Charlie Verdon phones it in from home in final days as fed
In light of recent events are LLNL and LANL more relevant now or less relevant now. I can see both sides. If one had read the LANL or LLNL Blogs since 2006 several posters have pointed out that Russia or China could be watching how we treated the national weapons lab that the US may not have a credible deterrent. I am pretty sure that China was not calling all their lab scientists cowboys and butt-heads that could be easily replaced by just random people. I am pretty sure they did privatize their labs as to sleazy for-profit companies. I am pretty sure they did have public hearings saying how the labs are full of arrogant eggheads who "don't get it".
Gang Chen, whose case was just dismissed, is doing his pity tour for the US media:
NB:
This post was submitted with a link to a NY Times article. Link requires subscription. So, I substituted it with an accessible link.
Please do not submit subscription-only links.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-chen-mit-professor-china-charges-dropped/
You Had an Affair. What Does That Mean for Your Clearance?
Mason is giving his all hands talk.
Triad National Security, LLC has earned an overall “Very Good” rating and an overall 83.7 percent of its award fee for its Managing & Operating contract at Los Alamos National Laboratory for FY2021. The total amount awarded is $46.7 million out of almost $50 million that was available. The National Nuclear Security Administration announced the performance results in a three-page summary that can be viewed here: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/FY21%20Triad%20PES%20Final.pdf.
Here is an interesting ranking system for government and private institutions.
Very versatile.
https://www.scimagoir.com/rankings.php?sector=Government&country=USA&area=2100
https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholars-argue-field-of-nuclear-science-is-racist/
The University of Michigan in June 2020 declared that the nuclear engineering field was not diverse enough and that it sought to do better.
“call for antiracist action” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
“The very notion of nuclear weapon and non-weapon states, and some of the language deployed to characterize this divide, perpetuates Western hegemony and dominance over the Global South,” the piece argued.
It also outlined how American nuclear science is allegedly awash with racism, from geographical sites chosen for testing to racism in the workplace, both past and present.
“The nuclear engineering field was founded in military and classified programs with a white, male dominated, and hierarchical worldview and never really changed. We became a very cloistered field, unable to open the door and welcome vast amounts of talent. To date, the nuclear sector has failed to create a culture where Black people can thrive and have an impact,” the department stated at the time.
“The nuclear field developed during a time when racist and colonialist ideas were very normalized. … So when you have a system like the nuclear enterprise developing during the time where these sorts of ideas are prevalent, you’re going to get a nuclear field that is infused with those norms and as a result systematically erases or dismisses the contributions and concerns of people of color.