Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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This is as it should be. No reason for the government to continue to prop up these pie-in-the-sky energy "alternatives" which have failed to show economic viability for 20 years. If they can't make it in the marketplace, there is no reason for taxpayers to fund them.
August 3, 2011 8:48 PM"
Hell ya brother, but you are only half right, the whole DOE, NSF, NASA, and NIH budget should be cut. If this stuff is so great why should the taxpayer have to pay for it.
What about the economic viability of nukes? Are we going to sell them in WallMart?
In the mean time the Chinese beat us in anything technological, because the government supports science. Fastest computer, solar technology, green energy. All the stuff of the future economy. But not here. Lets' go back to the caves is the apparent motto.
It's opinions like yours which will lead to be the downfall of the US.
August 4, 2011 10:55 AM
Just more evidence of Liberals' sense of entitlement about government funding. Your research field has yielded nothing significant for over 20 years. Maybe the government should just guarantee all energy needed by anyone, by whatever means, forever, right? Just like food, education, health care, housing, a "living wage" job, and oh yeah, free burial so as not to inconvenience your heirs. China is not funding "alternative energy" for egalitarian reasons. It fears its populace, which our government has forgotten how to do. The US is supposed to free its people to do good, not support them to accomplish nothing, like you.
Meanwhile the Federal reserve sent trillions of dollars to their banking friends in foreign countries. Should I even mention the pallets of hundred dollar bills that were given away, without a trace, in Iraq?
You just have to be in the right cartel to avoid layoffs. DOE is not the favored cartel.
The government should pay for defense and thats all. Why the hell should we pay NASA to send a piece of useless junk to Mars? None of this "science" ever makes money. The people are sick of paying for liberals to play in multi million dollar sandboxes. Stop the madness! I bet as soon as we stop funding for NASA, NSF, NIH,
and most of DOE and return the money to private sector that any useful "science" that pays off would be done. As for the labs, we should do work related to defense only! Also the government should never send a single cent to any University again. If a University wants research than they should have it paid for by its customers which are the people dumb enough to pay for a college "eduction". Again stop the madness! U Ra
August 4, 2011 9:41 PM
Oh BS. The DoD and DOE/NNSA are the worse departments for waste, fraud, and abuse. There's alot of 3rd rate science going on that need to be eliminated.
Currently, revenues are $2.6T, budget $4.0T.
If all tax revenues are increased by 20% across the board ( yes your income tax and FICA by 20%, it reduces the deficit to about 800B or 33% or revenues.
Too get close to balanced, all federal revenues need to be reduced by 33%.
Every one. Your salary, my social security, the DoD and war budgets, your kids Pell grants...
In this environment, research in reduction in carbon footprints is unwise and should be cancelled. Almost all of the DHS and most DoE programs should be cancelled as well.
Federal and contractor Salaries should be reduced across the board, and mid-level manager eliminated, along with waste treatment, assurances and most human relations activities.
It kinda doesn't matter how we feel about it.
We are broke. The only thing keeping it from happening is that Congress members are incompetent.
Kinda extravagant, don't cha think?
How did we elect such a clusterflight of stumblebum wastrels? And why do we follow them?
Is it still legal to tar and feather?
No it is not BS, DoD and NNSA are needed but as I said we need to get rid of the so called "science" in these organizations. We still need to make sure the nukes work, the drones can fly, radar, and detection will function. If the private sector knows that it is safe from attack or war and that our interests abroad are safe than the free market can run its course. We do need to get rid of waste but any waste in say the Dod pails in comparison to things like welfare, medicare for drug addicts, social security for people who refused to work a day in their lives, and yes lazy college professors. Start at the low hanging fruit first and than clean out the liberal sandbox scientists at Dod and NNSA. Things are changing.
If only. That sentence should read "all federal expenses need to be reduced by 33%..."
We can no longer afford these labs, maybe a small one at best. We all this was going to happen. You just cannot go one spending other peoples money forever.
August 5, 2011 6:10 PM
Nonsense. The S&P credit rating will have no effect on the federal budget. Treasury will have to raise interest rates on its securities slightly, if at all. S&P is only one rating agency, and the others have kept the AAA. The sky is not falling. Keeping exorbitant social programs and killing research is eating our seed corn. Scared institutional investors (pension funds and mutual funds) are killing us. Ayn Rand: "You can escape reality, but you cannot escape the consequences of escaping reality."
The next month we hear... "Lab funding will suffer huge cuts".
I'm getting dizzy just trying to follow these rapidly changing winds coming from Washington.
Then again, perhaps these strong, changing winds are nothing more than the outpouring of loud Congressional farts?
August 5, 2011 8:25 PM
Stop trying to figure it out. The massive funding increases for NNSA were proposed before the latest debt "crisis." the political winds blow fickle. The answer is not to believe anything that comes out of Washington before it actually happens (up to ten years after it is announced as a proposal). Get a clue about Washington reality. Happiness lies in not listening to the "news."
I believe Wall Street was running its course in most of the past decade and we sure took that free market right up our butts.
S&P had the bank crisis totally wrong--and got paid very well for it thank you. They are just getting out ahead this time.
The free market is just another human construct with all the inherent weakness, and strengths, of humanity itself.
looks grim. What does it mean for LLNL?
Perhaps the person did not actually mean that the loss of some seals matters to the lab or the nation but that after 10 years in a losing war combined with the downgrade are a huge blow to the image and confidence in the US. This can be seen as a wakeup call that old days are over, we cannot afford such a huge military, to police the world, spend like crazy on "dream acts", sandbox science, DHS, and so on. We even have to start considering cutbacks in social security and medicare. This will matter to the labs and every other aspect of the American way of life.
August 16, 2011 6:35 PM"
At LANL managers only talk with other managers, they feel it is beneath them to speak with staff.
I assume that DOE in general might be the same way.
I assume that DOE in general might be the same way.
August 17, 2011 7:06 AM
That's right. In 5-years, the only time I heard from the Division Leader and Associate Lab Director was to inform me to leave the Division and go work elsewhere. Fact is, we are run by a bunch of arrogant nerds; at all three Labs.