Opinions on BLOG

OK folks, assuming Scooby lets this post stand, here's the issue:

Scooby says his rules are:
Stay on topic!
No foul or Inflammatory language!
No name calling!

That's it. After long experience reading (and occasionally posting on) this blog, I'd say that 90% of the posts that violate Scooby's rules stay posted, and 90% of the posts he deletes do not violate his rules.

This arbitrary behavior suggests a couple of issues: 1) Scooby doesn't really give a rat's ass about this blog and is just muddling through for whatever reason; or 2) Scooby gets motivated by complaints about egregious posts, or gets pissed about complaints that he doesn't moderate the blog; or 3) he is unable to focus application of his "rules" and just deletes, when he gets pissed or just feels like it, whatever posts he doesn't like the tone or subject of, regardless of the rules.

I would submit that a clear, and clearly applied, set of blog rules that tightens up the slop in the existing rules, if they were applied consistently and daily, would go a long way towards "moderation" of he blog, which in its classic sense would shut the blog down. Thoughts?

March 30, 2013 at 9:30 PM

 

 Anonymous said...

“Scooby doesn't really give a rat's ass about this blog and is just muddling through for whatever reason;…”

Well, whatever his reasons, imo the large majority of comments on this blog are either extraneous to the subject, absolute b.s. or redundant from earlier post/comments.

Despite my continued hope for a relevant/interesting blog, Scooby might just as well shut it down & let the whiners create their own – I think he’s made that suggestion a few times over the years.

Rather than a national laboratory, most comments on this blog make LLNL sound more like a public sector union – steeped in mediocrity.

March 31, 2013 at 6:53 AM

 

 Anonymous said...

March 31, 2013 at 6:53 AM

I wonder when you fool who idolize the national labs are going to realize the people who work at these facilities are nothing special. They are just a number on a computer printout which can be illuminated at any time dictated by the budget. So if you think this blog is going to be a place where you’re going converse about great accomplishments, new avenues to pursue or boast about how great thou are you’re visiting the wrong URL. There is no such place. I'd much rather have this blog where people can vent than to have them come to work doing unthinkable things. This blog is also a good place for ULM to come visit once and a while to find out what the masses think of them.

Scooby doing a great job. I have no doubt this post will be erased as well as all those before me but intil, facts are facts, have a great dad.

March 31, 2013 at 8:30 AM

 

 Anonymous said...

March 31, 2013 at 6:53 AM

I wonder when you fool who idolize the national labs are going to realize the people who work at these facilities are nothing special. They are just a number on a computer printout which can be illuminated at any time dictated by the budget. So if you think this blog is going to be a place where you’re going converse about great accomplishments, new avenues to pursue or boast about how great thou are you’re visiting the wrong URL. There is no such place. I'd much rather have this blog where people can vent than to have them come to work doing unthinkable things. This blog is also a good place for ULM to come visit once and a while to find out what the masses think of them.

Scooby doing a great job. I have no doubt this post will be erased as well as all those before me but intil, facts are facts, have a great dad.

March 31, 2013 at 8:30 AM

 

 Anonymous said...

Scooby is not only doing a great job, but also a community service to the lab population. Do you see any word getting out that's not heavily massaged?

The purpose of any meaningful "exchange blog" isn't to be a mutual admiration society, but speak the words that would otherwise go unsaid. This is what starts the discussion.

Sometimes discussions will include saying the "Emperor has no clothes". If a certain group or person really screws up, its not baiting or hating to say so.

March 31, 2013 at 9:21 AM

 

Proposed salary reduction/closure day implementation postponed

LLNL Public Affairs
Thursday, March 28, 2013

Proposed salary reduction/closure day implementation postponed

The Laboratory will delay implementation of the proposed salary reduction/closure day program until mid-June at the earliest. The impacts of the Continuing Resolution that was recently approved by Congress and signed by the President for the rest of the fiscal year are being assessed. It also is essential to fully understand the information that will come when the President submits his FY14 budget, tentatively set for the week of April 8, before making a decision on LLNL's path forward.

The Laboratory's senior management team has been instructed to look at their remaining FY13 indirect budgets to seek additional savings to lessen the impact of any needed closure on employees.

Updates will be provided as more information becomes available. Director Parney Albright understands that the uncertainty is difficult and he is committed to communicating information as it becomes available.

Why You Should Quit Your Job Now

Worth reading:

* Why You Should Quit Your Job Now *

Yahoo Finance, Mar 28, 2013

More than 12 million Americans are jobless and 40% of these individuals have been out of work for more than six months. The U.S. economy overall may be improving but many Americans still cannot find a job. This trend will only continue in the foreseeable future says James Altucher, managing director of Formula Capital, an asset management firm. The author and venture capitalist tells The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task that the U.S. is moving toward an “employee-less society.”

“If you’re just sitting still, shuffling paper, they’re going to fire you,” he argues. “Cubicles have become commodities. You’re like the walking dead if you have a job.”

.... “If you’re stuck in a cubicle you have a target on your back…the CEO is looking to cut you out,” he declares. “Temp staffing is sweeping the nation.”

The changing employment climate has made Altucher an advocate of employees quitting their jobs. He lists 10 reasons why workers should give their two-week notice:

1, The Middle Class Is Dead

2. You've Been Replaced

3 Corporations Don't Like You

4. Money Is Not Happiness

5. Count Right Now How Many People Can Make A Major Decision That Can Ruin Your Life

6. Is Your Job Satisfying Your Needs?

7. Your Retirement Plan Is For Sh-t

8. Excuses

9. It's OK To Take Baby Steps

10. Abundance Will Never Come From Your Job


finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/
why-quit-job-now-151346969.html

NIF

Your Favorite Blog Topic: NIF

Hey the reprieve you non-NIF programs got from discriminatory overhead rates (even 2 years after the build was complete), well you can do your duty and give it right back to NIF. Oh wait, you don't have a choice. You non-NIF people should just go to Silicon Valley. Google hires good people all the time. The bad ones can stay as government contractors at a national lab as part of the white collar welfare program.
 Weapons Complex Monitor
March 27, 2013

NNSA Seeking To Shift $138 Million In Funds For National Ignition Facility

With Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility set to run out of funding next month, the Department of Energy says it will need to reprogram $138 million to compensate for higher overhead rates that are being charged to the facility. In a reprogramming request sent to House and Senate authorizers and appropriators last week, DOE Deputy Chief Financial Officer Alison Doone said the Department was seeking to reprogram $88.1 million, and would soon ask for authority to transfer another $40 million to keep the facility running through the end of the Fiscal Year. NIF enjoyed lower overhead rates than the rest of the laboratory during construction, but as it has entered full operations, it has shifted to a higher overhead rate, forcing lab officials to free up additional funds in what largely amounts to a complex accounting exercise.

Doone said an internal NNSA reprogramming of $5 million during FY 2012 and another $5 million this month have allowed the most critical research at NIF to continue, and because the increase to NIF overhead rates has lowered overhead rates for other programs at the lab, the current $88.1 million reprogramming request will be paid for by the “windfall” from the other programs. “These funds can be redirected to LLNL’s RTBF activity with no adverse effects to the programs involved,” Doone said in a letter to top House and Senate authorizers and appropriators last week. However, the additional $40 million that will be needed for NIF is likely to have an impact on the program, Doone said. “We will aim to minimize potential adverse impacts to other programs as we select these sources to fund this high-priority effort,” she wrote.

Last year, NIF Director Ed Moses told Congress that a $140 million shortfall driven by higher overhead rates could force the lab to lay off 450 NIF employees.

Question about TCP1

A posting from another thread that is worthy of some discussion:

Anonymous said...
I just have one question for folks who decided to take TCP1: If your pension is to be paid by LANS/LLNS, and they lose the DOE/NNSA contract at some point after you retire, what happens? The LLCs were created for the sole purpose of running the labs, and and will dissolve as corporate entities after that purpose ends. Do you trust that DOE/NNSA will effectively transfer the pension responsibilities to the new contractor with no detrimental changes?

HAPC assumption

HAPC assumption

At the end of an older thread was this comment. Possibly interesting to many.

Anonymous said...

The HAPC is "frozen" at the start of a furlough claim has the faulty assumption that month 1 (most recent) of pay, X, is lower than month 36, Y. Even with a 10% reduction that is not true for many staff members.

At the point in time when month 1 pay X*0.9<=Y, the highest HAPC is in the past.

Does CR approval mean no sequestration?

The Continuing Resolution for FY13 has been approved and sent to the President. NNSA gets its full funding for FY13, no sequester cuts. Is this good news for the Lab? Does it mean furlough won't be necessary is year?

-----------------------
House Approves Full Funding for NNSA Nuke Work
March 21, 2013

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives on Thursday approved full funding for nuclear weapons operations at a branch of the Energy Department in a budget that will keep the federal government operating through the rest of this fiscal year.

The Senate voted for the continuing resolution legislation on Wednesday, leaving only President Obama's signature necessary for it to become law.

National Nuclear Security Administration operations to maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear arsenal are to receive $7.6 billion in fiscal 2013, which ends on Sept. 30. That is the amount sought by the Obama administration.

Another $110 million would be used for "domestic uranium enrichment research, development and demonstration" at the agency that oversees research laboratories and other components of the nuclear arms complex, according to the spending plan. That is $40 million less than requested by the White House.

The current continuing resolution provides federal funding through March 27. The new legislation would provide full-year appropriations levels for a handful of departments, including Defense, Homeland Security and Commerce. Most other agencies would be restricted to funding at fiscal 2012 levels,

House lawmakers also approved $519 million though Sept. 30, 2015, for the Pentagon's Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which aims to secure or eliminate unconventional weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union and beyond.

Another $1.3 billion would be directed toward Defense Department chemical weapons disposal operations.

“I’m proud that we were able to reach across the aisle -- and across Capitol Hill -- to produce a meaningful, bipartisan bill that funds the government responsibly," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said in provided comments. “With the approval of this measure, we have laid the foundation for thoughtful and responsible consideration of appropriations bills, and can now focus our attention on next year’s work. I encourage the President to sign this bill into law without delay.”