymous said...

The UC statement that "Browne deserves full credit for recognizing that recent allegations regarding [Los Alamos] BUSINESS PRACTICES were distracting from his many accomplishments and the work of the laboratory's extraordinary scientific community" is just BS boilerplate that no one should or does take seriously. Those of us who were there know that John fought every day to try to mitigate the WHL effects on the Lab. The timing relative to the WHL criminal trial is irrelevant to the political fallout.

Note that the UC statement gave absolutely no credence to the "allegations" but simply noted that Browne recognized the "distraction." That says it all.

Anonymous said...



The idea that Walp and Dorn "brought down" Browne is laughable. In fact right after they went on Fox News their credibility tanked, I forget which one it was but they came across literally as mentally retarded, you could see even Bill O'Reilly thought these guys as idiot frauds. That was it for them as the DOE and press really saw what utter fakes these guys are and that they are not very smart. Certainly not smart enough to work at DOE lab, any lab much less a police force. Even though these guys are utter idiots they are still smarter than Chuck Montono, who takes the cake for being one of the most transparent and idiotic parasites of all time. I would add that I think Walp made much and I do mean much more money in lawsuits than Chuck ever made which is saying something about the credibility of Montono. You have to be very beyond low to have less credibility than bottom feeders like Walp and Dorn.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Dorn dude. WAKE UP! Your statement at 6:58 directly contradicts your own statement at 1:41. PATHETIC. The sad thing is you are probably the ONLY person who doesn't understand why.

LEARN TO READ, Dorn dude. WHL's trial wasn't contemporaneous with Browne's resignation, WHL had already been out of prison for TWO YEARS before Browne was encouraged to resign. Out of prison as in permanently released. On the street. Living at home. Writing his book. Shopping at Furr's.

WHL had been completely OVER for TWO YEARS when Brown resigned. The fact is Browne resigned over Walp and Doran winning. WINNING, as in kicking UC's butt. Browne told his staff that he was going to resign over the fallout from Walp and Doran. I know this with absolute certainty so don't try to lie to me. The President of UC said it. The press wrote it.

Who should we believe, Browne himself, Atkinson, and the press or you, a known lying asshole?

Oh, and your rant about fictional characters is STILL BATSHIT CRAZY.

Anonymous said...

Amazing to sit back and watch people and talk about major scandals/issues or whatever else you what to call them and then watch these same people violently defend the LANL culture. While I can appreciate the loyalty and even admire it, this is the definition of living in a bubble.

Anonymous said...

"Hey, Dorn dude. WAKE UP! Your statement at 6:58 directly contradicts your own statement at 1:41. PATHETIC. The sad thing is you are probably the ONLY person who doesn't understand why."

That would be true however poster 6:58 was not the author of the 1:41 post, so no contradiction. Just a small factoid for you to consider.

"Out of prison as in permanently released. On the street. Living at home."

Was he on the street or living at home?

"Writing his book. Shopping at Furr's. "

He was not writing his book while shopping at Furrs or Smiths. Here is a question, do you think the same ghostwriter wrote WHL, CM and Walps book? Not a bad living writing books for ex-LANL employees.

"Browne told his staff that he was going to resign over the fallout from Walp and Doran. I know this with absolute certainty so don't try to lie to me. "

No you don't know that for any certainty because you had already been fired from the lab by than. Many of us know the real story about exactly what happened just as we know the real story about WHL. You are the one and true B*T crazy dude on the blog and have been from the start.

Anonymous said...

" watch these same people violently defend the LANL culture. "

What LANL culture? Do you know even know what culture is or how to quantify it. If you knew what culture is and knew how many people work at LANL, how many people have come and gone in the last 20 years and how many different parts of the lab there are you would know that there is not and cannot be a single lab culture. Also as has been gone over this blog, other blogs and countless other places all these "scandals" where total nonsense, there was no culture of theft, WHL was a single person so there was no den of spies either, there was no lost disks, there was no cowboy culture, the safety record was shown to be one of the best. Now since Bechtel came in a case can be made for some real scandals but before the contract change, no.

In any case most of the conversations on this thread have more to do with annoying some bitter and disgruntled ex-lanl employees that are out of a job and trying to figure a way to get some money rather than anyone defending LANL culture. The only people that can be connected to Walp and Dorn being fired are Walp and Dorn. END OF STORY.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
" watch these same people violently defend the LANL culture. "

What LANL culture? Do you know even know what culture is or how to quantify it. If you knew what culture is and knew how many people work at LANL, how many people have come and gone in the last 20 years and how many different parts of the lab there are you would know that there is not and cannot be a single lab culture. Also as has been gone over this blog, other blogs and countless other places all these "scandals" where total nonsense, there was no culture of theft, WHL was a single person so there was no den of spies either, there was no lost disks, there was no cowboy culture, the safety record was shown to be one of the best. Now since Bechtel came in a case can be made for some real scandals but before the contract change, no.

In any case most of the conversations on this thread have more to do with annoying some bitter and disgruntled ex-lanl employees that are out of a job and trying to figure a way to get some money rather than anyone defending LANL culture. The only people that can be connected to Walp and Dorn being fired are Walp and Dorn. END OF STORY.

September 13, 2017 at 10:33 PM


Your argument is ridiculous.... What "is" culture. Ok Clinton.

The bottom line is this is the environment you and yours have created whether it be factual or a "culture" of people making up and feasting on scandals. Rise above and gain some perspective.

Anonymous said...

Bait taken, violent defense provided.... baaaahaaahaaa

Anonymous said...

"The bottom line is this is the environment you and yours have created whether it be factual or a "culture" of people making up and feasting on scandals"

The problem is that there is no single environment. There are certain parts of the lab that have absoutly no contact with one another, no overlap whatsoever. In order to have a culture one needs to have people interacting and exchanging ideas, that is not the case in a national lab. At best it is a series of cultures but there is
no single culture. Even anthropologist know this, just saying culture is very easy and lazy, in fact racism is essentially the same argument as saying a culture is to blame. It makes no sense once one even thinks about for a second but for the simple minded you just yell the word culture. This is how it works, New York City is failing because of a culture of greed, Denver is a total mess because the entire city has culture of pot smoking. San Francisco is shallow because it has a culture of bad fashion. There all derogatory, easy, simple minded, and of course false, but adding the word culture somehow makes them sound legitimate. This is on top of the fact that most of these "scandals" turned out to be non scandals.


Anonymous said...

Exactly, the word "culture" is often used as a cover for making baseless accusations. This is what happened to LANL leading up to the contract change. To manufacture a public perception that the Lab was in dire disrepair, without any hard statistical evidence to back it up, attacks were couched in expressions like "a culture of theft", "a culture of arrogance", "the cowboy culture", etc.

We all remember Nanos. But think also about Linton Brooks, who in his role as NNSA administrator testified to Congress in 2004: "I believe there is something about the Los Alamos culture that we have not yet beaten into submission." (I guess he was fantasizing about chaining a LANL scientist and beating her or him, fists, whips, baseball bats and all, "into submission".) Or recall how the DOE Secretary Bodman in 2007 told Congress that "the heart of the problem is a cultural issue at Los Alamos." Bodman went on to blame "arrogance of the chemists and physicists and engineers who work at LANL". (Notice how scientists are specifically singled out here.)

With the benefit of hindsight, we can now clearly see that those words were not only baseless and slanderous accusations, but that they had some very real consequences. They gave us LANS LLC, which is a true den of thieves (think Beth Sellers); caused a mass exodus of talent; and at the end of the day cost taxpayers dearly (think the WIPP fiasco).

Looking back, tell me who had the real culture problem, the Lab or the politicians and apparatchiks who found it expedient to scream about "culture problems "?

Anonymous said...

Nanos was correct when he called them arrogant butthead cowboys, and that is the culture that NNSA has specifically called out for change in the new contract.

Anonymous said...

September 13, 2017 at 10:24 PM is absolutely correct. I am the author of September 13, 2017 at 6:58 PM and I am most certainly not the crazy person some have called "Dorn dude." Again I will state that the timing of the WHL criminal trial and the timing of he political fallout from that and other issues only too well known, that precipitated Browne's departure, are not closely correlated, nor should they be. Browne was fighting for the Laboratory to contain the fallout from the various reports on the WHL investigation almost right up to his resignation.

Anonymous said...

Nanos was correct when he called them arrogant butthead cowboys, and that is the culture that NNSA has specifically called out for change in the new contract.

September 14, 2017 at 6:14 PM

Nanos was incorrect no the contract change had nothing to with any culture whatsoever it was about making money for private corporations. There was never a cowboy culture and this was shown to be false time and time again.

One thing that is correct is that you are a truly bitter pathetic piece of work. We already got that so why do you keep coming to blog to keep telling the whole world what bitter loser you are? Ok I guess in addition to being a very bitter loser you are also very dumb.

What a miserable existence you must have spending your entire life consumed by hate for Los Almaos, Livermore, scientists and engineers. What have they ever done to you? Perhaps you got fired, but maybe that has to do with your poor performance, perhaps you failed at being a scientist or engineer, but did it ever occur to you that perhaps you simply did not have the skills or intellect for such a career so why blame others that do? I guess that some people only want to create destruction and pain in the world and lash out that they have been wronged. The world doesn't owe you anything.

Anonymous said...

Two dissertations on the meaning and application of "culture" to defend the pathetic behavior of the personnel surrounding the Lab. Sounds like LANL to me...

Anonymous said...

"Two dissertations on the meaning and application of "culture" to defend the pathetic behavior of the personnel surrounding the Lab. Sounds like LANL to me...

September 15, 2017 at 12:27 AM"

It is not about culture at the lab or anywhere else, it is about you and you alone, you can only see the world through a sense of hate and bitterness, it clouds everything you see. Bernie Sanders did not get the nomination, it is due to LANL cowboys, NK test a nuke, it is that damm LANL culture, Tebow gets kicked off the team...LANL, the stock maket goes down a few points...UC. You see LANL and UC everywhere because are obsessed with it. Somehow you think that if something bad happens to them or anyone who works at the lab it will somehow vindicate you for whatever the hell you think the lab and UC did to you. But it will not and in the end you will never be vindicated. And here is the kicker, more than 50% or the people who worked at the lab around 199-2002, or whenever you got fired, have already retired or moved to other jobs and are HAPPY and SUCCESSFUL, and there is NOTHING you can do about that so you see you have already lost and you know it and that is why you are going completely bonkers now.

Anonymous said...

violent defense provided.... again.... baaaahaaahaaa

Anonymous said...

A text longer than two lines looks like a "dissertation" to this poor fellow. To our comprehension-challenged friend: sorry, but those posts weren't directed at you. The target audience are those blog visitors who have enough comprehension and analytical ability to understand the answers. It is important to understand how the smear campaign against the Lab was conducted in the lead-up to the last contract change, because another one is presently unfolding.

Anonymous said...

A text longer than two lines looks like a "dissertation" to this poor fellow. To our comprehension-challenged friend: sorry, but those posts weren't directed at you. The target audience are those blog visitors who have enough comprehension and analytical ability to understand the answers. It is important to understand how the smear campaign against the Lab was conducted in the lead-up to the last contract change, because another one is presently unfolding.

September 15, 2017 at 11:39 AM

Yes, because the issues at LANL are soooo complex that only Labbies can understand.... baaahaaaahaaaaa... You speak like you are intelligent but can't understand the basics of human behavior.... Wait, are you a scientist?

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