Thought on Knapp's All-Hands?

I thought he was surprisingly open and forthcoming on a lot of things. And as much as I liked Parney, I have to give kudos to Knapp for doing one important thing that Parney should have done long ago: kill off the nonsensical LIFE effort. Would like to hear what others think about Knapp's presentation.

The non-nuclear option for hard to reach targets

. Bunker-Buster Bomb Upgrades Effective, Tester Finds By Tony Capaccio Bloomberg Jan 29, 2014 Upgrades that let the U.S. military’s most powerful precision-guided bomb hit more deeply buried targets have been successful, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester. The Air Force in May and July dropped the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator made by Boeing Co. from B-2 stealth bombers on targets to evaluate an upgrade called the Enhanced Threat Modification. Based on those exercises, the penetrator, called a bunker-buster, is “capable of effectively” attacking “selected hardened, deeply-buried targets,” Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation, said in his annual report on major weapons released today. The bomb, which can be dropped only from the B-2, would be counted on if the U.S. carried out military strikes on some Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has reached a six-month agreement with the U.S. and five other nations to limit its nuclear program during efforts to craft a permanent accord. In his annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, released today, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Iran is “trying to balance conflicting objectives” in its nuclear program, at once trying to improve its nuclear and missile capabilities while “avoiding severe repercussions” from economic sanctions or a military strike. “We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons,” the report said. “If Iran’s leaders do not seize this opportunity, then I will be the first to call for more sanctions and stand ready to exercise military options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon,” President Barack Obama said last night in his State of the Union address. Air Force spokesman Ed Gulick today said the service won’t disclose how many of the bombs have been delivered. In 2012, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a House committee that the bunker-buster bomb “is designed to accomplish a difficult, complicated mission of destroying our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities.” The Pentagon won congressional approval in early 2012 to shift $81.6 million to the improve the weapon. The move, made shortly after the Air Force took delivery of the original bombs, followed Iran’s announcement on Jan. 9, 2012 that it would begin uranium enrichment at its Fordo facility near the city of Qom that’s tunneled into granite mountains. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said in a request to Congress at the time that the money was needed to “fix issues identified in testing, including tail-fin modifications and integrating a second fuse, enhance weapon capabilities, build test targets and conduct live weapon testing.” A December 2007 story by the Air Force News Service described the original version of the bomb as having a hardened-steel casing and the ability to reach targets as far as 200 feet (61 meters) underground before exploding. The 20.5-foot-long bomb carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and is guided by Global Positioning System satellites, according to a description on the website of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. January 30, 2014 at 1:41 PM Delete

What may have happened to Parney

DOE released the annual performance evaluation on LLNL this week. On the last page is some insight into what may have happened to Parney. "NNSA has concerns regarding several management issues at LLNL. On several occasions LLNL management engaged Congress contrary to stated NNSA strategy or in open opposition to that strategy. There were also a number of issues related to a lack of transparency of operations and program management decisions regarding the ICF program. NNSA and LLNL worked for several months to meet budget challenges requiring the reprogramming of funds to alleviate impacts due to the ICF program rate changes. NIF operating costs and assumptions were not transparent or well communicated to the NNSA Program Office, which made it more difficult to understand programmatic tradeoffs with FY13 budget pressures. NNSA raised concerns regarding the ICF spend rate that resulted in an extremely low level of carryover late in the fiscal year. NIF management also expended considerable facility time and resources on two facility activities (AMP 3 and ARC) despite input from the NNSA program office that these efforts were of a lower priority. Communications with external stakeholders was a continuing issue. LLNL mismanaged external communications in several instances regarding ICF activities and budgets. LLNL attempted to mitigate some of these issues and improve communication with NNSA by making some mid-year organizational changes, and improvements were noted. Additionally, LLNL made changes to its senior management team (key personnel) as coordinated with NNSA leadership to improve performance in this area." http://nnsa.energy.gov/sites/default/files/nnsa/01-14-inlinefiles/Livermore%20COR-CB-12%2024%202013-554192_OUTGOING_Performance_Incentives_Performance_Evaluation_Report_for_FY20131.pdf

sexual harassment lawsuit

I would love to hear the background story on the infamous sexual harasser Rich Marquez. The LANL Executive Director is oft maligned but I haven't ever been able to find out more than he was in a SH lawsuit with Burns and Roe. Can anybody fill me in?

Director search

Does anyone have inside information on how the search for a new director is going? Is there a short list yet? Who is on it?

Budget news.

http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20140113/113-HR3547-JSOM-D-F.pdf Nif, W-78 and B83 are cut significantly.

Nuclear detection efforts inadequate

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/us/politics/us-efforts-to-detect-nuclear-programs-are-inadequate-pentagon-study-finds.html