LLNL - The True Story -

 This is another interesting story if anyone is following the issues previously discussed on this blog regarding aviation safety. There are evidently claims that fumes from engine oil or hydraulic fluids can enter cabin air. This could sicken the pilot or first officer, cabin crew, and also passengers, there are signs of both acute toxicity and long lasting neurological sequelae capable of leading to death. https://nypost.com/2025/09/14/us-news/pilots-crew-breathing-fumes-suffer-brain-nerve-damage-report/ Besides the New York Post article from September there is also a cover story on the Wall Street Journal, today December 22nd which goes into additional details, but is behind an internet paywall.

Nuno Loureiro, professor and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, dies at 47 https://news.mit.edu/2025/nuno-loureiro-professor-director-plasma-science-and-fusion-center-dies-1216?fbclid=IwdGRzaAO1WRFjbGNrA7VXg2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHjaLv_9gTTgK1SfImjkpdwtiItKADAJr5kdnTste0KC8sD6AhjHddUDCTrgc_aem_Q2QOj1PHgVwz_loIGUE2bw

Short article from The Huffington Post: Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of Truth Social, is set to merge with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company, in an all-stock deal worth more than $6 billion. The merger would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies in the world. Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman and the current CEO of Trump Media, will be the co-CEO of the new company, along with TAE Technologies head Michl Binderbauer. The companies aim to create the first “utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026. “Fusion power will be the most dramatic energy breakthrough since the onset of commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s,” Nunes said.  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brown-university-shooting-rob-reiner-death_n_693fda79e4b0775c50782f40/liveblog_69441584e4b045d9788d3d1a?origin=home-latest-news-unit

  What approach is the NNSA taking, if any, to LLNS pension “spiking” in all forms, if and when it is found? Has LLNS been audited for evidence of this practice by any other Agency? Calpers criticized for passive approach to pension 'spiking' “…Part of that law was aimed at halting spiking, the practice where workers on the eve of retirement cash out, for example, years of unused vacation and sick pay to inflate their final year's salary…” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/calpers-criticized-failing-halt-pension-203823680.html

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself. Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education. The message was clear. Let ChatGPT redesign your class. Let ChatGPT tell you how to evaluate your students. Let ChatGPT tell students how to use ChatGPT. Let ChatGPT solve the problem of human education. It was like being handed a Mad Libs puzzle for automating your syllabus. Cowen has offered an even bleaker take on the modern university’s “value proposition.” “Higher education will persist as a dating service, a way of leaving the house, and a chance to party and go see some football games,” he wrote in “Everyone’s Using AI to Cheat at School. And That’s a Good Thing.” In this view, the university’s intellectual mission is already dead, replaced by credentialism, consumption, an...

  If anyone is still following the previously discussed topic of aviation safety this is an interesting video in that regard. It would seem to be a possibility that certain air traffic controllers have become radicalized and pose certain threats as a result. The video claims that by drawing attention to this, it is hoped it will be addressed in a timely manner. https://youtu.be/gS0z2GLiWkg?si=ifIwKdDedTWlC_5m