Gussie,
I just read your Comments of the Week, Saturday Edition post, and I thought I'd send you in a couple of thoughts on it. Sorry I have not been reading your blog regularly, I've been kind of busy and traveling a lot.
The comments about how DOE and LANS have been so successful to date in their efforts to "re-mission" LANL kind of caught my attention. I'm in Washington, DC to chair a session at a simulation conference next week, and I'm staying at the conference hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just a block from the White House. It's a nice, $420 per night 10 story hotel, with lots going on.
The downstairs area below the lobby has some sort of society event going on tonight -- lots of people in formal evening wear heading down he escalator to attend some kind of performance. What caught my eye was this (attached image) being projected on the wall where people riding down the escalator could not miss it. Apologies for the crappy quality of the picture, all I had with me was my cell phone.
In this town, Bechtel buys what it wants.
--Doug Roberts
LANL, Retired
25 comments:
The people who make up the Los Alamos community just can't seem to fathom the extent of the influence and power that a large corporate entity like Bechtel wields.
Los Alamos citizens are probably better off remaining totally ignorant about this aspect of real life in America. Best that they just continue to rant here on the blog where the rest of the world can laugh at them, but where they have positively no impact.
I agree that posting to this blog probably doesn't change anyone's mind, but once in a rare while there is some useful info. (I know I've been educated about some things.) I also think people in LA might be a little more knowledgeable about corruption than 6:46 says. Most know they can't do a damn thing, so are looking after their own. Selfish? Cynical? Maybe, but nobody gives a shit about me except Mom.
Bechtel is like the plauge
The corporate B's have taken over Los Alamos. We now have Bechtel and BWXT calling the shots at LANL and the Boyer development company running rough shod over the rest of this town. The corporate capture of Los Alamos is complete.
It's too bad that most of the town's citizens seem oblivious to what has occurred. They're still trying to come to grips with the notion that "UC won the contract" was just a cruel hoax.
Meet your new corporate owner, Riley P. Bechtel (Wiki Bio)...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_Bechtel
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Riley P. Bechtel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Riley P. Bechtel (CBE) is the chairman and CEO of the Bechtel Corporation. He is the great-grandson of Warren A. Bechtel, the founder of the company. His father is Stephen Bechtel, Jr., the former chairman and CEO of the company. With a net worth of over $2.5 billion, Riley Bechtel is consistently ranked in the top 200 richest people in the U.S. and the top 500 richest people in the world by Forbes Magazine.
He received a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Psychology from the University of California, Davis. After obtaining his J.D. and M.B.A. from Stanford University, Bechtel worked for the law firm of Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges. He joined Bechtel full-time in 1981, was elected President and COO of Bechtel in March of 1989, and became CEO in June 1990. In January 1996, he also became the chairman of Bechtel.
Mr. Bechtel is a director of the following companies:
* The International Council of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (since 1995)
* The Fremont Group (owned by the Bechtel corporation) and The Fremont Group, in turn runs Trinity Ventures, LP
* Fremont Investors, Inc. (owned by the Bechtel corporation)
* Sequoia Ventures, Inc. (limited partner of Bechtel corporation)
He is also a member of the Trilateral Commission and has been appointed to the President's Export Council by George W. Bush.
Bechtel resides in California with his wife Susan. He is a member of the exclusive, all-male Bohemian Club in San Francisco and attends its annual encampment, the Bohemian Grove.
I did a google on the grove and one of the first hits was this:
http://www.infowars.com/bg1.html
It talks about the occult and a bunch of other weird stuff. Is this what you mean by the grove?
"The corporate capture of Los Alamos is complete."
Well hoop de doo :) To me that's like announcing that Microsoft sells the majority of OS's owned in Los Alamos.
The corporate capture of DOE/NNSA started years ago and now that it's happened at LANL some seem to think that's big news.
IMO, the citizens of Los Alamos don't know/care about it any more than they do in Oak Ridge, Amarillo, Idaho, LLNL, Savannah River, etc., etc.
Just as long as the $$, and jobs remain they could care less about who the contractor is. What the hell would they do if they did understand?
I'm not against blogg'n about it or just stating your opinion. However, this battle was lost some years ago and at that time there were no reported LANL casualties in the war.
How does Riley B. get a CBE? Is he a British subject?
Posting at this blog may not change minds, but does make people more aware. An electorate that's aware might (though not likely) get the gumption to hold their elected representatives accountable. Who knows, they might even actually vote into office someone worthwhile for a change. The Bechtel's of the world of course don't want that; nor does the Lab for that matter. What a wonderful world our complacency has created, don't you think?
Hey, it's alot diffrent working for Bechtel, than UC....Get use to it, this "management fee" is only the tip of the iceberg, I hear from some, that the operating costs for the 09FY may increase....and og course the 09 budget will surly decrease. I am suprized that only 450 FTE's bowed out, the rest of us are entrenched in this place and won't move on until they kick us out in the street. Only confirms how "Cushy" we have it here, (despite all the whinning)...Gonna ride this pony to the ground.....
Re: 11:07's comment.
Wow. Five typos in one short comment. That's just plain depressing.
-Gus
It's a matter of simple courtesy to read what you've typed before pushing the "post" button. However, it's become obvious that simple courtesy isn't a concept most of the posters here believe in. THAT'S what's depressing.
Try the preview button before you publish. It allows you a second chance to edit your comment before it is final.
Firefox Version 2 has a real-time spell checker that can correct most spelling mistakes.
Perhaps posters like 11:07 AM are just too stupid and lazy to bother doing a browser upgrade.
12/9/07 2:23 PM,
That speller could be a plant, not an employee. Just trying to make the lab look bad. Notice that towards the end of the rant, when he started insulting the employees, the spelling improved.
Trying to make the Lab look bad....!
He'll have to become Director first.
-Gus
Gussie,
How about doing a little research by connecting multiple comments to the same IP address? I'm betting you will find 11:07AM to be the complete jackass that keeps posting made-up shit to support his irrational anti-LANL rant.
No can do, 5:11. There is not enough information in the logs to establish that correlation.
Anonymous comments truly are anonymous.
-Gus
Daer 5:11, are you proposing that only LANL lovers like yourself post comments....sounds like you may be trying to stay off the riff list......
5:11, you seem to say that you may post your thoughts, but beware of others? Your sir sound like riff-raft material...
Only 11 days left before the Riff list is published! Sleep well..
Approximately 20 years ago, when Bechtel was responsible for, or at least allowing, poor performance on a nuclear power station construction project relatively close to Los Alamos, a utility company employee was asked why they put up with it. The answer was simple. Bechtel had the contacts needed to get the operating license.
Doug is mistaken about his photo. It's actually a picture of the "Bechtel Portal", which is the entrance to Dick Cheney's secret hide-a-way, also know from mythology as the "Gates of Hell".
Good thing Doug didn't try to actually walk through them!
Close, 8:53pm. I was told that the Bechtel board of directors was having their meeting in the hotel the day I arrived. I wonder if LANL was even mentioned.
-Doug Roberts
LANL, Retired
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