Did he really say only two points?

Go back and listen to Charlie's spin on the loss of the LANL contract. It sure looks like he is claiming that only 2 points seperated the loss from an extension. Really? An employee nearly dies in an electical accident, after LANL had been specifically warned about electrical safety, and he spins it to make it look like a close decision.

DOE could have assigned any score from 0 to 50 for this near fatal accident. It doesn't matter what the score is, the contract is over this year. To spin it otherwise is a pathetic attempt to safe face.
Comments: Anonymous said...: The story I heard was that the score was much lower than that but the sight office or DOE moved it up 49 percent for some reason. They where not close at all.; January 15, 2016 at 9:07 PM
Anonymous said...: They moved the score so that Charlie could save face. The score, such as it is, is completely arbitrary anyway. Furthermore, they people who choose the score are bureaucrats with no practical experience in anything. It is truly a situation of the blind leading the blind while the rich get richer. Why anyone believes this fiasco is somehow good for the country is beyond me.; January 16, 2016 at 8:06 AM
Anonymous said...: The whole scoring process for the PEPs is a complete joke to begin with. Its solely handled by the NNSA site office - which has a clear conflict of interest. If they can't give a truly low score slamming LANS since it would call into question their day-to-day oversight of LANL and the LANS contract. So they score it just low enough to end the contract but not where it really would be if you objectively looked at the year's performance and issues.; January 16, 2016 at 8:18 AM
Anonymous said...: For once DOE/NNSA (i.e. Charlie's "The Government") finally had some "balls" to do the right thing.; January 16, 2016 at 9:54 AM

Plutonium Shots on NIF.

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...

Trump is to gut the labs.

The budget has a 20% decrease to DOE office of science, 20% cut to NIH. NASA also gets a cut. This will have a huge negative effect on the lab. Crazy, juts crazy. He also wants to cut NEA and PBS, this may not seem like a big deal but they get very little money and do great things.

LLNL un-diversity

Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it. Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!

Anonymous said…

CYA CYA CYA, its the only thing I saw to be a consistent practice at LANL.

1/20/2016 12:44 PM

CYA CYA CYA, its the only thing I saw to be a consistent practice at LANL.

January 20, 2016 at 12:44 PM

It's the ONLY practice now by LANS Management, they are just hunkering down in their trenches milking the hind tit until it goes dry in one to two years. As an example, I saw Steve Girrens (AD Engineering) with his feet on his desk fast asleep at 10 a.m. Worthless individual. The rest of LANS Management is doing the same, just waiting it out, doing nothing but "CYA", that's it!

1/21/2016 3:36 AM

No big deal. Everyone does it.

1/23/2016 10:45 AM

The only thing that Girrens does is coordinate National Engineers Week each year. Tough job for a $750,000 salary!

1/30/2016 3:41 AM

Tough job for a $750,000 salary!

January 30, 2016 at 3:41 AM

Please cite your source for that salary number. I don't believe it.

1/30/2016 9:06 PM

US News and World Report,July20, 2015

2/01/2016 12:55 PM