LLNL - The True Story -

  Covid is skyrocketing in the US with record number of cases. At the same time LANL plans to go back to full time or at least 80% onsite work next week. This is insane, what where they thinking?

  Sandia accused of racism. Lawsuit filed: https://www.abqjournal.com/2455361/asian-american-scientist-accuses-sandia-operators-of-discrimination-e.html

  According to news outlets, COVID-19 vaccine mandates at LLNL have been suspended until further notice.

  Not a very good day for Chinese intelligence operations in the US: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-lieber-harvard-professor-guilty-hiding-ties-china/

  JASON Marvin Adams nominated by Biden Administration to lead NNSA Defense Programs. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/O/2021/12/15/president-biden-announces-key-diplomatic-and-agency-nominees/

  OMICRON! Do the labs go in lockdown again. The story at LANL is we go back full time in Jan, just when OMICRON! gets going. OMICRON!  By the way Colorado said Covid done so do as you please, maybe the labs should do the same thing. Fire anyone is not boosted, fire anyone who gets Covid and we are good to go.

  Good News for Future NNSA Funding of NIF Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiments? "Record Setting NIF Experiment Has NNSA Rethinking Pivot From Fusion" "An Aug. 8 experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility that dazzled scientists, weapons-focused and otherwise, has the National Nuclear Security Administration rethinking plans to focus the facility more strictly on nuclear-weapons…" Sorry in advance. The rest of the article requires a subscription. Question: Is this NNSA "rethinking" up to date or just a lag response to the August 2021 NIF inertial confinement fusion experiment, or does the NNSA "rethinking" include the 3 subsequent NIF inertial confinement fusion experiments too? https://www.exchangemonitor.com/record-setting-nif-experiment-has-nnsa-rethinking-pivot-from-fusion/

  900 new parking spots added under Triad. That’s all folks! Billions wasted but at least there are parking spaces.

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10288277/Hundreds-professors-sign-letter-blasting-woke-math-movement-eliminate-advanced-classes.html#reader-comments Hundreds of college professors - including Ivy League - sign open letter blasting 'woke' math movement to eliminate 'discriminative' advanced classes and say it will put American kids at HUGE disadvantage. At least the labs can always people from overseas who can do math.

  2nd court issues injunction for the COVID vax. What does the lab do with those who haven't taken the jab now?

  https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KLfS5NPqxhYn4AV4RXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1638706894/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.foxnews.com%2fworld%2fus-russia-ukraine-invasion-2022-biden-putin/RK=2/RS=.IyVDErqt4bWqWR7PgXwJVDDWkA- Russian may be planning to invade Ukraine. If this happens could it lead to a US - Russia conflict or even a limited nuclear exchange. How could this effect the labs.

  https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20211203a/full/

I find it very very odd that a real investigative reporter has not reviewed the near concurrent departure of NNSA LANS Field Office Manager Lebak at or about the time LANL Director McMIllan stepped out of LANL management. Was Lebak complicit with something not made public?

  https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/583671-energy-department-to-seek-feedback-on-voluntary-nuclear-waste

  When are boosters going be mandate at the labs? It looks like everyone is going to need one.

  Carolyn Zerkle stories and fan club. Interested in hearing about the vindictive, 4 year old ADHD mgt style of this ineffective but often promoted extremely over paid lab employee.

  Biden says the U.S. is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics Why should Biden do that? LLNL Z-division?

  I have a question for you fusion experts. I am reading about a lot of new approaches to fusion energy by governments and companies. There is ITER of course, the Stellerator, MIT's smaller Tokamaks,Boron based fusion, shock wave approaches and others. Hopefully I am spelling and or describing them properly. I do understand there is good reason for a lot of skepticism about whether these will ultimately work. But as experts looking at these technologies do you find any of them have a glimmer of hope? Which one might, and I emphasize might, work? And why might one of these potentially work? I figured I might as well ask the experts.

  Ridiculous: Sandia employee left for Apple, couldn't handle it for 6 months and came back to Sandia https://fairygodboss.com/articles/from-big-tech-to-national-security-work-a-boomerang-employee-story

  Biden administration plans imminent booster expansion to all adults https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-vaccine-boosters-holidays-thanksgiving-america-4011f2c6-eecd-4e5d-8cfb-e5545ca59b8b.html So it looks like the labs will soon have mandatory boosters. The question for LANL is how many more people are going to say forget and have to be terminated or put on leave? I do not have a good estimate for this since I figured anyone who go the vaccine probably would be willing to get a booster but there could be some people who say no or or had bad vaccine reactions and are scared of the booster. I know of several people how had pretty bad reactions to the booster like feeling sick for for month or more.

Moderator' note: 2 links were provided in this post by its contributor.  I removed one of them because it is from an Indian propaganda channel.  The other one is from a Doctor. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=THv33zWykJc

  From a young persons prospective employee's perspective, what are the material differences if any, between the former non-profit UC/LLNL management, and the current for-profit LLNS management in terms of career growth, engineering valuation, communication openness, etc.?

  https://www.newswise.com/articles/llnl-led-team-uses-machine-learning-to-derive-black-hole-motion-from-gravitational-wave-data A multidisciplinary team including a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) mathematician has discovered a machine learning-based technique capable of automatically deriving a mathematical model for the motion of binary black holes from raw gravitational wave data. Gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as the merger of two black holes, which ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other and can be detected by installations such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). Great stuff, at least LLNL still has cutting edge science. Anything going on LANL or is just pits?

  Was the LIFE program at LLNL totally mothballed, or is the NNSA still funding at some level, efforts to improve NIF efficiencies and to lower costs for a future fusion facility?

  Pentagon Sounds Alarm Over Accelerating Pace Of China's Nuke Stockpile: "1,000 Warheads By 2030 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-sounds-alarm-over-accelerating-pace-chinas-nuke-stockpile-1000-warheads-2030 The key and most alarming element to the report suggests China is planning to quadruple its nuclear weapons stockpile over the next decade. The new analysis finds that for the 2020 review, the Pentagon woefully underestimated China's expanding ambitions regarding its nuclear arsenal. Whereas last year's estimate forecast the country would have more than 400 nuclear warheads by 2030, the new 2021 report posits over 700 by 2027, and with a likely intent by China to produce over 1,000 warheads by 2030. Meanwhile the NNSA labs anticipate making diversity equity and inclusion the priority for the complex by 2030. The labs are steeped in a legacy of structural racism and outdated notions of gender roles. With new administration we can begin a transformativ...

 I am amazed at how easy seemingly intelligent people forget that seat belt mandates infringe on their individual freedom.  Yet  no one has sued for that.  The difference? Politics, misdirected anger, trumpism, hatred... Anything else?  . https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-10-14/dozens-of-us-nuclear-lab-workers-sue-over-vaccine-mandate

  https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/more-lanl-workers-sue-over-vaccine-mandate/6281587/?fbclid=IwAR2cHxgLashznpmJNMNUkBV0VtO3S-PfayF6FFRz2MGUXh0mJkWn34S_bgM#.YXi15OzO-z1.facebook "In other words, Los Alamos National Labs has recognized that they have sincerely held religious beliefs that prevent them from taking the vaccine or getting the vaccine, has offered a one size fits all option, use up all your vacation time, if you have it, and then you go on leave without pay," Artuso said. The lawsuit, filed Friday, accuses LANL of religious discrimination and violating employees' rights to equal protection under the law, among other things. Why is LAN so special , I have not heard about any mandate in LLNL, Sandia, ORNL, BNL, ANL or any University. It just appears to be LANL? Look I get it, if we lose 10, 20, 30, 50, or even 70% of the LANL work force it would not be noticed by anyone or make any difference. This is a fact that everyone who is honest about LANL can agree on,...

  Biden says US will defend Taiwan if China attacks US President Joe Biden participates in a CNN town hall at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 16, 2021 Biden says US will defend Taiwan if China attacks His comments are an apparent departure from the long-held US policy of "strategic ambiguity". bbc.com Would we use nukes? There is no possible way that the US could stop China from taking Taiwan.

  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The New Mexico Department of Health announced the enactment of Crisis Standards of Care (CSC) for the state's health care system Monday. Health officials said the pandemic has placed an enormous, ongoing and unsustainable strain on the state's health care system. They said the strain has been exacerbated by the volume of COVID-19 patients – almost all of whom are unvaccinated. “Because of COVID, New Mexico hospitals and health care facilities have carried an unmanageable burden," NMDOH Acting Secretary David Scrase said. "Today, the state is offering clarity and support as providers seek to make difficult choices about how to allocate scarce - and precious - health care resources. The goals, as always, remain the same: to save as many New Mexican lives as possible, and to help sustain the health care providers who have sustained our communities throughout this entire pandemic."

  Judge denies request to block vaccine mandate at LANL https://www.krqe.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine/judge-denies-request-to-block-vaccine-mandate-at-lanl/

  Woke science wars continue. This time it is Prof.Abbot again from U of Chicago. The same gay that MIT would not allow to speak because he believes in meritocracy not forced equity. Now UCB will not let him speak and off the lab heads resigns in turn. I have an idea we need to inviate Prof. Abbot to speak at LLNL or LANL and lets see what happens. This woke stuff is beyond toxic and detrimental to science. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10106001/Top-Berkeley-physicist-resigns-colleagues-refused-invite-acclaimed-scientist-speak.html A leading scientist has dramatically resigned from his post at Berkeley University in protest at his colleagues' refusal to invite a physicist to give a speech previously canceled by another college at the behest of a woke mob. David Romps was the director of Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center (BASC), in California. He resigned Monday after Berkeley refused his request to invite Dorian Abbot to speak on campus, and said he would stand down b...

  American Physics Society Fellows Announced Today. 3 LLNL 3 LANL 0 Sandia Back in 2000 the old days it use to be like 7-10 LANL, 5-7 LLNL, 3-4 Sandia. Heck even 5 to 10 years ago it would be like 5 or 7 at each lab. So the decline continues. It is particularly stunning because all the labs are the largest they have ever been in terms of the number of people with Sandia having the most people. One point is that I did recognize like 8 names of former staff/postdocs from LANL and LLNL who became APS fellows this year. These people who left before 2012. Seems like a correlation with transitions in LLNS and LANS. Kind of telling.

  Oct 15 is coming. IsLANL going to really bring the hammer down on the anti-vexers? Also airline pilots, air traffic controllers, cops, first responders, and city work are starting to resit the mandates. I guess we need to fire them all. The only problem is that not that many people have been fired so far. We can do better, do you trust being in plane with a pilot who is so dumb they did not get a vaccine? How did these people even graduate college it is simply crazy. The only explanation is all the fake news and misinformation which shows that something must be done to stop misinformation. Social media, TV, books, radio shows and and even private conversations that promote misinformation need to stoped now. This is not censorship because censorship only applied to things that are true, this is about public safety. Do you really want a neighbor who is non-vaccinated or believes in misinformation, do you really want airline pilots who will not get a vaccine, do you want to give dri...

  The demise of the NNSA labs mirrors the demise of Bell labs. http://usphoenix.net/science,%20technology/what_really_happened_to_lucent_t.htm Some parts look very similar. Raises and promotions were based on an annual merit review. There was one primary value: technical competenc As time went by and AT&T management became more enlightened, this strict meritocratic ranking system was eliminated. Lab-wide rankings fell by the wayside, and Department Heads administered salaries and promotions according to corporate guidelines. More of the salary administration became dictated by these guidelines. What was once a Lab-wide enforced meritocracy became Department Head arbitrariness. Originally, every Member of Technical Staff, MTS, was expected to have at least a Master's Degree. Those that were hired in with a Bachelor's Degree were sent to graduate school at company expense to complete their studies. There were a few lesser staff positions, but the vast bulk of Bell Labs employ...

  Fusion: Q Plasma vs Q Total explained NIF, like other fusion experiments, the announced Q values are not correct. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

  A series of unfortunate events https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/29/doe-announces-investigation-of-series-of-events-at-lanl-plutonium-facility/ The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments’ Office of Enforcement’s has announced its decision to conduct an investigation into the facts and circumstances associated with a series of events between February and July of this year occurring in the Plutonium (PF-4) Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

  Will these bills signed into law by Governor Newsom force and ensure mixed income housing developments are built in job centers like Livermore and Pleasanton, with minimal pushback? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=280MuPj_8uU

  Will there be a government shutdown, is so what does it mean for the labs. Do we still get paid? https://federalnewsnetwork.com/mike-causey-federal-report/2021/09/government-shutdown-talk-is-back-again-have-we-learned-anything-from-the-last-ones/

  https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/24/critical-race-theory/ Well this has created another fire storm on the Los Alamos facebook pages. It is the usual where people are saying you should teach critical race theory at LA schools with other saying they do not know what critical race theory is and using the defections of 70s for legal studies and saying it is only taught in "advanced academic settings". Some people saying it is only teaching the truth and to be against is to be racists and so on , so the conversation is pretty low level. This is at the schools but I guess it could be coming to the labs. Just a few points on CRT, while it is true that it originated from a theory for legal system in the US, the basic concept can be and is widely applied to large sections of the social sciences, and humanities. It is the the hypothesis that literally every thing in the US has racial issues baked in them. The original idea was that the legal system has inherent or as the say ...

Federal contractors must ensure employees are fully vaccinated by December https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/24/federal-contractors-vaccine-514201

  Here is a good conspiracy theory. The Large Hadron Collider LHC at CERN is about to start up again after another upgrade. The last startup after an upgrade was in 2016. Some claim that has been creating holes in multiverse and we keep jumping to more and more absurd worlds here Trump got elected in 2016. One can also guess how crazy it is going to get once they turn it on again at even higher energies. Another scenario is we we are in a simulation and the LHC is creating events that are destabilizing the simulation. Who knows what comes next. Of course some would counter the recent crazy stuff just in 2021 before has occurred before it turned on. But what if part of the destabilization is due tachyon production so some of the real insanity we will see in the future is now leaking into the past to our current time.

While most people have heard of Tesla, far fewer have heard of the United States Department of Energy Loan Programs Office....   https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/573148-dept-of-energys-loan-program-helped-tesla-now-it-needs-to-help-low

  Mason just sent out an email on the vaccine mandates. He laid out the plan which includes vacations and leave until the all clear to come back, but termination was not listed as an option. Also I am sure working from home will also be accepted in some cases. I told you no one was getting fired.

  To fair to Scooby the labs are always going to be very entangled with politics. In fact there is more talk on political blogs about the possibility of nuclear war with China, Russia, or even Iran and NK. Nuclear weapons are kind of important to the labs you know. If it is being perceived by the world that American is on the decline than having a strong and credible nuclear deterrent could make sure any potential still thinks twice about trying to make advantage of this. Like it or not that labs will be playing a role a big role in the future of the United States and world stability. Not to mention the Covid mandates at the labs also have political aspects. It is hard to avoid politics when discussing NNSA labs. Scooby's rule: is more like no political debate that is not related to the labs, the issue is that so many political issues can be connected to the labs. I suppose someone could talk about abortion and that would be a topic that does not belong. However if someone says Tru...

  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fda-rejects-pfizer-booster-vaccine_n_6144f00ce4b02cb84634f15a FDA Advisory Panel Rejects Widespread Pfizer Vaccine Booster Shots The panel did, however, endorse the extra shots for those who are 65 or older or at high risk of severe disease. Could the labs still do a booster mandate just to be safe?

  Trump stopped from using nuclear weapons! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9990247/Gen-Mark-Milley-secretly-dialed-Chinas-military-leader-amid-fears-Trump-start-war.html The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, took top-secret actions to prevent former President Donald Trump from using nuclear weapons, a new book claims. During her call with the general, the book details, Pelosi demanded to know what precautions Milley would take to prevent Trump from utilizing nuclear launch codes. Pelosi said, “You know [Trump’s] crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”Milley reportedly responded, “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-top-general-secretly-called-china-twice-trump-term-ended-report-2021-09-14/ U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army on Oct. 30, 2020 - four days before the election - and again on Jan. 8, two days after T...

  https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/09/10/mark-anthony-to-join-lanl-as-new-associate-laboratory-director-for-plutonium-infrastructure/ LANL has announced that Mark Anthony, currently a projector director of the European Spallation Source in Sweden, will lead the Lab’s Associate Directorate for Plutonium Infrastructure.

  Scooby's note: I got this as a comment in another post. It was off the subject but reflects on the new faces of terrorism. So,  it deserves a 'blog spot".😀 It is a very somber September 11 today. 20 years ago the biggest threat to our nation came from international terror. Now we face a much greater domestic terror threat, from extremists, fake news, misinformation, racism, propaganda, denied voting rights, womens rights, and radicalized nationalism. This has cost us 650k dead, the Jan 6th insurrection, leaving 5 dead police officers, and we 80 million people who refuse to get vaccinated which could lead to several hundred thousand more dead. We have chosen the wise course to leave many of our foreign entanglements such as Afghanistan to start focusing on domestic threats. The threat is now from within and is more dangerous than anything we have faced. Just as we called the time after 9/11 the global war on terror which we won, we now must realize that we could be enter...

  I’m a Former Pastor, and I Don’t Believe in ‘Religious Exemptions’ to Vaccine Mandates https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/opinion/religious-exemptions-vaccine-mandates.html First, there is no actual religious basis for exemptions from vaccine mandates in any established stream of Christianity. Within both Catholicism and all the major Protestant denominations, no creed or Scripture in any way prohibits Christians from getting the vaccine. Even the sect of Christian Scientists, which historically has abstained from medical treatment, has expressed openness to vaccines for the sake of the wider community. The consensus of mainstream Christian leaders — from Pope Francis to Franklin Graham — is that vaccination is consistent with biblical Christian faith. Biblically based arguments against vaccination have been rebutted. But even with legitimate religious claims sincerely held, the law allows companies to forgo offering exemptions if doing so places an “undue hardship” on the employ...

  From The New Mexico Freedoms Alliance: In response to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for all employees, hundreds of workers will be Calling Out and gathering 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 7 in a Freedom Assembly at Ashley Pond Park. https://ladailypost.com/lanl-workers-to-protest-vaccine-mandate-tuesday/

  “Herd Immunity” not achievable with the delta variant given its “reproductive number or “Re” is too high, but vaccinations can significantly lower severe illness and death. Link 1 of 2 https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/coronavirus-vaccine-efficacy-against-delta-variant-covid-booster-shot-is-pfizer-effective/10949401/ Link 2 of 2 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRb5hnTseU

  Do the results from NIF mean the end to the Sandia Z program? The Sandia Z people hoped to build a new machine eventually. They face some big hurdles such as funding, problems with scaling from 26 to 60 mega amperes, and lack of robust target for achieving ignition. With NIF having basically achieved ignition, do we need to build or even maintain large pulsed power facilities. Also, I bet that Sandia corporate has more interest in other endeavors.

  Scooby's note:  This post was sent in as a comment for another post but was irrelevant to the subject. However  it has an interesting subject and deserves to be a post.  So some recent studies cam out suggesting that that up to 80% of everybody has either the vaccine or had Covid. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/health/covid-vaccines-seniors.html That is already over the states herd immunity. This was done for a study of over 1 million people. One thing this study suggested was that twice as many people had caught Covid that was reported which reduces the death rate by half, which is starting to put in more like a bad flu. You can ask why did we have so many excesses deaths than previous bad flues? One possibility is that Covid is simply way more contagious than most flues so way more people got it than the would with other flues. This sort of makes sense due to the spike protein which they said was very efficient. If this is true Covid is not that much deadlier...

  https://www.france24.com/en/health/20210901-new-coronavirus-variant-mu-under-close-scrutiny-by-who

  I would like to point out that this blog is read by many people and has influence. Scooby does a great job, and keeps up the legacy of the blogs that become before. LLNL the true story has had been around the longest which speaks the for the longevity of this blog and the owner of the blog. Who knows what the future brings but I know for a fact that readers ranging from LLNL and many of the other labs have read this blog and it has made a difference keep up the good work. Thank you Scooby. "And I Would Have Gotten Away With It, If It Weren't For You Meddling Kids And Your Dog.”

  Hi Scooby- Just heard today that LANL is requiring 100% COVID vaccination, with case by case exceptions for medical exceptions. Is this something you've gotten info. on? Thanks Scooby's reply: I am no more informed on LANL than you are but I am certain someone from there will chime in. 

  I took the vaccine and I will take a booster. I am not in a high risk group but I see little personal downside. What I find odd is that all the people saying that if everyone just took the vaccine that we would get rid of Covid. This simply makes no sense. (1) The vaccines wear off rather rapidly. (2) Covid has all sorts of non-human hosts. If you vaccinated the world to 100% Covid is still around in tons of animals and will just come back like every other flu. They say "listen to the science!". Ok I am a scientist, I am not an expert in epidemics but I do understand math. I have had a few conversations with the epidemic modeling crowd and one thing is obvious is that it is a complex systems and many of these models are not particularly accurate. The epidemic scientists are pretty honest about just how limited what they can predict but somehow the public and politicians have this idea that these scientists know exactly what is going on. In a complex system you simply do not...

  "170 kJ. That result suggested NIF was finally creating a “burning plasma,” in which the fusion reactions themselves provide the heat for more fusion—a runaway reaction that is key to getting higher yields. Then, on 8 August, a shot generated the remarkable 1.35 MJ. “It was a surprise to everyone,” Herrmann says. “This is a whole new regime.”" That is certainly a big jump up and something to be happy about. I have a couple of problems. The first is it is only a single shot, if they could that two shot, three shots and so on then I think this is major. The issue is that this was a single shot, no two samples are the same on the atomic level by definition so it could be some odd property go the surface of the sample, lack of grain boundaries or defects act, not to mention that rare events can arise where by chance some particles just happen to go the right way due to chaotic dynamics. This could be some kind of lucky shot kind of thing where some unknown parameter could be pr...

  NIF: laser-powered fusion may beat tokamaks soon. Someone in California is apparently still working on hot applied nuclear physics research (not just critical race theory). Unless we are completely lied to, I think that the super-optimistic headline is justified. With explosive new result, laser-powered fusion effort nears ‘ignition’ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/explosive-new-result-laser-powered-fusion-effort-nears-ignition https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/08/nif-laser-powered-fusion-may-beat.html

  Trump negotiated with the Taliban without the Afghan government involved to 1) have the Taliban give up their ties with Al Qaeda, and 2) the US leave by May 1. Oh, and the Afghans to release 5000 Taliban prisoners they held. Biden says he was bound by it. How's that working out?

  The NNSA labs and many other labs got funds for research on counter terror including actions in Afghanistan. In fact the US spent 2 trillion dollars on Afghanistan. You could say we got Bin Ladin or at least forced him into Pakistan and then we got him which was 10 years ago, but other than that the whole thing as a huge waste of money and lives. The US is now just another empire to come to Afghanistan and fail. Plenty of blame to go around on this one. All those nukes and high tech gadgets just do not cut it sometimes. I like the saying I heard about what the Taliban have said of the US high tech version of war, "you have all the watches but we have all the time". Maybe we should reconsider how we do national security in terms of intelligence gathering, tactics, weapons, analysis, and reliance on high tech and massive fire power. All those super smart military and intelligence agencies sure called this one wrong.

  Can anyone here verify the 1 MJ NIF yield that was mentioned on this blog? I don’t see any news release on that and it’s supposedly been a week since the experiment.

  So much for harassment claims expecting impartial reviews in the workplace. "ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, said late Sunday that she had resigned, a move that came as the governor fought for political survival after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded he had sexually harassed nearly a dozen women...The state attorney general report found that Ms. DeRosa had spearheaded efforts to retaliate against one of the women who had spoken out publicly about her allegation in December." and "The chairwoman of Time’s Up, a group that supports victims of sexual harassment, resigned Monday amid backlash over revelations she helped New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in drafting a letter that smeared one of his accusers."

 Hello,  I am a retiree trying to reach HR at LLNL for a question. I have been trying for a month with via e-mail to  llnl-benefits@llnl.gov And through voice mails.  Is HR still confined?  Any tip is appreciated. 

  Citing "Bad Faith Bargaining Practices" Lawrence Livermore National Lab Workers Plan for Three-Day Strike https://www.independentnews.com/news/lawrence-livermore-national-lab-workers-plan-for-three-day-strike/article_46303102-ee4d-11eb-be27-df539f7b3e48.html LLNL Panel Sheds Light on Gender Bias in the Scientific Community https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/llnl-panel-shed s-light-on-gender-bias-in-the-scientific-community/

  Report: Some Los Alamos nuclear waste too hazardous to move https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/report-some-los-alamos-nuclear-waste-too-hazardous-to-move/article_59875868-f3b9-11eb-8af9-fb6a70a28705.html Los Alamos National Laboratory has identified 45 barrels of radioactive waste so potentially explosive — due to being mixed with incompatible chemicals — that crews have been told not to move them and instead block off the area around the containers, according to a government watchdog’s repo

  Are the labs in decline? Or more to the point if they are is something only to with the labs or is it bigger than that? What exactly is the future of the NNSA labs? I just read this. Of course the US is in retreat mode. Everywhere you go you hear talk of seccession, civil war, uncontrolled immigration.. We’re no longer the good guys, so servicemen are just mercenaries. Today’s military would make the mixed-race divisions that bugged out in the Korean war look like Stonewall Jackson’s regiment at 1st Bull Run. Who would fight for this sh_t show? Not to mention the mentally retarded weapon systems. What do you call $20 billion of sunk costs? An aircraft carrier.

  Cuomo: Hiding in plane sight while claiming to be a champion of the MeToo movement? What does it say for the national respect and understanding of the MeToo movement when 11 women (so far) said Governor Cuomo inappropriately touched or groped them? Will Cuomo’s staff accused of aiding and abetting such behavior by covering up, discrediting, or destroying the careers of these courageous women be held accountable too?

  LANL, SNL served with Cease & Desist Letters over COVID-19 Vaccine, Testing, and Masking Requirements https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/07/26/organization-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-lanl-regarding-covid-19-mandates-threatens-legal-action/ SNL has also been served, but there is no article yet. Here is a link to the letter: https://file.io/HaKVZTW4E1mz

  In 2012, NIF failed to achieve ignition, and subsequently, Dr. Ed Moses left LLNS employment. Have any external peer reviews estimated how far off NIF was in terms of peak power or energy to achieve momentary fusion?

  Mask Mandates So, what’s each site doing about the new mandates? Tennessee sites have reinstated mandatory masking.

 Manchin and colleagues want in national labs infrastructure.  https://www.energy.senate.gov/2021/7/manchin-joins-colleagues-in-urging-investment-in-national-lab-infrastructure

  In 2021, in terms of long term job security, what does it really mean to be a so called a LLNS “Career Indefinite employee” vs. a “Supplemental Labor” employee in practice given LLNS employment actions?

  Here is the timeline of my Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Case # 20-16012, "Anthony T. Rivera v. U.S. Department of Energy": 2-18-21: I file my "Opening Brief” 3-15-21: DOE requests and is granted an extension of time to file their "Answering Brief” 4-21-21: DOE files their “Answering Brief” 5-12-21: I file my “Reply Brief” (which was optional)

  Earthquake hits Northern New Mexico!!! No damage this time but it shows for certain that we should not be building pits in New Mexico. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/earthquake-shakes-small-northern-n-m-town/article_6b7a2b70-e33f-11eb-9014-eb63f4e59215.html 