Mar 27, 2009

U.S. Agency Readies Controversial Shift of Nuclear Component Work

By Elaine M. Grossman, Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. agency that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons complex is shifting design work on a key warhead component -- the tritium gas system -- from one government laboratory to another, a move that is generating some controversy (see GSN, Nov. 10, 2008).

Robert Smolen -- until last month a top National Nuclear Security Administration official -- announced the decision in a Jan. 5 internal memo. The agency, he said, would soon consolidate responsibility for designing tritium "gas transfer systems" from the two organizations currently performing the work -- the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories -- down to a single site, Sandia's facility in Livermore, Calif.

Congress in 2000 established the National Nuclear Security Administration as a semiautonomous arm of the Energy Department. The agency oversees the national laboratories as part of its mandate to maintain the stockpile.

The component at the center of debate, called the "gas transfer system," moves tritium from container bottles into the core of the nuclear warhead as the weapon explodes. It "enables tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to boost the yield of a nuclear weapon," according to an NNSA statement issued a day after Smolen's internal memo.

The news release heralded the decision without identifying New Mexico-based Los Alamos as the facility expected to lose the work.

The NNSA announcement went largely unnoticed and a number of issue experts contacted for this article said they could not comment before learning more about the move. One U.S. nuclear weapons official opined that the arcane bureaucratic machinations amount to little more than "inside baseball."

However, new revelations about the initiative raise broad questions about how competing interests might affect the future safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons.

Complex Transformation

Smolen -- a Bush administration appointee who left his NNSA post as deputy administrator for defense programs when President Barack Obama took office in January -- has described the shift as part of "Complex Transformation." The NNSA initiative is aimed at consolidating nuclear enterprise operations and facilities to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings.

However, critics of the gas transfer decision say it lacks a clear rationale on the basis of either cost or program effectiveness. Detractors include not only Los Alamos personnel who stand to lose the work, but also a number of deputies inside NNSA headquarters and scientists outside of Los Alamos, Global Security Newswire has learned.

In addition, an independent analysis performed at the nuclear agency's behest argued in October against the shift.

In its assessment, Los Alamos, N.M.-based consulting firm TechSource examined several prospective consolidation moves related to the tritium transfer system. In addition to moving the Los Alamos gas transfer design responsibility to Sandia, TechSource reviewed the NNSA intention to shift two other related functions out of Los Alamos. Tritium research and development would move to a complex at Savannah River Site, S.C., and component production would go to a facility in Kansas City, Mo.

The analysts found that a reassignment of these tritium research and development functions -- most importantly, to include the component design responsibility -- would offer negligible savings and might increase the risk that U.S. nuclear weapons malfunction.

Los Alamos currently serves as the gas transfer system design agency for the nuclear weapons it originally designed, while Sandia's California facility performs the same role for warheads originating at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which shares the same campus.

In the current nuclear stockpile, Los Alamos designed warheads for the B-61 gravity bomb and Minuteman 3 ICBM, plus two weapons for the Trident D-5 sea-launched ballistic missile. Livermore designed one warhead for the B-83 gravity bomb and another for the Peacekeeper ICBM; the Livermore warhead was retrofitted onto selected Minuteman 3 missiles when Peacekeeper was retired.

Design work on the warhead component is part of the agency's "Stockpile Stewardship Program," funded at $5.1 billion this fiscal year. The effort is aimed at ensuring the continued reliability, safety and security of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Toward that end, laboratory scientists design detailed blueprints for the maintenance, repair and replacement of tritium-transfer components as part of an overall refurbishment to extend a warhead's service life.

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy-makers have opted to extend the viability of existing warheads in the stockpile without underground testing, rather than replace them with new designs that might require test blasts.

TechSource noted the stakes involved when it reported that if a warhead's tritium system malfunctioned, the nuclear weapon could not be expected to destroy its target.

"If the tritium [gas transfer system] does not function properly, the weapon will not meet its military requirements," the October report reads. "There is no redundancy."

Given the critical nature of the component and "very successful" design work that Los Alamos has performed to date, the TechSource analysts wondered why the nuclear agency would opt to shift future responsibility to Sandia.

The Stockpile Stewardship Program "is best served by two independent [design agencies] for the purposes of competing new [gas transfer system] technology development and [conducting] peer review," TechSource wrote.

The analysts added: "The tritium [gas transfer system] mission is too important to the safety and reliability of the stockpile, too important to NNSA and [Defense Department] operations and too successful to change without identifying substantive programmatic or economic benefits to offset the risk."

The report's lead author, Steve Guidice, declined to comment for this article.

Risk For a Pending Warhead Redesign?

"Anytime you change anything, you run into some risk because you're making a change," Smolen, the former NNSA official, acknowledged in a March 3 telephone interview. "Something is different and it's not what you're accustomed to and you don't feel as at-ease because you've made a change. I fully accept that."

However, these qualms should not pose an insurmountable problem and are an acceptable price to pay for the benefits of consolidation, he suggested.

Critics of the decision stop short of questioning Sandia's ability to excel at this expanded portfolio, once laboratory engineers come up to speed on the Los Alamos designs. Rather, they worry about risks incurred during the months or years that it takes to transition the responsibility from one facility to another.

In particular, concerns focus on how warhead life-extension program schedules and quality might slip for some period of time when Los Alamos transfers its design enterprise to Sandia.

Los Alamos experts on the gas transfer system, based in New Mexico, are not expected to move to Sandia's California facilities, suggesting to some in the nuclear weapons community that management continuity could be lost.

Selected members of Smolen's own staff expressed worries about this aspect of his draft decision before it was finalized.

No fewer than four NNSA office directors last June and July raised concerns about risks the move could introduce for pending warhead life-extension efforts, with one agency executive officially "nonconcurring" with Smolen's decision, GSN has learned.

Specifically, some U.S. officials have noted that schedules to begin designing an overhaul of the Air Force's B-61 nuclear bomb in the coming months could be thrown into jeopardy as the nuclear agency launches its consolidation effort. Under existing plans, the first of roughly 900 B-61 bombs are to begin receiving upgrades as early as 2015.

"I work with both labs and they all do good work," Billy Mullins, a senior Air Force nuclear weapons planning official, said in an interview. "I just want to make sure that the [B-61] LEP schedule is not impacted."

What Mullins wants to see in Sandia's forthcoming transition plan -- which NNSA officials say is expected by late April -- is that "when they transfer it, they're ready to take it and they do not impact Air Force programs," he said.

"Could there be a delay?" asked Smolen, who retired from the Air Force as a two-star general in November 2007. "I think there are other, probably higher risk areas than this that have the potential to delay things, more than this might."

He declined to elaborate.

"The risks and challenges" of the NNSA decision to shift the design work "are to capture the specific knowledge base developed by [Los Alamos] to support its particular weapon systems and transfer the data" and expertise to Sandia, NNSA defense program officials told GSN in a written response to queries. "Initiating activities this year provides the best opportunity to execute a seamless transition."

However, if nothing else, lingering contention over the decision could delay its implementation, according to some government officials. The potential impact on the Air Force bomb refurbishment effort remains unclear.

Physics or Mechanics?

Critics of Smolen's decision argue that any work related to the central part of a Los Alamos-designed nuclear warhead -- the so-called "physics package" capable of creating a chain reaction -- should remain where the brain trust resides for those specific weapons.

"What ... NNSA is proposing to do is take a piece of the 'physics package' away from the design agency [at Los Alamos] and move it to Sandia," said one U.S. weapons policy adviser. "And if you suddenly start picking out pieces from that system, it makes it even more difficult for us to continue to assure how those systems will work, God help us, if the president ever decides to use one."

Along with several others interviewed for this article, the policy official requested anonymity, citing sensitivities involved in publicly challenging the NNSA decision.

Smolen rejects the notion that the gas transfer system is part of a nuclear weapon's core physics package, describing it instead as a mechanical element that falls more appropriately under Sandia's longtime purview.

"Doing non-nuclear engineering components is not the function of what Los Alamos does as a primary core competency," he said in the phone interview.

Whether the gas transfer system should be regarded as part of the physics package -- and thus arguably remain part of Los Alamos' portfolio -- is "a judgment call," Smolen conceded.

However, he asserted, "there's dozens of other components that you can make the same argument for. You could for fuses, for all kinds of things. Where do you draw the line?"

For Los Alamos weapon designs, "the gas transfer system is critically important to how well that weapon will function," responded one senior government weapons engineer, interviewed the same day. "It is not just another non-nuclear component."

Costs "Not a Driving Factor"

Also at issue is whether future cost estimates justify the action.

If the nuclear agency continues a plan to shift other tritium R&D programs out of Los Alamos -- but reverses itself on moving the design responsibilities to Sandia -- that would cost $424 million over a 20-year period beginning in fiscal 2010, according to the TechSource report.

That option is actually the most expensive among four long-term budget scenarios the agency considered.

The second most costly is the one Smolen selected, at $415 million over 20 years, under which the design responsibility as well as other tritium-related work is undertaken outside of Los Alamos.

The two least costly budget options would be to retain the status quo at $329 million between 2010 and 2030, or even cheaper, to consolidate all tritium-related work at Los Alamos. The latter alternative would offer a $137 million savings compared to taking no action at all.

According to government officials, the cost comparisons tend to stack up in favor of keeping tritium research work at Los Alamos because that laboratory has a much smaller staff performing gas transfer work, compared to the other facilities. Moreover, any dollar benefits of a shift are discounted in the analyses because they would accrue only in the longer term.

"If I have to invest money in the near term to gain savings out toward the end of that 20 years, there's not a huge benefit there," the weapons design engineer said. "That's part of the issue with making a change: You have to spend money to make the change."

Smolen takes issue with the idea, though, that cost concerns should have played a stronger role in his decision.

"Cost is kind of a wash," he said. "Cost is not a driving factor in making it either move or not move."

"This decision was based on overall benefits to the enterprise," NNSA officials said in a written statement this month. "Any cost difference represents an investment to capture these benefits."

In its report, TechSource emphasized that the gas transfer system design program constitutes just a small fraction of the overall Stockpile Stewardship budget. If the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to trim down the nuclear weapons enterprise, it should focus instead on consolidation concepts with potential for bigger payoff and smaller risk, the analysis suggested.

Research and development work on this component totals roughly $25 million annually, according to the report, comprising less than 1 percent of the overall Stockpile Stewardship budget this fiscal year.

The tritium assembly design work "involves few people" -- roughly 60 full-time personnel slots -- and costs so little relative to the entire Stockpile Stewardship effort, "yet it has high direct impact on the stockpile and DOD operations," the report states.

"To be credible," transformation of the nuclear weapons complex "should focus on the many thousands of people currently employed" by the Stockpile Stewardship program, "not the net difference of a few tens of people doing [gas transfer system] work," according to the company's report.

Rather than focus on incremental costs, the nuclear agency wants each of the laboratories and facilities it oversees to concentrate on their respective areas of primary expertise.

"In the end, NNSA looked across its sites and across mission capabilities to reach broad decisions on the best means to sustain the nuclear weapons complex, including infrastructure, materials and skill sets, culminating in several separate decisions," the agency said in its written responses. "Making this assignment to Sandia is consistent with this laboratory's strength in engineering, integrated system design and its overall responsibility for non-nuclear components."

"In the spirit of Complex Transformation, what we're trying to do is set up centers of excellence," Smolen explained. "We want Los Alamos to stay focused on its primary mission, which is plutonium. Now, you have to ask yourself, why does Los Alamos need to do gas transfer systems?"

He contended that some laboratory officials are clinging to a wide array of scientific specialties for parochial reasons.

"There are a handful of people -- and literally a handful, three or four people -- who are just absolutely in love with what Los Alamos does," Smolen said. "They are absolutely convinced that none of this should ever be transferred out of Los Alamos, but Los Alamos is the absolute place where everything that can be done at Los Alamos ought to be done at Los Alamos."

Critics insist the tritium system design responsibility is not a parochial issue, a point they say is illustrated by concerns that extend beyond individuals at Los Alamos. In fact, some U.S. government officials have questioned whether Smolen, who recently became a senior national security fellow at Lawrence Livermore's Center for Global Security Research, might have had personal reasons for assigning the work to Sandia's Livermore-based facility.

"I'm not associated with anything to do with NNSA, because of the conflict-of-interest areas," Smolen said in early March, before it was publicly known that he would join Livermore. "I don't advise anyone in NNSA at this point, [or] any of the federal [agencies], because of the conflict of interest."

Reached at Livermore on March 18, Smolen said that for a one-year period, he would not work on the gas transfer system or other issues that he handled while serving as the NNSA deputy administrator.

"Stand There"

As a matter of program effectiveness, the nuclear agency should have simply preserved the status quo, according to one retired weapons designer.

"I have very high confidence in the person directing the Los Alamos effort," the former official said March 11. "Starting over again, even with people experienced in the general area, offered some potential for loss in my confidence."

The potential harm is akin to too many chefs spoiling the broth, the current weapons engineer suggested in an interview the prior week.

"When you're in the middle of a development program, you're making development hardware, you're looking at it, you're making decisions, and you don't want two different sets of folks making different decisions," the current senior weapons engineer said in an interview the prior week. "You want to be as consistent as you can, because you've got to get that done on a schedule and on a budget."

However, Smolen argued that Los Alamos gas-transfer experts could facilitate the transition by working closely with their Sandia counterparts. Thanks to electronic connectivity and face-to-face contact just an airplane ride away, there should be minimal risk to ongoing programs, he insisted.

Laboratory scientists and engineers "routinely hop on airplanes and go to other laboratories to provide advice on lots of other things," Smolen said. "So if Sandia got in a position where they needed some of that expertise for whatever reason, there's no reason why those [Los Alamos] guys couldn't go and do that."

To the former weapons designer, this approach might ultimately work out fine but is not the best way to approach the task.

"I'm always very skeptical about NNSA feeling they should do something" in instances when action is unnecessary, the former official said. "My motto for NNSA is: Don't just do something, stand there," he quipped. "Many of these so-called consolidations are not so much risky as inefficient."

Smolen emphasized that he reached out to a number of experts, beyond TechSource, to inform his decision.

Other key voices, according to Smolen, included the top weapons directors at each of the three national laboratories: Glenn Mara of Los Alamos, Joan Woodard of Sandia and Bruce Goodwin of Lawrence Livermore.

"I told them to review all of this, talk to all of the people, and tell me really what the three of you -- as heartbeats away from being the director -- what do you think the right answer is. And they came back to me and said the transfer was the right idea," said Smolen, adding that the view was unanimous.

The former NNSA deputy's January decision memo reflects that understanding, stating, "All laboratories support the decision."

However, others have since cast doubt on the notion that Mara and Los Alamos voiced support for the move before it was finalized.

"Los Alamos senior management had full and frank discussions with Bob Smolen and his senior team at [NNSA] headquarters [and] outlined why" leaving the work at the New Mexico laboratory "was in the best interest of national security," said the weapons policy adviser.

Following the decision, Los Alamos officials have said they would do whatever necessary to support the transition, even if they disagreed with it, according to government sources.

Mara declined a request for comment.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

""In the spirit of Complex Transformation, what we're trying to do is set up centers of excellence," Smolen explained. "We want Los Alamos to stay focused on its primary mission, which is plutonium. "

Got it now everyone. Pits. RF:2.0
No ASC, no science, no computers.
Pits.

Anonymous said...

"All laboratories support the decision."

A little late for a fight.

Old news & a done deal

Anonymous said...

"Critics insist the tritium system design responsibility is not a parochial issue, a point they say is illustrated by concerns that extend beyond individuals at Los Alamos. In fact, some U.S. government officials have questioned whether Smolen, who recently became a senior national security fellow at Lawrence Livermore's Center for Global Security Research, might have had personal reasons for assigning the work to Sandia's Livermore-based facility.

"I'm not associated with anything to do with NNSA, because of the conflict-of-interest areas," Smolen said in early March, before it was publicly known that he would join Livermore. "I don't advise anyone in NNSA at this point, [or] any of the federal [agencies], because of the conflict of interest."

Reached at Livermore on March 18, Smolen said that for a one-year period, he would not work on the gas transfer system or other issues that he handled while serving as the NNSA deputy administrator."



Could it be that the GTS move was only to make Livermore harder to shutdown and to buy Smolen's golden parachute?

Anonymous said...

I found this article disturbing. It demonstrates yet another clear sign of NNSA high level managers harming US national security to feather their own nests.

The IG should immediately start an investigation into Smolen's decision and his subsequent hire by an NNSA contractor closely connected to his decision.

The stench from NNSA is only getting stronger over time! Where will Tom D'Agostino finally end up, I wonder?

Anonymous said...

The former NNSA deputy's January decision memo reflects that understanding, stating, "All laboratories support the decision." (GSN Article)

Ha-ha-ha, that's very funny, Mr. Smolen. I thought that NNSA had reached to the very lowest quality dregs in their manager hires, but Smolen's term at NNSA indicates NNSA can always aim a little lower.

I guess it's all part of what Tom D'Agostino likes to call "Getting the Job Done!". Yep, they sure are, aren't they?

Anonymous said...

Sounds like this is just the tip of the iceburg, once they began to take project away in this fashion, watch out whats next. I do not feel safe in my employment here.

Anonymous said...

The reason the most articulate Glenn Mara (Principal Weapons Director at LANL) and former Lawrence Livermore Weapons Manager has nothing to say, is that former Lawrence Livermore Manager and current Associate Director for Weapons Engineering (ADWE) at LANL, Brett Knapp, gave LANL's GTS technology, along with other LANL engineering technology, to the Director of Engineering at Sandia Livermore (SNL), who so happens to be Brett Knapp's brother, Corey Knapp. Anastasio, Knapp, and Mara are soaking LANL for everything they can get to pad their real home, LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA.

Anonymous said...

Why the outrage now? Where were you when it matered. Go back to sleeple LANL.

Anonymous said...

Why the outrage now? Where were you when it matered. Go back to sleeple LANL.

3/28/09 5:33 PM

I'm not convinced that any uprising or communication directed toward or engaged in with the decision-makers (going up as far as Congress or the President even) would've made a bit of difference, then or now.

Perhaps several years ago, as in pre-WenHoLee debacle (an injustice against the entire lab), pre-NEST-disks-behind-the-copier, pre-Cerro Grande fire, pre-laser-eye-injury, pre-non-existant-CREM-'loss', pre-contract let...et al...perhaps if people had been courageous enough to speak up and correct the mis-information and demand that the truth be known, we might have had a fighting chance to retain the strength of any argument that the LANL was capable and competent and doing a job that was contributing to the stability of the nation's security.

However, when the method of choice is to remain silent as attack after attack persistently reduces any credibility and much of your capability to perform a function, you end up with powerless and cowering targets who await with dread the next onslaught.

Not only do you end up with sheeple in the slaughterhouse pens but you also end up with an overpopulation of wolves bargaining for what to do with the remaining pastures, the lambs and anything else they can get their paws on.

What is even more disturbing though not a major surprise, is that the wolves within the fence look much like the wolves that glare across the hardwood podiums during hearings.

It's a shambles and one wonders where the sheep herders/wolf hunters have gone....

Anonymous said...

So, suddenly Complex Transformation isn't about saving money... it's about establishing Centers of Excellence?

If that's the case, then why isn't NNSA offering jobs at SNL-CA to LANL's excellent GTS group members?

Anonymous said...

God help me, I think in my haste I wrote "LLNL" instead of "LANL."

Anonymous said...

11:51 PM, don't fan the flames. LANL had a plutonium mission (design and cert) long before Rocky Flats closed and pits moved here. And yes, it involves science.

Anonymous said...

To 5'33, Its not the misinformation that has gooten us here, it the incompetence that caused all of the "misinformation", that was never cleared up. But thats only the tip, Congress has not been content with LANLs operation since the Nanos days. We had a chance some time ago to show the (Congress and the American people) that we could function as a Lab, in unison and work as part of a team (with other Labs and NNSA) but the whinning and incompetence contined. Individual employees complaining directly to their sponsors claiming that their project were more important than so and so. The Congress and DOE consider LANL the cry-babies of the complex, and along with their (our)certian misteps we are going down fast. Smolen stated "We are setting up Centers of Exellence" Does LANL fit this new senerio?

Anonymous said...

It is apparent that anything and everything will be done to save Livermore from their ultimate fate as a laser facility powered by a wind farm. W-80, DARHT shots, RRW, Gas Transfer, and so on all moved to LLNL. If the pattern isn't clear, you aren't paying attention. Livermore will survive as a weapons lab in the "complex transformation" even if the weapons do not. Why not? Bechtel stands to inherit not one, but two labs ... and their fees.

Anonymous said...

3/28/09 6:30 PM - you forgot the Aqua Regia scandel which cost this lab a lot of credibility when they kept the guilty TSM. Millions of dollars wasted in corrupt investitgations to get rid of an outspoken postdoc.

Anonymous said...

3/28/09 8:29 PM
Are you high or just really stupid? The postdocs were provided a place to do the frit cleaning safely (room 409), but they chose to do it in room 401, where the ventilation was down. That is why the postdoc got hurt. Then she lied about it-- that's why she got fired.
The whole incident is well documented.
The TSM who provided a safe place for the operation is still a lanl employee.

Haven't we already been over this?

Anonymous said...

"3/28/09 6:30 PM - you forgot the Aqua Regia scandel which cost this lab a lot of credibility when they kept the guilty TSM. Millions of dollars wasted in corrupt investitgations to get rid of an outspoken postdoc.

3/28/09 8:29 PM"

No scandal.

Anonymous said...

"Haven't we already been over this?

3/28/09 8:44 PM"

Yes we did but in a few weeks the poster will come back and make the same false claim.

It is also this way with the troll who says that LANL does poorly in science. It is than shown once again that LANL has a great scientific record that has been docummented on the blog many times. A few days or weeks latter the troll comes out with the same statement.

These people live by Colbert's
truthiness concept.

Anonymous said...

To 5'33, Its not the misinformation that has gooten us here, it the incompetence that caused all of the "misinformation", that was never cleared up. But thats only the tip, Congress has not been content with LANLs operation since the Nanos days. We had a chance some time ago to show the (Congress and the American people) that we could function as a Lab, in unison and work as part of a team (with other Labs and NNSA) but the whinning and incompetence contined. Individual employees complaining directly to their sponsors claiming that their project were more important than so and so. The Congress and DOE consider LANL the cry-babies of the complex, and along with their (our)certian misteps we are going down fast. Smolen stated "We are setting up Centers of Exellence" Does LANL fit this new senerio?

3/28/09 6:59 PM

What the hell are you talking about? Do you just make this crap up for fun. I take it you are bitter at LANL for personal reasons?

Anonymous said...

It is than shown once again that LANL has a great scientific record that has been docummented on the blog many times.

3/28/09 11:39 PM


Wow, you must be reading some other blog.
In a recent exchange, the offer was extended for any data to support claims as your 'great scientific record'. Not only was no such data provided, but several posters then (not 'than') did provide data that supported their claims that LANL is not among the top institutions.

Anonymous said...

"Wow, you must be reading some other blog.
In a recent exchange, the offer was extended for any data to support claims as your 'great scientific record'. Not only was no such data provided, but several posters then (not 'than') did provide data that supported their claims that LANL is not among the top institutions.

3/29/09 7:54 AM"

Bullshit all the data was shown on the old blog back in 2006. I do want to dig it up but you can find it. It was shown several times on that blog. It was shown that LANL was among the top 5 institutes in the country.

On the other hand you have not provided any evidence that LANL is not scientifically
productive. There was not a single post to back this claim up. You just made that up.

Anonymous said...

7:54 AM, I saw no data, just assertions.

Anonymous said...

Outside of nuclear weapons, LANL is doing nothing that cannot be done cheaper, faster and better at other institutions. The quality of the scientific staff at LANL is very high but the institution bogs them down tremendously.

In regards to nuclear weapons, the work is expensive, slow and of unknown quality since testing is no longer allowed.

Anonymous said...

In regards to nuclear weapons, the work is expensive, slow and of unknown quality since testing is no longer allowed.
3/29/09 11:34 AM


Compared to what benchmarks?

Testing of what?

I don't think this is work we want to put out for competitive bid.

Anonymous said...

"I don't think this is work we want to put out for competitive bid."

I nominate this for understatement of the week.

Anonymous said...

From 3/28/09 8:29 PM: you forgot the Aqua Regia scandel which cost this lab a lot of credibility when they kept the guilty TSM...

From 3/28/09 9:42 PM: No scandal.

To wit I say, bullshit, just ask Terry Wallace. He was intimately involved and knows the truth.

Anonymous said...

"From 3/28/09 9:42 PM: No scandal.

To wit I say, bullshit, just ask Terry Wallace. He was intimately involved and knows the truth.

3/29/09 4:39 PM"

So what you are really saying is that there is no scandal. Thanks for that insight.

Anonymous said...

"I don't think this is work we want to put out for competitive bid."

I nominate this for understatement of the week.
3/29/09 1:50 PM


Oh man, I hate it when I do that - I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue.

Anonymous said...

The long scroll required to get past this post seems to separate the presence of new comments vs. "oh forget about it." A lesson for the blog owners?