Take a look here. Peruse those bios. You will see a collection of retired admirals, lawyers and ... quite a few folks of very modest educational backgrounds and accomplishments. Yes, they are incapable of understanding what's going on in the NW complex, which involves extremely complex, multidisciplinary science and sophisticated engineering. Yet, they managed to get themselves put in charge of this $12B enterprise. How did this happen? These folks must be really clever to get up there lacking even the most basic qualifications.
Comments
I have to admit that I am pretty shocked at what I read. The biggest shocker is the lack of technical background for these people. Just on the face of it I really doubt they any kind of understating of the engineering and scientific technicalities of the labs. It seems like it is just some some random bureaucracy that you place people that need to be placed somewhere in the system. We now are overrun with Admirals and Generals and than ex-Admirals and ex-Generals that need to keep the high paying jobs going so we have to create random bureaucracies for them.
There are some article discussing the rapid growth of Admirals and Generals. We now have more Admirals than ships
http://archive.navytimes.com/article/20110914/NEWS/109140316/Watchdog-group-Too-many-generals-admirals
A May 2013 GAO analysis found that the number of support staff at DoD's Combatant Command headquarters grew "by about 50 percent from fiscal years 2001 through 2012." This has created added distance between commanders and warfighters. "In some cases the gap between me and an action officer may be as high as 30 layers," Gates once stated, resulting in a "bureaucracy which has the fine motor skills of a dinosaur."
A top-heavy military also has serious financial costs. Despite a declining defense budget, generals and admirals continue to live like kings, living in mansions and surrounding themselves with entourages that would make Jay-Z envious. In fact, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report, there are "hundreds of high-priced homes in the Pentagon inventory." Just operating and maintaining these homes can exceed $100,000 annually; some homes, like those on prime waterfront real estate at D.C.'s Fort McNair, cost around $1 million to renovate.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/07/24/the-pentagon-has-too-many-troops
January 21, 2016 at 3:33 PM
A sweeping insult to a lot of people, unsubstantiated by any facts or statistics. Just a mean, random thing to say, to feel better I guess.
January 21, 2016 at 5:57 PM
Aww, leave the poor old sour grapes guy alone. He can't help that he was fired for incompetence in whatever job he had - except to denigrate anyone else who actually has education, professional credentials, experience, and real professional credibility for accomplishments. If he had bothered to graduate from high school, he'd probably feel better.
January 21, 2016 at 7:12
That my friends is the culture of arrogance that is so common in the the labs.
It's like the guy has a little cheat sheet with a short flowchart on how to respond. When everything else fails, the last step reads: "smear scientists: decry the culture of arrogance".
Arrogance right there, did Steve Jobs have a Phd, does Bill Gates have a Ph.d, does Obama have a Ph.d...no, education means nothing never has never will. Shut that labs down!
January 23, 2016 at 7:06 AM"
This is why I am so grateful that I never went to college it terns you into an arrogant, mean and useless jerk. It is no wander why everyone hates the eggheads on the hill.
January 23, 2016 at 3:03 PM
You are glad because you will earn a small percentage of what college graduates earn over your lifetime (which will by the way be much shorter than college graduates), and because you will never have the opportunity to travel, or to enjoy the finer things that life has to offer, or that your kids will grow up with less education and opportunity to succeed, or that you will in all likelihood die with nothing to leave your kids, or that you will leave nothing behind with your name on it as a professional accomplishment? You chose to be low on the economic ladder, and to condemn your family to that fate. If you are "grateful" for that choice, I have no problem with your decision, but I bet everyone around you wishes you were a better provider, and did something with your potential instead of squandering it.
If this is the reason you did not go to college, I pity you. Most of the people I know, who went to college are compassionate and caring. Like in any group of people, you will find jerks among college graduates.
Adolf Hitler, btw also did not go to college. Jeffrey Dahmer did one semester. Now do I believe that anyone who did not go to college is like those guys? No.
Maybe it's time to let go of your inferiority complex and enjoy life as you have it.
January 23, 2016 at 11:38 PM
Huh? Where? Did you post in the wrong thread?
So you get the flexible second team vagabonds, the 45 yr old almost flag officers. No at clever mind in the group.
January 31, 2016 at 8:35 AM
Screwww you, scientist all sucks. Not a mind in place for hou yjerk.
So You are drivl, me nlt.
January 31, 2016 at 8:01 PM
If you don't know how common this is among LLNL and LANL employees, you are very naive. Nobody wants to go back to work.
Sounds more like a LLNL person to me.
February 2, 2016 at 9:07 PM
You should have seen the ones that Julian deleted!
Yeah, as if...