Anonymous said:
For those of you who fell victim to the ISP and have not spoke with the attorney's, here is the information:
GWILLIAM, IVARY, CHIOSSO, CAVALLI & BREWER
P.O. BOX 2079
OAKLAND, CA. 94604
(510) 832-5411 ext. 257. Ask for Winston.
There IS something we can do in a 'team effort' to fight the UNFAIR treatment we received!!!!!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Security Clearances at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory-California
A new 22 page Inspection Report (INS-O-09-01) is available at the DOE Office of Inspector General website. Here is a summary of the findings from the accompanying memorandum:
RESULTS OF INSPECTION
We concluded that Livermore and Sandia officials did not fully adhere to Department requirements regarding security clearance justifications. Specifically, we found that Livermore and Sandia officials requested and retained security clearances inconsistent with Department policy. We determined that this issue went undetected by Livermore, Sandia, and Service Center personnel security officials because there were no internal controls in place to validate the justification of need as stated on the security clearance requests. We made three recommendations to management designed to ensure that future security clearance request justifications are subject to improved internal controls.
MANAGEMENT REACTION
In responding to a draft of this report, the Office of Health, Safety and Security (HS) strongly concurred "with the need for increased oversight of the process for justifying access to classified information within the Department." HS stated it has taken or initiated several actions to enhance oversight of access authorizations.
NNSA's comments on the draft report did not specifically state whether management concurred with the findings and recommendations. NNSA interpreted our report as stating that clearance justifications should be challenged in every case. This is not what is stated in the report, nor is it our intent. Rather, we believe there should be internal controls in place to ensure compliance with Department requirements pertaining to clearances and clearance justifications. Management's comments are discussed in further detail in the report. Management's verbatim comments are included in Appendix C.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
ANON Said:
I got a call today from a friend at LLNL who told me FR delivered a talk while I was absent to his business and plant administrators where he told them with the current state of affairs and funding levels you should expect LLNL population be down to 3,500 people by 2010.
Can you check on this or confirm his message and please see if the talk was video taped for the peons to view .
Can you check on this or confirm his message and please see if the talk was video taped for the peons to view .
Monday, December 22, 2008
Holidays are a time to focus on what's most important
Holidays are a time to focus on what's most important
The holidays are upon us, and once again many of us are stringing lights from chimneys and eaves, hanging decorations inside and out and rushing about with last-minute shopping and errands. Winter storms are bringing snow to the mountains and cold rain and fog to the valleys.
The scene is set for happy holidays with family and friends. But all too often, the scene also is set for accidents. So I’m urging each and every one of you to keep safety - at home and here at the Laboratory - topmost in your mind during this hectic season.
We continue to emphasize the need to do work safely in all Laboratory activities. We made good progress earlier this year in decreasing safety incidents and injuries, but there are indications that our safety culture continues to need improvement. Most worrisome are rumblings that some employees are afraid to speak up about safety issues and are feeling pressured to meet schedules and deliverables at all costs.
I want to emphasize that no work, no schedule, no deliverable is more important than your safety. Laboratory management is absolutely committed to ensuring that employees are empowered to raise safety concerns or stop work for safety reasons with no negative repercussions. If you feel for any reason that this is not the case, I want to hear from you, and I will personally work to correct the situation.
As 2008 draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your contributions to our Laboratory and its continuing success during this extremely challenging period of time. We've seen major changes over the past 15 months - the new contract, new management team, organizational changes and the workforce restructuring and reduction to name a few. We've also seen an amazing procession of accomplishments.
We achieved scientific breakthroughs that explain some of the key unknowns in nuclear weapons performance and are critical to developing the predictive science of stockpile stewardship. Experiments conducted at the Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (JASPER) facility allowed us to accurately determine the low-pressure equation of state for plutonium and we met an NNSA Top 10 deliverable with the development of a first-generation, three-dimensional energy balance model.
The National Ignition Facility project is more than 99 percent complete. All 192 beamlines have been tested and operationally qualified, and we have entered the home stretch toward NIF's scheduled completion date of March 31, 2009. We also conducted initial studies of the Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion-Fission Energy (LIFE) concept and showcased both NIF and LIFE to Gov. Schwarzenegger last month.
As part of our global security mission, the Autonomous Pathogen Detection System was selected by the Department of Homeland Security for possible deployment within the national BioWatch system. In addition, we made good progress in increasing our work for sponsors other than NNSA, bringing our total work-for-others funding to nearly $350 million.
We continued our tradition of scientific excellence and technical innovation, garnering three R&D 100 awards, six Nanotech 50 awards and numerous honors for individual Laboratory employees. We've used our Zeus and Thunder supercomputers to address a wide range of scientific grand challenges, such as visualizing the structure of nanolipoproteins. Our researchers also created billions of particles of anti-matter in the laboratory and were part of an international team that discovered a new solar system.
A major thrust this year has been to make our Laboratory more efficient and cost competitive. We instituted industry-best practices for performance management, financial management and project management and streamlined numerous other processes. We reduced our support costs by $75 million and reduced our energy usage by nearly 10 percent.
Our Laboratory also continued its tradition of community outreach through science and math education and charitable giving. More than 6,000 people attended our Science on Saturdays lectures and several hundred teachers participated in summer programs aimed at enhancing science education.
For more than a decade, employees have donated more than $1 million to our annual HOME (Helping Others More Effectively) campaign. This year's contributions totaled more than $1.7 million. This figure highlights the amazing generosity of Laboratory employees and I am so proud to work with you.
I wish all of you a happy holiday season and extend my sincere thanks for all you do for our Laboratory, our communities and the nation.
And once again, please be safe in all you do so that you can enjoy the holidays to the fullest.
Director George Miller
The holidays are upon us, and once again many of us are stringing lights from chimneys and eaves, hanging decorations inside and out and rushing about with last-minute shopping and errands. Winter storms are bringing snow to the mountains and cold rain and fog to the valleys.
The scene is set for happy holidays with family and friends. But all too often, the scene also is set for accidents. So I’m urging each and every one of you to keep safety - at home and here at the Laboratory - topmost in your mind during this hectic season.
We continue to emphasize the need to do work safely in all Laboratory activities. We made good progress earlier this year in decreasing safety incidents and injuries, but there are indications that our safety culture continues to need improvement. Most worrisome are rumblings that some employees are afraid to speak up about safety issues and are feeling pressured to meet schedules and deliverables at all costs.
I want to emphasize that no work, no schedule, no deliverable is more important than your safety. Laboratory management is absolutely committed to ensuring that employees are empowered to raise safety concerns or stop work for safety reasons with no negative repercussions. If you feel for any reason that this is not the case, I want to hear from you, and I will personally work to correct the situation.
As 2008 draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your contributions to our Laboratory and its continuing success during this extremely challenging period of time. We've seen major changes over the past 15 months - the new contract, new management team, organizational changes and the workforce restructuring and reduction to name a few. We've also seen an amazing procession of accomplishments.
We achieved scientific breakthroughs that explain some of the key unknowns in nuclear weapons performance and are critical to developing the predictive science of stockpile stewardship. Experiments conducted at the Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (JASPER) facility allowed us to accurately determine the low-pressure equation of state for plutonium and we met an NNSA Top 10 deliverable with the development of a first-generation, three-dimensional energy balance model.
The National Ignition Facility project is more than 99 percent complete. All 192 beamlines have been tested and operationally qualified, and we have entered the home stretch toward NIF's scheduled completion date of March 31, 2009. We also conducted initial studies of the Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion-Fission Energy (LIFE) concept and showcased both NIF and LIFE to Gov. Schwarzenegger last month.
As part of our global security mission, the Autonomous Pathogen Detection System was selected by the Department of Homeland Security for possible deployment within the national BioWatch system. In addition, we made good progress in increasing our work for sponsors other than NNSA, bringing our total work-for-others funding to nearly $350 million.
We continued our tradition of scientific excellence and technical innovation, garnering three R&D 100 awards, six Nanotech 50 awards and numerous honors for individual Laboratory employees. We've used our Zeus and Thunder supercomputers to address a wide range of scientific grand challenges, such as visualizing the structure of nanolipoproteins. Our researchers also created billions of particles of anti-matter in the laboratory and were part of an international team that discovered a new solar system.
A major thrust this year has been to make our Laboratory more efficient and cost competitive. We instituted industry-best practices for performance management, financial management and project management and streamlined numerous other processes. We reduced our support costs by $75 million and reduced our energy usage by nearly 10 percent.
Our Laboratory also continued its tradition of community outreach through science and math education and charitable giving. More than 6,000 people attended our Science on Saturdays lectures and several hundred teachers participated in summer programs aimed at enhancing science education.
For more than a decade, employees have donated more than $1 million to our annual HOME (Helping Others More Effectively) campaign. This year's contributions totaled more than $1.7 million. This figure highlights the amazing generosity of Laboratory employees and I am so proud to work with you.
I wish all of you a happy holiday season and extend my sincere thanks for all you do for our Laboratory, our communities and the nation.
And once again, please be safe in all you do so that you can enjoy the holidays to the fullest.
Director George Miller
Friday, December 19, 2008
Anyone know the number of NSTech employees?
Just wondering how many NSTech employees are splitting the ~$840,000 bonus for scoring 95%? George only got a 70% - a D- on the 7 point system that was in effect when I went to school.
There is talk that the USD may be devalued
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Anonymous said... There is talk that the USD may be devalued. I am wondering what folks think will happen with retirement accounts if that happens and how one can protect oneself. Would you, for example, cash out from UC and use the money to buy gold? Please respond if you have an informed opinion gained either through knowldege of economics or from reading informed commentary. Links to good articles would also be appreciated.
Livermore Lab Workers May Be Exposed To Toxic Dust
Frank Young said...
Livermore Lab Workers May Be Exposed To Toxic Dust
"Seward said the laboratory is surveying 160 buildings looking for beryllium contamination. Already, they've found some startling results: 20 buildings with levels above acceptable, and a few with "more extensive" contamination.
And now they're assessing how many more workers were exposed: So far, 250 have been identified as having past exposure to beryllium and another 350 are being watched."
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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 ...
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Physics Today has an article about what went wrong with the LANL/LLNL contract. http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstod...
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Global Security Newswire U.S. Nuclear Weapons Agency to Delay Work on Interoperable Warhead By Global Security Newswire Staff February 18, ...
