LLNL - The True Story -

To/MS: LANL-All From/MS: Charles F. McMillan, DIR, A100 Phone/Fax: 7-5101/Fax 7-2679 Symbol: DIR-15-050 Date: April 30, 2015 Subject: Agreement in Principle with New Mexico Environment Department The U.S. Department of Energy and the State of New Mexico have signed general principles of agreement to resolve the State’s claims against DOE and contractors, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, related to the February 2014 drum breach at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, N.M. The agreement in principle is a positive step for the Laboratory because it allows us to move forward on restoring our transuranic waste processes and rebuilding credibility in our nuclear operations. I wish to thank all of our employees for their continuing hard work and dedication as we continue this year to advance our scientific excellence, complete all necessary deliverables, and correct deficiencies across all areas of the Laboratory. Detailed information about the agreement can be found a...

http://www.koat.com/news/tax-hike-could-impact-sandia-national-labs/32625334

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/ash-carter-silicon-valley-appeal-117293.html Wonder if these Silicon Valley engineers will enjoy their polygraphs and reporting all their foreign contacts. Should be easy to find companies with no foreign nationals and no connections with overseas investors or suppliers. Every Silicon Valley startup will want their own SCIF so they can get instructions from Washington. You go Ash!

Federally funded R&D center spending declined, latest figures say. Spending has fallen since one-time federal infusion of funds in fiscal year 2009 National Science Foundation April 21, 2015 News Release The majority of the nation's federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs) reported spending less on research and development in fiscal year 2013 than they had the previous year, according to a new InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). The report details that the 40 federally-funded centers spent $16.9 billion on research and development in fiscal year 2013. Of those, 24 reported declines from fiscal year 2012, and 17 reported two straight years of decreased spending. Federal funding for the centers has been declining since a high of $18 billion in total spending was reported in fiscal year 2010. That peak corresponded with the one-time American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which account...

Anyone gotten their health insurance bill from Empyrean ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/us/in-atomic-labs-across-us-a-race-to-stop-iran.html?rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article&_r=0

Mark Gubrud has just posted an excellent examination of the distinction (or lack thereof) between autonomous and semi-autonomous lethal weapons systems. Best regards, Janice Semi-autonomous and on their own: Killer robots in Plato's Cave:   http://ow.ly/LxHuZ   --  Janice Sinclaire Internet Outreach Coordinator

Nothing much new here, other than the information on foaming and smoking drums that were apparently sent from LANL to WIPP. http://www.abqjournal.com/570812/news/final-report-on-wipp-leak-blames-lanl-doe.html

What does all the salaried employees at Livermore think about the new hour for hour sick and vacation leave reporting coming in July?

NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: Observations on Management Challenges and Steps Taken to Address Them GAO-15-532T: Published: Apr 15, 2015. Publicly Released: Apr 15, 2015. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-532T

"Will LANS and LLNS employees have an opportunity for a "360 review" of their respective LLC employer to be evaluated by DOE and NNSA?"  Lab employee opinions of their relatively new "for-profit" employers varies from "they are the best thing to happen to the labs" to "they hijacked the labs for their own non-mission related interests".  From a mission objective perspective, why wouldn't the DOE and NNSA leverage the unedited and anonymous experiences of "boots on the ground" lab employees to help formulate a plan forward for these two labs? 

Sandia involved in hacking private citizens At the 2012 TCB Jamboree, presenters from Sandia National Laboratories, which is a contractor for the Department of Energy, described an attack on Xcode, the Apple software used to compile applications in Mac OS X and iOS. The “whacked” Xcode exploit, called Strawhorse, enables intelligence agents to implant a version of Xcode on developers' computers which, unbeknownst to the developers, would cause software they compile to include a backdoor or other compromise. If successful, the attack could enable a range of surveillance-friendly applications to be covertly made available to the public. The report suggests that the Sandia team discovered and employed a number of additional vulnerabilities in Apple’s hardware and software, including a vulnerability in Apple's secure element that enabled them to extract a secret key, and one that allowed modification of the OS X updater to install a keylogger

Ernie Moniz is doing a better job of preventing nuclear weapon production in the US than he is doing to prevent nuclear weapon production in Iran!

Robert Weissman  President, Public Citizen PRIVATIZATION DOGMA CONFRONTS REALITY AT LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LAB Posted: 04/07/2015 5:32 pm EDT Updated: 9 minutes ago In instance after instance, privatization reduces quality and fails to save money. The cost "savings" achieved through privatization - if any -- simply involve laying off workers (and doing less) or reducing workers' wages and benefits. The Government Accounting Office has found that contractors routinely fail to pay required wages. These aren't the kinds of efficiency gains promised through privatization. And, these "savings" in wages are commonly offset by the profits extracted by corporate privateers. One apparent case in point is the privatization of management of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area. Long managed by the University of California as part of the nation's nuclear research infrastructure, Livermore had serious management problems, including significant security-...

"OFCCP Announces Proposed Rule Barring Contractor Pay Secrecy Policies, Retaliation" "...Sept. 15 — The Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Sept. 15 announced a proposed rule under Executive Order 11,246 that would prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from maintaining pay secrecy policies and from discriminating against employees and applicants who discuss, disclose or inquire about compensation. “Workers cannot solve a problem unless they are able to identify it,” OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu said in a statement. “And they cannot identify it if they aren't free to talk about it without fear of reprisal.” According to a notice of proposed rule-making (RIN 1250-AA06) published in the Sept. 17 Federal Register (79 Fed. Reg. 55,712), contractors must incorporate the new nondiscrimination requirement into their employee manuals or handbooks, as well as disseminate it to employees and applicants..." http://www.bna.com/o...

Finally received my "Empyrean Customer Care Center for LANL" bill for April retiree medical coverage today (April 6th).  Noticed the bill was made of thin, very cheap quality paper with no easy-tear perforations on the payment invoice (had to use scissors to separate it) and they don't bother to put a return envelope in the letter. Haven't yet tried to login to their web site but others have reported problems. My impressions of the mail received is one of "cheesy-ness" and corner cutting. Hopefully, the company performs well. We'll see how it all goes from here....

I assume that NIF has been unsuccessful in increasing its yield beyond the 26 kJ high-foot results? I haven't seen any news articles after the "break-even" PR campaign.  Why can't the ICF program be simply shut down? Why do programs such as Omega in Rochester continue as well? Recently I heard that the Z MagLIF (the Sandia version of fusion) results were not very promising after some earlier fanfare. Yes, there are the usual stockpile stewardship arguments. But ICF is a dud. It probably is the perpetual motion machine of our time.

Curious as to how our government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on silly and unworkable defense systems always trumpeted as being "transformational game changers" but in reality... expensive flops used to enrich the military industrial complex bank accounts? Here's how it's done in this weeks LA Times: ............................................................... The Pentagon’s$10-billion bet gone bad graphics.latimes.com/missile-defense/

As a retiree I RECEIVED MY empyrean letter and tried to get on their web site and did not find it whats up   Anonymous  said... Try again. I signed up for auto payments ACH and no problem. Website  design is good. Phone service works as well. I like to know why LLNS, LLC decided to put LLNL retirees under Empyrean ? So far as known, rest of LLNL employees remain with Aon Hewitt.

Does anybody remember which CPI data is used for calculate the yearly adjustment of LLNL TCP1 pension benefit CPI inflator? I can't remember if it is the CPI all factors, CPI urban worker wages, or CPI all factors minus food and energy. It is the average of Feb - Feb annual rate for SFO and Los Angeles urban areas, but I can't remember which measurement. For LA depending on which one is used, it can be between 0.1 and 1%, for SF it will be between 2% and 3.5% based on recently released data. So the expected increase in July will be either 1% or 2% depending on which measurement is used. Anybody have the reference?