Nuclear weapon cuts damage arms control

 There seems to concern that some of these huge nuclear weapons programs might be cancelled or scaled back:

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/02/15/nuclear-weapon-cuts-damage-arms-control/

New DOE deputy secretary

 The Energy 202: Biden picks ex-Obama climate official for Energy Department deputy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/10/energy-202-biden-picks-ex-obama-climate-official-energy-department-deputy/

Trump acquittal and the war on domestic terrorism

 Does the second acquittal of Trump have any implications for the labs?

One could argue that if if Trump was impeached that it would be a full acknowledgement that domestic terrorism is the number one issue of the day and national security funding could have been dedicated to fighting the 2nd war on terror. Now it may be a harder sell that we have now entered a new war on terror.

Racism In mathematics?

 And now we have revisionism for mathematics.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/oregon-education-math-white-supremacy

I can easily envision advocates of CRT rushing out to hire folks who were trained in this new form of math. Having such enlightened people in charge of radiological safety, criticality calculations, pharmaceutical management at Medical would be just for starters. With a couple of these in Accounting there'd be no need to fill out timecards anymore - why bother supplying exact data for a system that does inexact calculations?

That someone came up with a train of reasoning about mathematics being racist ignores the history of contributions by Arab, Indian, and many other cultures. Turning it into an apologist's game where everybody gets a medal just for showing up destroys the utility of math.

Mathematics is the language that describes reality. Introducing the changes the folks in Oregon wish to propagate and you'll turn that language into useless gibberish.

Brain Drain

I was just watching a show about what happens to society when switches from being meritocracy based to being ideologically based. They used the example of Nazi Germany which resulted in the huge exodus of talent from Germany since they switched to everything being about what group you belong to and race rather than about ability. They discussed how the same thing is happening now and even mentioned how if critical race theory comes back to national research labs and intelligence agencies that a number of people particularly the best people will simply leave since the best people have the most options. It does seem ironic that push for extreme racial identity and how race determines all issues has more common with Nazi ideology than liberal ideology.

Is it time to shut the Sandia Z machine down?

 Is it time to shut the Sandia Z machine down? Doesn’t seem like fusion is possible with pulsed power at its present levels. There is very little interest in building a new machine. Even the Z machine people admit that their technical readiness to do such a thing is very low, NIF has succeeded in providing a lot more data than Z, in fusion and EOS. Also, the Sandia corporation doesn’t give the Z people much priority. I know they are losing personal to other, more prestigious parts of the Sandia enterprise. To add insult to injury, China is rapidly building a new machine with 10x the energy output of Z. There would be no way for Sandia to match their effort at this point.

A real possibility

 https://www.conservativereview.com/top-u-s-commander-we-must-assume-very-real-possibility-that-we-may-need-to-use-nukes-against-china-russia-2650266109.html

Top U.S. Commander: We Must Assume ‘Very Real Possibility’ That We May Need To Use Nukes Against China, Russia

“China continues to make technological leaps in capabilities in every domain,” Richard wrote. “Across its conventional weapons systems, it continues to invest significant resources in hypersonic and advanced missile systems, as well as to expand its space and counter-space capabilities.”


I have real doubts about this article first it was in a conservative news outlet. It also seems to have a real anti-China vibe. I can understand the threat from Russia but not China. Last time I checked it was Russia the interfered with the US elections and disestablished the US.