Anonymously contributed by a different contributor:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-scientists-blame-los-alamos.html
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-scientists-blame-los-alamos.html
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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If the administrators refer to LANS/LLNS management I completely agree. In the past, I had confidence in my Lab management to support and protect me. I respected them and they respected me. The current LANS/LLNS managers (e.g. Bret Knapp) are self-promoting and ruthless.
Efficient "business operations" and the subsequent spin-off of profits for Bechtel and their business partners take top billing. PBIs, baby et al.
Science and research are in decline at the labs. That, along with the fact that almost none of the staff who are left seem to really care about the labs since the managers with big, fancy cars and shiny shoes began showing up to pillage the place.
Numerous reports have now documented the destruction of the NNSA labs. All have been ignored. This new report will do little to stem the decline.
Only one third of that goes to support the actual salary of the scientist doing work. The rest ... Well, we have layers upon layers of management, some of which didn't exist before the contract change and all of which are now more expensive. We also pay for asinine computer changes (in the name of "security", of course) that do nothing but impede work, the folks who write and rewrite new rules and procedures, who gave us UTrain and pee tests and took away clean drinking water... The list goes on and on.
For every person at LANL trying to do work there are now two parasites working to impede the said work. And to think that the LLCs were sold to the taxpayer as a way to improve efficiencies.
But the most important thing is this. This bloated system is designed to deliver to the NNSA what they want. The scary thing is what the NNSA actually wants. They want compliance. Only compliance. That's the sole product of the LLCs, piles and piles of compliance paperwork. There is not a single incentive tied to science. So, the ultimate evil here comes from DOE and NNSA, the shiny-shoe people are simply there to oblige.
However, we do have a lot of new, highly paid Bechtel managers coming and going throughout the complex. Bechtel likes to "park" them at the labs during the slack times between big Bechtel engineering projects that happen outside of the NNSA labs.
Keep wearing those famous "shoes that GRIP!", folks. Winter is almost here.
No word, yet, though from LANS management about layoffs. They'll probably keep mum about it until just before any layoff is executed.
Not sure how LANL would manage paying severance with the budget problems, though. Perhaps they won't even bother and just remove it from the benefits offered to employees before any layoffs. That would be sleazy, but LANS could follow the Bechtel corporate game plan for doing layoffs. A round of mass firings would also have the same effect (i.e., staff reductions with no severance or unemployment payments for LANS to worry about).