UC and Texas A&M to team up on bid to operate LANL The New Mexican Dec 9, 2017 "When the University of California submits its bid Monday to continue management of Los Alamos National Laboratory, the public institution from the biggest, bluest state in the country will have a partner: Texas A&M University. The two large university systems, one from a solid Democratic state and the other from the largest Republican-led state, are planning to join forces in a proposal to manage the national lab for the next decade. Though university officials would not confirm the partnership, The New Mexican has learned from a source that they are working as a team to put together a unified proposal...Another known bidder is the University of Texas System, a consortium of 14 campuses with a flagship in Austin... Neither officials at the University of California nor those at Texas A&M would confirm their partners or say whether they are working together. "We can’t confirm or discuss any of our bid
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UC-Texas A&M vs UT-Battelle.
Awesome, things are looking up. UT with a 14 university consortium sounds good as well.
Wow, so much for "the fee will be to low for anyone to bid for LANL". Looks like there is plenty of eager bidders. So we have UC-Texas AM, and the UT-consortium. I have heard there where four big teams, which could be Battelle, In any case these teams seem much stronger than before and we have gotten rid of the bonus nonsense which created such a horrible culture in the first place.
There is also the sense that the next contract is about making LANL better, in 2005 the sense was the new contract was about punishing LANL, particularly punishing the scientists and engineers. This time it has a very different feeling.
If LANL is picked up by a non-profit team, annual salary data might be available again, and any salary patterns detected from 11+ years of LANS would likely apply to cousin LLNS. "Lucy, you've got some splaining to do".
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/uc-texas-a-m-may-be-teaming-on-lanl-bid/article_953ef4d6-1e04-57fb-833f-5edc42684a71.html
I have to give it to Chuck Montano as having best of the best comments with link to his book to boot! Man you cannot make this stuff up.
Chuck Montano · The University of New Mexico - UNM
The shotgun marriage of Texas A&M to the University of California is so that UC can keep receiving hundreds of millions of dollars each year, pretending to be the saving grace for LANL, a weapons of mass destruction facility, providing cover for the institution whose real purpose is to keep funneling billions of taxpayer dollars, each year, into the coffers of the military-industrial corporate complex and their political minions. A union of this nature, to attack the threat of global warming, would be a godsend. No such luck, though. www.losalamosdiary.com
The Mechels comments where kind of let down, he can do better.
On a more serious note it is a bit surprising why people are shocked by UC and Texas AM as they
think this is some teaming of the polical ideologies of California with Texas, which it is not. It is the teaming with two University systems which share common goals of science, research, eduction and service. UC was previously running the labs and Texas AM is close and already has strong ties, so the merge makes a lot of sense. I had also heard Texas and UC where talking at some point as well. Not to mention that it is simplistic to say everyone and everything in California is leftest or everything in Texas is right wing, which of course neither is true.
The Mike Johnson guy is bit thin.
"If this isn't "The Odd Couple", I don't know what is. A left wing/socialist UC and a right wing capitalist organization? Wiil wonders never cease....... ;-{)"
UC is not a socialist organization and Texas AM is not a capitalist organization. They are both Universities not political parties. Not to mention that left wing can still be perfectly capitalistic and right wing can be socialist/government run. Mike, the world is slightly more subtle than you think.
"The shotgun marriage of Texas A&M to the University of California is so that UC can keep receiving hundreds of millions of dollars each year, pretending to be the saving grace for LANL"
First the Texas AM -UC bid is not a shotgun marriage since there is no one holding the proverbial shotgun as both are willing partners. UC never received hundreds of millions of dollars each year at best maybe 20 million, not to mention that UC always puts what money the do get back into the labs in terms of research and students. Even if you would buy this whacky argument it also ignores that Texas AM would be getting something as well but UC seems to be his focus for some "odd" reason. Also UC is not pretending to be the saving grace for LANL, what the hell does that even mean?
" a weapons of mass destruction facility, providing cover for the institution whose real purpose is to keep funneling billions of taxpayer dollars, each year, into the coffers of the military-industrial corporate complex and their political minions."
Also he seems confused about the "real purpose" which is either a lab for weapons of mass destruction or one to fill coffers of the military industrial complex, which one is it? It sounds good and scary but which one is the real purpose. Who are the political minions? the state of New Mexico could be one I suppose or perhaps the ones from Despicable Me. Maybe Chuck is also a political minion?
"A union of this nature, to attack the threat of global warming, would be a godsend. No such luck, "
Chuck seems to be unaware that there is in fact a very large and well respected group at LANL that does work on climate change and climate modeling and they have plenty of connections with UC on this as well.
I may be wrong but I sense that Mr Montano might just have some kind agenda or bitterness when it comes to LANL. Ya think?