This is insane!

 Covid is skyrocketing in the US with record number of cases. At the same time LANL plans to go back to full time or at least 80% onsite work next week. This is insane, what where they thinking?

Discrimination at Sandia

 Sandia accused of racism. Lawsuit filed:

https://www.abqjournal.com/2455361/asian-american-scientist-accuses-sandia-operators-of-discrimination-e.html

Vaccine mandate suspended at LLNL

 According to news outlets, COVID-19 vaccine mandates at LLNL have been suspended until further notice.

Chinese ties

 Not a very good day for Chinese intelligence operations in the US:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-lieber-harvard-professor-guilty-hiding-ties-china/

Marvin Adams to lead NNSA Defense Programs.

 JASON Marvin Adams nominated by Biden Administration to lead NNSA Defense Programs.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/O/2021/12/15/president-biden-announces-key-diplomatic-and-agency-nominees/

OMICRON!

 OMICRON!

Do the labs go in lockdown again. The story at LANL is we go back full time in Jan, just when OMICRON! gets going. OMICRON! 

By the way Colorado said Covid done so do as you please, maybe the labs should do the same thing. Fire anyone is not boosted, fire anyone who gets Covid and we are good to go.

NNSA Rethinking Pivot From Fusion

 Good News for Future NNSA Funding of NIF Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiments?

"Record Setting NIF Experiment Has NNSA Rethinking Pivot From Fusion"

"An Aug. 8 experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility that dazzled scientists, weapons-focused and otherwise, has the National Nuclear Security Administration rethinking plans to focus the facility more strictly on nuclear-weapons…"

Sorry in advance. The rest of the article requires a subscription. Question: Is this NNSA "rethinking" up to date or just a lag response to the August 2021 NIF inertial confinement fusion experiment, or does the NNSA "rethinking" include the 3 subsequent NIF inertial confinement fusion experiments too?

https://www.exchangemonitor.com/record-setting-nif-experiment-has-nnsa-rethinking-pivot-from-fusion/

900 parking spots

 900 new parking spots added under Triad. That’s all folks! Billions wasted but at least there are parking spaces.

Blasting 'woke' math movement

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10288277/Hundreds-professors-sign-letter-blasting-woke-math-movement-eliminate-advanced-classes.html#reader-comments

Hundreds of college professors - including Ivy League - sign open letter blasting 'woke' math movement to eliminate 'discriminative' advanced classes and say it will put American kids at HUGE disadvantage.

At least the labs can always people from overseas who can do math.

Vaccine at the labs

 2nd court issues injunction for the COVID vax. What does the lab do with those who haven't taken the jab now?

Russian invasion impact

 https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KLfS5NPqxhYn4AV4RXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1638706894/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.foxnews.com%2fworld%2fus-russia-ukraine-invasion-2022-biden-putin/RK=2/RS=.IyVDErqt4bWqWR7PgXwJVDDWkA-

Russian may be planning to invade Ukraine. If this happens could it lead to a US - Russia conflict or even a limited nuclear exchange. How could this effect the labs.

Ignition efforts fall short

 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20211203a/full/

Isn't odd?

I find it very very odd that a real investigative reporter has not reviewed the near concurrent departure of NNSA LANS Field Office Manager Lebak at or about the time LANL Director McMIllan stepped out of LANL management. Was Lebak complicit with something not made public?

Voluntary nuclear waste sites

 https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/583671-energy-department-to-seek-feedback-on-voluntary-nuclear-waste

Booster shots

 When are boosters going be mandate at the labs? It looks like everyone is going to need one.

Any Carolyn Zerkle stories?

 Carolyn Zerkle stories and fan club. Interested in hearing about the vindictive, 4 year old ADHD mgt style of this ineffective but often promoted extremely over paid lab employee.

Beijing winter olympics

 Biden says the U.S. is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics

Why should Biden do that? LLNL Z-division?

Hello Fusion experts!

 I have a question for you fusion experts. I am reading about a lot of new approaches to fusion energy by governments and companies. There is ITER of course, the Stellerator, MIT's smaller Tokamaks,Boron based fusion, shock wave approaches and others. Hopefully I am spelling and or describing them properly. I do understand there is good reason for a lot of skepticism about whether these will ultimately work. But as experts looking at these technologies do you find any of them have a glimmer of hope? Which one might, and I emphasize might, work? And why might one of these potentially work? I figured I might as well ask the experts.

Baby come back!

 Ridiculous: Sandia employee left for Apple, couldn't handle it for 6 months and came back to Sandia

https://fairygodboss.com/articles/from-big-tech-to-national-security-work-a-boomerang-employee-story

Booster for all

 Biden administration plans imminent booster expansion to all adults

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-vaccine-boosters-holidays-thanksgiving-america-4011f2c6-eecd-4e5d-8cfb-e5545ca59b8b.html

So it looks like the labs will soon have mandatory boosters. The question for LANL is how many more people are going to say forget and have to be terminated or put on leave? I do not have a good estimate for this since I figured anyone who go the vaccine probably would be willing to get a booster but there could be some people who say no or or had bad vaccine reactions and are scared of the booster. I know of several people how had pretty bad reactions to the booster like feeling sick for for month or more.

Were Pfizer's 2020 Covid-19 clinical trials compromised?

Moderator' note:

2 links were provided in this post by its contributor. 

I removed one of them because it is from an Indian propaganda channel. 

The other one is from a Doctor.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=THv33zWykJc

UC versus LLC

 From a young persons prospective employee's perspective, what are the material differences if any, between the former non-profit UC/LLNL management, and the current for-profit LLNS management in terms of career growth, engineering valuation, communication openness, etc.?

Discovery by LLNL-led team!

 https://www.newswise.com/articles/llnl-led-team-uses-machine-learning-to-derive-black-hole-motion-from-gravitational-wave-data

A multidisciplinary team including a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) mathematician has discovered a machine learning-based technique capable of automatically deriving a mathematical model for the motion of binary black holes from raw gravitational wave data. Gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as the merger of two black holes, which ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other and can be detected by installations such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).

Great stuff, at least LLNL still has cutting edge science. Anything going on LANL or is just pits?

LIFE at LLNL

 Was the LIFE program at LLNL totally mothballed, or is the NNSA still funding at some level, efforts to improve NIF efficiencies and to lower costs for a future fusion facility?

Pentagon alarmed by China

 Pentagon Sounds Alarm Over Accelerating Pace Of China's Nuke Stockpile: "1,000 Warheads By 2030

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-sounds-alarm-over-accelerating-pace-chinas-nuke-stockpile-1000-warheads-2030

The key and most alarming element to the report suggests China is planning to quadruple its nuclear weapons stockpile over the next decade.

The new analysis finds that for the 2020 review, the Pentagon woefully underestimated China's expanding ambitions regarding its nuclear arsenal. Whereas last year's estimate forecast the country would have more than 400 nuclear warheads by 2030, the new 2021 report posits over 700 by 2027, and with a likely intent by China to produce over 1,000 warheads by 2030.

Meanwhile the NNSA labs anticipate making diversity equity and inclusion the priority for the complex by 2030. The labs are steeped in a legacy of structural racism and outdated notions of gender roles. With new administration we can begin a transformative approach to the lab systems that can overcome the past inequities. As for China, who cares, the United states has 230 years of wrongdoing we need to address before we can even think about telling or addressing other nations. We need to get our house in order first before we have anything to say to China, Iran, Isreal, Russia or any other nation. Worrying about China is just a distraction, we just had an insurrection at our Nations capital. Instead of worrying about if we have enough nukes to stop China we should retool our NNSA workforce to concentrate on domestic threats and we have about 86 million domestic threats.

Many national labs sue over vaccine mandates

 I am amazed at how easy seemingly intelligent people forget that seat belt mandates infringe on their individual freedom.  Yet  no one has sued for that.  The difference? Politics, misdirected anger, trumpism, hatred... Anything else? 

.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-10-14/dozens-of-us-nuclear-lab-workers-sue-over-vaccine-mandate

More LANL workers sue over vaccine mandate

 

US will defend Taiwan if China attacks

 Biden says US will defend Taiwan if China attacks

US President Joe Biden participates in a CNN town hall at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 16, 2021
Biden says US will defend Taiwan if China attacks
His comments are an apparent departure from the long-held US policy of "strategic ambiguity".
bbc.com

Would we use nukes? There is no possible way that the US could stop China from taking Taiwan.

New Mexico Crisis Standards of Care (CSC)

 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The New Mexico Department of Health announced the enactment of Crisis Standards of Care (CSC) for the state's health care system Monday.

Health officials said the pandemic has placed an enormous, ongoing and unsustainable strain on the state's health care system. They said the strain has been exacerbated by the volume of COVID-19 patients – almost all of whom are unvaccinated.

“Because of COVID, New Mexico hospitals and health care facilities have carried an unmanageable burden," NMDOH Acting Secretary David Scrase said. "Today, the state is offering clarity and support as providers seek to make difficult choices about how to allocate scarce - and precious - health care resources. The goals, as always, remain the same: to save as many New Mexican lives as possible, and to help sustain the health care providers who have sustained our communities throughout this entire pandemic."

Request denied!

 Judge denies request to block vaccine mandate at LANL

https://www.krqe.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine/judge-denies-request-to-block-vaccine-mandate-at-lanl/

Science wars continue.

 Woke science wars continue.

This time it is Prof.Abbot again from U of Chicago. The same gay that MIT would not allow to speak because he believes in meritocracy not forced equity. Now UCB will not let him speak and off the lab heads resigns in turn. I have an idea we need to inviate Prof. Abbot to speak at LLNL or LANL and lets see what happens. This woke stuff is beyond toxic and detrimental to science.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10106001/Top-Berkeley-physicist-resigns-colleagues-refused-invite-acclaimed-scientist-speak.html

A leading scientist has dramatically resigned from his post at Berkeley University in protest at his colleagues' refusal to invite a physicist to give a speech previously canceled by another college at the behest of a woke mob.

David Romps was the director of Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center (BASC), in California.

He resigned Monday after Berkeley refused his request to invite Dorian Abbot to speak on campus, and said he would stand down by the end of the year, or when a replacement candidate for his current role was found.

Who are the fellows?

 American Physics Society Fellows Announced Today.

3 LLNL
3 LANL
0 Sandia

Back in 2000 the old days it use to be like 7-10 LANL, 5-7 LLNL, 3-4 Sandia. Heck even 5 to 10 years ago it would be like 5 or 7 at each lab.

So the decline continues. It is particularly stunning because all the labs are the largest they have ever been in terms of the number of people with Sandia having the most people.

One point is that I did recognize like 8 names of former staff/postdocs from LANL and LLNL who became APS fellows this year. These people who left before 2012. Seems like a correlation with transitions in LLNS and LANS. Kind of telling.

Oct 15th is comiiiing!

 Oct 15 is coming. IsLANL going to really bring the hammer down on the anti-vexers? Also airline pilots, air traffic controllers, cops, first responders, and city work are starting to resit the mandates. I guess we need to fire them all. The only problem is that not that many people have been fired so far. We can do better, do you trust being in plane with a pilot who is so dumb they did not get a vaccine? How did these people even graduate college it is simply crazy. The only explanation is all the fake news and misinformation which shows that something must be done to stop misinformation. Social media, TV, books, radio shows and and even private conversations that promote misinformation need to stoped now. This is not censorship because censorship only applied to things that are true, this is about public safety. Do you really want a neighbor who is non-vaccinated or believes in misinformation, do you really want airline pilots who will not get a vaccine, do you want to give drivers licenses out to people who are so stupid they they will not get a vaccine. We need to make their worlds smaller, much smaller in order to protect us. Also it is not good enough to go after the non-vaccinated, if you are vaccinated but say you do not care about those that are not than you are just as guilty as the non-vaccinated and need to treated as such. Our patience with these people has run out, we had almost 2 years of this because people will not a vaccine, not mention all the other junk because of misinformation.

The demise of the NNSA labs

 The demise of the NNSA labs mirrors the demise of Bell labs.

http://usphoenix.net/science,%20technology/what_really_happened_to_lucent_t.htm

Some parts look very similar.

Raises and promotions were based on an annual merit review. There was one primary value: technical
competenc
As time went by and AT&T management became more enlightened, this strict meritocratic ranking system
was eliminated. Lab-wide rankings fell by the wayside, and Department Heads administered salaries and
promotions according to corporate guidelines. More of the salary administration became dictated by these
guidelines. What was once a Lab-wide enforced meritocracy became Department Head arbitrariness.



Originally, every Member of Technical Staff, MTS, was expected to have at least a Master's Degree. Those
that were hired in with a Bachelor's Degree were sent to graduate school at company expense to complete
their studies. There were a few lesser staff positions, but the vast bulk of Bell Labs employees were MTS.
As Bell Labs grew, and the work shifted significantly from longer-term research towards development,
particularly for software, it became difficult and expensive to fully staff to those educational requirements.
Consequently, the variety of employee categories expanded, and the graduate requirements disappeared.
Bachelor's Degree graduates were fully capable of performing the software programming duties being asked
of them.
While this enabled Bell Labs to revise their staffing costs downward and adequately staff the huge project
undertakings, it did not preserve the caliber of the previous employees. Or their motivation toward technical
competence

Fusion

 Fusion: Q Plasma vs Q Total explained

NIF, like other fusion experiments, the announced Q values are not correct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

Oh! Oh!!

 A series of unfortunate events

https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/29/doe-announces-investigation-of-series-of-events-at-lanl-plutonium-facility/

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments’ Office of Enforcement’s has announced its decision to conduct an investigation into the facts and circumstances associated with a series of events between February and July of this year occurring in the Plutonium (PF-4) Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Impact of CA Affordable homes bill

 Will these bills signed into law by Governor Newsom force and ensure mixed income housing developments are built in job centers like Livermore and Pleasanton, with minimal pushback?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=280MuPj_8uU

Will there be a government shutdown?

 Will there be a government shutdown, is so what does it mean for the labs. Do we still get paid?

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/mike-causey-federal-report/2021/09/government-shutdown-talk-is-back-again-have-we-learned-anything-from-the-last-ones/

CRT (again?)

 https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/24/critical-race-theory/

Well this has created another fire storm on the Los Alamos facebook pages. It is the usual where people are saying you should teach critical race theory at LA schools with other saying they do not know what critical race theory is and using the defections of 70s for legal studies and saying it is only taught in "advanced academic settings". Some people saying it is only teaching the truth and to be against is to be racists and so on , so the conversation is pretty low level. This is at the schools but I guess it could be coming to the labs.

Just a few points on CRT, while it is true that it originated from a theory for legal system in the US, the basic concept can be and is widely applied to large sections of the social sciences, and humanities. It is the the hypothesis that literally every thing in the US has racial issues baked in them. The original idea was that the legal system has inherent or as the say "structural: racism built in the foundation. In some was this also leads to the ideal of structural racism where the even though you cannot find a law that is obviously racists the whole thing is still racist you just cannot see it and it must be reason for any type of inequality we see in society. Like all "critical theories" this same idea can then be applied to any field such art, literature, music, games, sports, roads, transpiration, food, and so on. Critical theories in general are so common in humanities/social sciences because they can be very easily applied to your particular field. Suppose you study the history of TV shows, (yes there are professors who study that), than all you have to do is is reexamine your previous work on TV shows in the context of critical race theory to show that TV shows have built in biases and racism that support one group and suppress others you than write some papers and NPR will interview for your great work where you talk about how Gilligan's Island reinforces racism we did not even know it. Heck you could even take a critical race approach to a reading off Intel chip manual. When the general public uses the term "critical race theory", what they really mean is just critical study to any field where the assumption is that race controls everything.

Of course the problem is why should you believe any of this? Even in its original form in terms of looking at law, there is simply no reason to believe that any of it is true, it is only a conjecture of "here is the way the law is" followed by a series of assertions . Sure you can cheery pick some data to make your case and ignore everything else ect. None of these critical theory approaches are actually a "theories" in any scientific sense of the word. This type of work does not follow any scientific approach such as being falsifiability, without that why should any accept what they have to say.

I agree that history as least as accurate as we can make should be talked about, such as slavery, race, right to vote, Jim crow. Along with all the efforts to correct this and the progress that can be made. Applying a critical theory approach bases race in the US is not appropriate for high schools or below because there is no reason to believe the theory itself is correct, which is that structural racism is a massive issues that underlies and explains all current issues of race today. At this point this is open to debate and real evidence with actual numbers strongly argue against CRT interpretations particularly in things like law, crime, and so on.
Math, statistics and actual analysis of data are something you will not find in CR or CRT.

If this comes back to the Sandia, LLNL or LANL it will of course suffer the same issues, namely what is the evidence that CRT is correct, and what is the evidence that it is not correct, what are the alternatives, and what do simply not know.

Mandatory vaccine

Federal contractors must ensure employees are fully vaccinated by December

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/24/federal-contractors-vaccine-514201

For entertainment purposes...

 Here is a good conspiracy theory.

The Large Hadron Collider LHC at CERN is about to start up again after another upgrade. The last startup after an upgrade was in 2016. Some claim that has been creating holes in multiverse and we keep jumping to more and more absurd worlds here Trump got elected in 2016. One can also guess how crazy it is going to get once they turn it on again at even higher energies. Another scenario is we we are in a simulation and the LHC is creating events that are destabilizing the simulation. Who knows what comes next. Of course some would counter the recent crazy stuff just in 2021 before has occurred before it turned on. But what if part of the destabilization is due tachyon production so some of the real insanity we will see in the future is now leaking into the past to our current time.

Dept. of Energy's loan program

While most people have heard of Tesla, far fewer have heard of the United States Department of Energy Loan Programs Office.... 

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/573148-dept-of-energys-loan-program-helped-tesla-now-it-needs-to-help-low

Mason said...

 Mason just sent out an email on the vaccine mandates.

He laid out the plan which includes vacations and leave until the all clear to come back,
but termination was not listed as an option. Also I am sure working from home will also be accepted in some cases. I told you no one was getting fired.

Political debate on blog

 To fair to Scooby the labs are always going to be very entangled with politics. In fact there is more talk on political blogs about the possibility of nuclear war with China, Russia, or even Iran and NK. Nuclear weapons are kind of important to the labs you know. If it is being perceived by the world that American is on the decline than having a strong and credible nuclear deterrent could make sure any potential still thinks twice about trying to make advantage of this. Like it or not that labs will be playing a role a big role in the future of the United States and world stability.

Not to mention the Covid mandates at the labs also have political aspects. It is hard to avoid politics when discussing NNSA labs.

Scooby's rule: is more like no political debate that is not related to the labs, the issue is that so many political issues can be connected to the labs. I suppose someone could talk about abortion and that would be a topic that does not belong. However if someone says Trump might have used nukes, that certainly seems like something that could belong.

FDA rejects widespread Pfizer vaccine Booster Shots

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fda-rejects-pfizer-booster-vaccine_n_6144f00ce4b02cb84634f15a

FDA Advisory Panel Rejects Widespread Pfizer Vaccine Booster Shots
The panel did, however, endorse the extra shots for those who are 65 or older or at high risk of severe disease.

Could the labs still do a booster mandate just to be safe?

Trump stopped from using NUCs

 Trump stopped from using nuclear weapons!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9990247/Gen-Mark-Milley-secretly-dialed-Chinas-military-leader-amid-fears-Trump-start-war.html

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, took top-secret actions to prevent former President Donald Trump from using nuclear weapons, a new book claims. During her call with the general, the book details, Pelosi demanded to know what precautions Milley would take to prevent Trump from utilizing nuclear launch codes. Pelosi said, “You know [Trump’s] crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”Milley reportedly responded, “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-top-general-secretly-called-china-twice-trump-term-ended-report-2021-09-14/

U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army on Oct. 30, 2020 - four days before the election - and again on Jan. 8, two days after Trump supporters led a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, the newspaper reported. In the calls, Milley sought to assure Li the United States was stable and not going to attack and, if there were to be an attack, he would alert his counterpart ahead of time, the report said.

Sure it could have been bad, lots of dead people and all that but at least "testing" again would have been cool.

To be honest this whole story that has a ting of BS about it. Either it is totally made up, or Milley is gong beyond embellishing a lot to make himself look good. Something about it does not add up.

Welcome Mark Anthony

 https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/10/mark-anthony-to-join-lanl-as-new-associate-laboratory-director-for-plutonium-infrastructure/

LANL has announced that Mark Anthony, currently a projector director of the European Spallation Source in Sweden, will lead the Lab’s Associate Directorate for Plutonium Infrastructure.

September 11th not to be repeated

 

Scooby's note:

I got this as a comment in another post. It was off the subject but reflects on the new faces of terrorism. So,  it deserves a 'blog spot".😀

It is a very somber September 11 today. 20 years ago the biggest threat to our nation came from international terror. Now we face a much greater domestic terror threat, from extremists, fake news, misinformation, racism, propaganda, denied voting rights, womens rights, and radicalized nationalism. This has cost us 650k dead, the Jan 6th insurrection, leaving 5 dead police officers, and we 80 million people who refuse to get vaccinated which could lead to several hundred thousand more dead. We have chosen the wise course to leave many of our foreign entanglements such as Afghanistan to start focusing on domestic threats. The threat is now from within and is more dangerous than anything we have faced. Just as we called the time after 9/11 the global war on terror which we won, we now must realize that we could be entering a war on domestic terror which threatens our democracy. As Bush said 20 years ago, "they attacked us for our freedom", now we have allowed or own freedom to attack us, how ironic.



No Exemptions to Vaccine Mandates

 I’m a Former Pastor, and I Don’t Believe in ‘Religious Exemptions’ to Vaccine Mandates

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/opinion/religious-exemptions-vaccine-mandates.html

First, there is no actual religious basis for exemptions from vaccine mandates in any established stream of Christianity. Within both Catholicism and all the major Protestant denominations, no creed or Scripture in any way prohibits Christians from getting the vaccine. Even the sect of Christian Scientists, which historically has abstained from medical treatment, has expressed openness to vaccines for the sake of the wider community. The consensus of mainstream Christian leaders — from Pope Francis to Franklin Graham — is that vaccination is consistent with biblical Christian faith.

Biblically based arguments against vaccination have been rebutted.

But even with legitimate religious claims sincerely held, the law allows companies to forgo offering exemptions if doing so places an “undue hardship” on the employer. Increasing the risk of bringing an infectious disease into the workplace certainly qualifies.

Assembly at Ashley Pond Park

 From The New Mexico Freedoms Alliance:

In response to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for all employees, hundreds of workers will be Calling Out and gathering 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 7 in a Freedom Assembly at Ashley Pond Park.

https://ladailypost.com/lanl-workers-to-protest-vaccine-mandate-tuesday/

Herd Immunity

 “Herd Immunity” not achievable with the delta variant given its “reproductive number or “Re” is too high, but vaccinations can significantly lower severe illness and death.

Link 1 of 2

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/coronavirus-vaccine-efficacy-against-delta-variant-covid-booster-shot-is-pfizer-effective/10949401/

Link 2 of 2

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRb5hnTseU

Is it the end of Sandia Z program?

 Do the results from NIF mean the end to the Sandia Z program? The Sandia Z people hoped to build a new machine eventually. They face some big hurdles such as funding, problems with scaling from 26 to 60 mega amperes, and lack of robust target for achieving ignition. With NIF having basically achieved ignition, do we need to build or even maintain large pulsed power facilities. Also, I bet that Sandia corporate has more interest in other endeavors.

COVID and Flu.

 

Scooby's note: 

This post was sent in as a comment for another post but was irrelevant to the subject. However  it has an interesting subject and deserves to be a post. 

So some recent studies cam out suggesting that that up to 80% of everybody has either the vaccine or had Covid. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/health/covid-vaccines-seniors.html That is already over the states herd immunity. This was done for a study of over 1 million people. One thing this study suggested was that twice as many people had caught Covid that was reported which reduces the death rate by half, which is starting to put in more like a bad flu. You can ask why did we have so many excesses deaths than previous bad flues? One possibility is that Covid is simply way more contagious than most flues so way more people got it than the would with other flues. This sort of makes sense due to the spike protein which they said was very efficient. If this is true Covid is not that much deadlier than flues we had in the past but way more contagious.

The W. H. O looking at new COVID variant

 https://www.france24.com/en/health/20210901-new-coronavirus-variant-mu-under-close-scrutiny-by-who

Blog longevity

 I would like to point out that this blog is read by many people and has influence. Scooby does a great job, and keeps up the legacy of the blogs that become before. LLNL the true story has had been around the longest which speaks the for the longevity of this blog and the owner of the blog. Who knows what the future brings but I know for a fact that readers ranging from LLNL and many of the other labs have read this blog and it has made a difference keep up the good work. Thank you Scooby.

"And I Would Have Gotten Away With It, If It Weren't For You Meddling Kids And Your Dog.”

Is vaccine mandatory at LANL

 Hi Scooby-

Just heard today that LANL is requiring 100% COVID vaccination, with case by case exceptions for medical exceptions.
Is this something you've gotten info. on?
Thanks

Scooby's reply:

I am no more informed on LANL than you are but I am certain someone from there will chime in. 

Vaccine resistance

 I took the vaccine and I will take a booster. I am not in a high risk group but I see little personal downside. What I find odd is that all the people saying that if everyone just took the vaccine that we would get rid of Covid. This simply makes no sense. (1) The vaccines wear off rather rapidly. (2) Covid has all sorts of non-human hosts. If you vaccinated the world to 100% Covid is still around in tons of animals and will just come back like every other flu.

They say "listen to the science!". Ok I am a scientist, I am not an expert in epidemics but I do understand math. I have had a few conversations with the epidemic modeling crowd and one thing is obvious is that it is a complex systems and many of these models are not particularly accurate. The epidemic scientists are pretty honest about just how limited what they can predict but somehow the public and politicians have this idea that these scientists know exactly what is going on. In a complex system you simply do not have this level of predictability.

There is also the question is all the hysteria really worth it for fairly mellow disease at least in any historical perspective.
The death rate is rather low and is concentrated on the old and those with underlaying conditions. I would guess in the last 300 years there has been many pandemics of this same lethality that no one really noticed since the number of people over 65 has historically been very low. The 1918 flu killed young people, that is why we know so much about it. Where these mass lockdowns really all the effective? Maybe if they just concentrated on the vulnerable populations that would have been better? I know someone is going to say that is not what the scientists said to do! The problem again is that such systems they really do not know all the variables very well. It could very well be possible that non-locking down and only concentrating on the old could have actually saved more lives, they simply do not know at this point. By the way the number people who die of malaria every year is 410k. The number of Covid death per year is 2.75 million. That is much more but average age of people who died of malaria is much lower with like 60% being children, if you actually calculated total years of life lost it is about the same.

Now the question is if the US actually did a mandate could they get everyone to vaccinated? I would say no. You have have to be willing to go door to door and force people. If you look at the current vaccination rates by populations and groups you are going to run into some problems rather fast. The popular narrative is that it is white republicans that are not getting the vaccine. However if you do a simple calculation. ( I can go through this if you really want, but I simply urge to the reader think about it), you actually have a fairly even split of democrats and republicans who unvaccinated but probably slightly higher on the democratic side.

8/24/2021 9:19 AM

 

170kJ

 "170 kJ. That result suggested NIF was finally creating a “burning plasma,” in which the fusion reactions themselves provide the heat for more fusion—a runaway reaction that is key to getting higher yields. Then, on 8 August, a shot generated the remarkable 1.35 MJ. “It was a surprise to everyone,” Herrmann says. “This is a whole new regime.”"

That is certainly a big jump up and something to be happy about. I have a couple of problems. The first is it is only a single shot, if they could that two shot, three shots and so on then I think this is major. The issue is that this was a single shot, no two samples are the same on the atomic level by definition so it could be some odd property go the surface of the sample, lack of grain boundaries or defects act, not to mention that rare events can arise where by chance some particles just happen to go the right way due to chaotic dynamics. This could be some kind of lucky shot kind of thing where some unknown parameter could be present that could hard to reproduce. Single event discoveries happen all the time that cannot be reproduced, like the magnetic monopole. Perhaps they know a lot more that will be in the paper that shows that this result is repeatable and can be built upon. Let us hope so., I am also a bit leery they that the go from 170 to 1.35 MJ, a rather large jump. It may be possible that the burning phase simply has a long trail distribution with mostly short times but occasionally you get a long time.

On a funny note I was watching popular sci-tech podcast tonight and they talked about the great new laser induced fusion just done at some place in California when someone said you mean UC Berkley National labs to be exact. Ha

NIF laser-powered fusion

 NIF: laser-powered fusion may beat tokamaks soon.

Someone in California is apparently still working on hot applied nuclear physics research (not just critical race theory). Unless we are completely lied to, I think that the super-optimistic headline is justified.

With explosive new result, laser-powered fusion effort nears ‘ignition’

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/explosive-new-result-laser-powered-fusion-effort-nears-ignition

https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/08/nif-laser-powered-fusion-may-beat.html

How's that working out?

 Trump negotiated with the Taliban without the Afghan government involved to 1) have the Taliban give up their ties with Al Qaeda, and 2) the US leave by May 1. Oh, and the Afghans to release 5000 Taliban prisoners they held. Biden says he was bound by it. How's that working out?

NNSA Labs and the war on terror

 The NNSA labs and many other labs got funds for research on counter terror including actions in Afghanistan. In fact the US spent 2 trillion dollars on Afghanistan. You could say we got Bin Ladin or at least forced him into Pakistan and then we got him which was 10 years ago, but other than that the whole thing as a huge waste of money and lives. The US is now just another empire to come to Afghanistan and fail. Plenty of blame to go around on this one. All those nukes and high tech gadgets just do not cut it sometimes. I like the saying I heard about what the Taliban have said of the US high tech version of war, "you have all the watches but we have all the time".

Maybe we should reconsider how we do national security in terms of intelligence gathering, tactics, weapons, analysis, and reliance on high tech and massive fire power. All those super smart military and intelligence agencies sure called this one wrong.

1 MJ NIF yield

 Can anyone here verify the 1 MJ NIF yield that was mentioned on this blog? I don’t see any news release on that and it’s supposedly been a week since the experiment.

So much for harassment claims expecting impartial reviews in the workplace.

 So much for harassment claims expecting impartial reviews in the workplace.

"ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, said late Sunday that she had resigned, a move that came as the governor fought for political survival after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded he had sexually harassed nearly a dozen women...The state attorney general report found that Ms. DeRosa had spearheaded efforts to retaliate against one of the women who had spoken out publicly about her allegation in December."

and

"The chairwoman of Time’s Up, a group that supports victims of sexual harassment, resigned Monday amid backlash over revelations she helped New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in drafting a letter that smeared one of his accusers."

Is LLNS HR open?

 Hello, 

I am a retiree trying to reach HR at LLNL for a question. I have been trying for a month with via e-mail to 

llnl-benefits@llnl.gov

And through voice mails. 

Is HR still confined? 

Any tip is appreciated. 

Bad Faith Bargaining Practices

 Citing "Bad Faith Bargaining Practices"

Lawrence Livermore National Lab Workers Plan for Three-Day Strike

https://www.independentnews.com/news/lawrence-livermore-national-lab-workers-plan-for-three-day-strike/article_46303102-ee4d-11eb-be27-df539f7b3e48.html

LLNL Panel Sheds Light on Gender Bias in the Scientific Community

https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/llnl-panel-shed

s-light-on-gender-bias-in-the-scientific-community/

Los Alamos nuclear waste too hazardous to move

 Report: Some Los Alamos nuclear waste too hazardous to move

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/report-some-los-alamos-nuclear-waste-too-hazardous-to-move/article_59875868-f3b9-11eb-8af9-fb6a70a28705.html

Los Alamos National Laboratory has identified 45 barrels of radioactive waste so potentially explosive — due to being mixed with incompatible chemicals — that crews have been told not to move them and instead block off the area around the containers, according to a government watchdog’s repo

Are the labs in decline?

 Are the labs in decline? Or more to the point if they are is something only to with the labs or is it bigger than that?

What exactly is the future of the NNSA labs?

I just read this.

Of course the US is in retreat mode. Everywhere you go you hear talk of seccession, civil war, uncontrolled immigration.. We’re no longer the good guys, so servicemen are just mercenaries. Today’s military would make the mixed-race divisions that bugged out in the Korean war look like Stonewall Jackson’s regiment at 1st Bull Run. Who would fight for this sh_t show? Not to mention the mentally retarded weapon systems. What do you call $20 billion of sunk costs? An aircraft carrier.

Cuomo

 Cuomo: Hiding in plane sight while claiming to be a champion of the MeToo movement?

What does it say for the national respect and understanding of the MeToo movement when 11 women (so far) said Governor Cuomo
inappropriately touched or groped them? Will Cuomo’s staff accused of aiding and abetting such behavior by covering up, discrediting, or destroying the careers of these courageous women be held accountable too?

Cease & Desist Letters

 LANL, SNL served with Cease & Desist Letters over COVID-19 Vaccine, Testing, and Masking Requirements

https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/07/26/organization-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-lanl-regarding-covid-19-mandates-threatens-legal-action/

SNL has also been served, but there is no article yet. Here is a link to the letter: https://file.io/HaKVZTW4E1mz

How far off was NIF?

 In 2012, NIF failed to achieve ignition, and subsequently, Dr. Ed Moses left LLNS employment. Have any external peer reviews estimated how far off NIF was in terms of peak power or energy to achieve momentary fusion?

Mask Mandates

 Mask Mandates

So, what’s each site doing about the new mandates?

Tennessee sites have reinstated mandatory masking.

Do you agree with the senators?

 Manchin and colleagues want in national labs infrastructure. 

https://www.energy.senate.gov/2021/7/manchin-joins-colleagues-in-urging-investment-in-national-lab-infrastructure

LLNS employee statutes in 2021

 In 2021, in terms of long term job security, what does it really mean to be a so called a LLNS “Career Indefinite employee” vs. a “Supplemental Labor” employee in practice given LLNS employment actions?

Anthony T. Rivera v. U.S. Department of Energy

 

Here is the timeline of my Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Case # 20-16012,
"Anthony T. Rivera v. U.S. Department of Energy":

2-18-21: I file my "Opening Brief”

3-15-21: DOE requests and is granted an extension of time to file their
"Answering Brief”

4-21-21: DOE files their “Answering Brief”

5-12-21: I file my “Reply Brief” (which was optional)

Earthquake hits Northern New Mexico

 Earthquake hits Northern New Mexico!!! No damage this time but it shows for certain that we should not be building pits in New Mexico. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/earthquake-shakes-small-northern-n-m-town/article_6b7a2b70-e33f-11eb-9014-eb63f4e59215.html

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