Apr 4, 2009

Comment of the Week

There have been 199 comments since last week, 107 of them on the Bottled Water Purchasing Curtailed post!


It is one of those comments that made it to the top of the heap for COW honors this week. Bottom of the heap, actually. Is there really someone who thinks whining makes America great?

You can't make this stuff up:


"so for chrissakes.. QUIT YOUR WHINING!!!!"


The only thing that made America great are people who "whine" as you say. History has been very unkind to the people who do not "whine".

Keep those gems rolling in, folks, but
Until next week,

--Doug

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man! You didn't pick my comment again. Geez Louise, I never get picked for anything.

Doug Roberts said...

Would you like some cheese to go with that whine?

;-}

Anonymous said...

"America is a nation of Whiners"
Phil Gramm.

So chrissakes stop your whinning!!!

Of course the ironic thing is that the person who said "stop your whining" is the same
asswhipe who whines all the time about the "best and brightest", how every single person at LANL is racist, how there are no good scientists at LANL, about how horrible the people who work at LANL are. So to this whiner, stop your goddam whining! I also wish Chris Mechels would stop his crazed pathetic whining.

Doug Roberts said...

You know, 7:12, I'm glad you brought up the subject of Chris Mechels.

I'm told he doesn't even read this blog.

I'll also share a little secret with you: the one sure way to get a comment rejected on one of my posts is, as an Anonymous commenter, make the assumption that you know that another Anonymous commenter is Chris Mechels.

Stupid, that.

Anonymous said...

"I'm told he doesn't even read this blog. "

I'm told the opposite.

Anonymous said...

A thought exercise:

Whose point of view would you value more? One left by an anonymous coward, or one presented by someone willing to put his name on the line?

Posted anonymously. Place your own value on the content.

Anonymous said...

I am not sure who posts on the blog
and hell anyone can post on it, which is the point of a blog, but some of the posts sound an awfull lot like stuff you see in
other places.


"Write to Bingaman and Udall. No more earmarks!! Especially, no more earmarks for LANL. Enough of this corrupt, pork ridden, system."

C. Mechels, March 6 2009


"
Where will it end? Starving to death below the hill containing the highest concentration of millionaires in the US when there is no one left doing useful work, nothing to buy with the $222 million given to those that produce little of value? "

Erich Kuerschner. March 6 2009

Don't know too much about Erich but economics is not his strong suit.

"As someone ” loosely affiliated” with the LASG study group (wwww.LASG.org)who generally thinks more highly of the honest science done by that group as opposed to what passes as “science” in the area of nuclear weapons (perhaps 80% of Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) work is related to nuclear weapons- with its high end computing capacity "

Erich Kuerschner
Nov 27, 2007

LASG does science? Perhaps 80%? Perhaps not.

The last one is really scary.

"Socialism has never worked in Europe????? I was born in Germany, half a century AFTER Bismark enacted SS. The US is the ONLY industrialized country w/o socialized medicine and it is severely harming the small business you purport to be knowledgeable about."
Erich Kueshner March 3 2009

Germany and socialism! Run for your lives!

Anonymous said...

It's the whiners who whine against those who whine who really get to me.

Then you also have the whiners who whine against the whiners who whine against the whiners. Those people are the very worst!

Anonymous said...

Whining is what started the original blog about LANL. That blog started because the owner was mad that his whining platform had been removed at the lab under Nanos.

Whining has made America great. Someone whines about something and doesn't have the mental capacity to fix it themselves. Someone else figures it out and cashes in on the whiner's ignorance or laziness.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to make a leap and suggest that 9:08 sounds a whole lot like Kevin Roarke.

You're not a very happy person, are you Kevin? You were make to sound like a fool on the original LANL blog, and on each subsequent one.

Not that much work was ever required to make you sound like a fool -- you pretty much did that job for us.

Now, 9:08, if you're not Kevin, you are still a pretty sad fuck.

Anonymous said...

9:08 isn't necessarily Roarke, although it does read like something he'd spew out.

The fact is that even during the brief Nanos period there was small group of yes-persons that were constantly sucking up to management. 9:08 is definitely one of those types.

He's a member of a small, yet vocal minority.

Anonymous said...

"The fact is that even during the brief Nanos period there was small group of yes-persons that were constantly sucking up to management." - 11:12 AM

Yes, and many of them are still working at LANL (you all know who you are). It's possible to go far at LANL if you stroke management in the proper way.

Anonymous said...

LANS doesn't need to find yes-men at LANL. They simply import them from Bechtel.

Anonymous said...

Looks like NNSA is getting creepier by the minute according to Frank Munger over at Knoxville News. They are heading back to the old Hazel O'Leary tactics.

Might a symbolic name change to NNSA also be in the works, ala O'Leary style? How about changing the name of the NNSA to the National Non-Nuclear Security Agency (NNNSA)? Hey, we've already moved to O'Leary style badges that all have the same look and color, right?

---

Hold the Endorsements - Knoxville News, April 4, 2009

By Frank Munger

I hope this isn't a trend. I've noticed on a couple of occasions in recent days receiving e-mails, the most recent one coming from the NNSA in Washington, in which the public affairs folks are redistributing stories or editorials they like (I'm presuming they're not disseminating ones they don't like) to members of the news media.

This makes me a little queasy. Reminds me too much of the time when Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary had an internal rating system for reporters covering DOE activities. Most reporters, strange as it may seem to some, aren't really interested in getting an endorsement from the agency they cover.

Memo to DOE/NNSA: If you actually like something I write, try not to show it or pitch a party. And, above all else, don't shop it to other reporters.

blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/
munger/2009/04/
hold_the_endorsements.html

Anonymous said...

4:38 pm: "It's possible to go far at LANL if you stroke management in the proper way."

Sorry, did you ever have a (real) job anywhere that didn't require you to please your management in order to get ahead?? Try to imagine being a manager who is looking to promote someone. Who would you choose? The whiner? The slacker? The never-on-time? The never-to-be-found? The shirker? The I'm-too-inportant-to-listen-to-managememt? How about the I-can-get-it-done? Yep - there's your guy.

Anonymous said...

My comments on improper management stroking, 8:16 PM, were given in the context of the Nanos era and subsequent management under a poorly run and f*cked-up LANS LLC.

I take it you were one of the Nanos yes-men? Perhaps you are happy with the management of LANL under LANS? Could it be you also work in the upper levels of LANS management?

Actually, from the angry tone of your post, I'm suspect that all 3 conjectures are probably correct.

Anonymous said...

well if we want to focus on whiners, how bout them democrats?

Anonymous said...

Where will it end? Starving to death below the hill containing the highest concentration of millionaires in the US when there is no one left doing useful work, nothing to buy with the $222 million given to those that produce little of value? "

Erich Kuerschner. March 6 2009

Get overyourself Eric - There are much richer people everywhere. Shit, I can tell you about a publically traded company giving themselves fat cat bonuses while cutting employee's pay and benefits

Anonymous said...

Nice try, Doug, but this third generation of LANL blogs caters to whiners, and believe me, there are plenty in today's LANL.

Counter to 9:08's claims, your original LANL, The Real Story did provide a real information channel that had never before existed, and LANL folks actually used it as such.

I remember when your blog broke the story of the Americium-241 contamination before it made any of the newspapers.

Plus, or course, it helped run off Nanos.

Today's LANL is different, sadly. Whining seems to be all that people here are good for any more. No surprise, I guess, given how many of the good people have left.

Anonymous said...

Big news! LLNL upper management admits that their lab is in decline (below). They say it's in a "funk" (I know, I know... it's just more whining). Meanwhile, here at LANL, LANS tells us everything is just fine and spends money on fancy PR videos full of BS.

A copy of the LLNL "funk" article was posted on the LLNL blog,

llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com

-------------------------
Sunday, April 5, 2009

Roadmap made up of game–changing technologies

The Laboratory’s roadmap to the future needs game–changing technologies that can meet the emerging needs of the nation.

And Livermore is on its way. Tómas Díaz de la Rubia on Thursday outlined the Lab’s five–year roadmap strategy during an all–hands meeting. He said the Lab needs to focus on recruiting and retaining employees.

Even though there is a constant flow of new ideas from Lab employees and the Lab is highly regarded in the external community, Díaz de la Rubia said the Lab is in a funk.

“Right here, right now, something is not working quite right. The Lab’s engine is sputtering,” he said. “We need to get going again doing what we do best – recruiting and retaining outstanding talent in all areas of the Lab, executing on our mission priorities, and innovating for the future.

“We all need to work together to kick start the engine of the Lab.”

Three leaders from the seven Roadmap to the Future thrust areas gave short summaries of what they determined were strategic areas where the Lab needs to move.

Wes Spain, who leads the cyber and space security and intelligence area, said the needs include “real time situational awareness of complex systems; predictive models of computer information systems and a hybrid of human–machine systems that learn from language and images”.

“We need to crack this nut,” he said. “These are significant S&T challenges, but this Lab is uniquely positioned to do well in these areas.”
------------------------------

Anonymous said...

"game-changing technologies", "innovating for the future", "we all need to work together", "future thrust areas", "recruiting and retaining top talent in all areas", "executing on our mission priorities".

Sounds like this guy got a few books on extended loan from the LANL library "Leadership Collection".

Anonymous said...

Yes, both LANL and LLNL are in a serious "funk", but neither LANS nor LLNS have any idea on how to get out of this situation.

Their "solution" seems to always be the same: raise costs and hire some more managers to help make things better. It hasn't work in the past and it won't work now. The NNSA labs are quickly sinking into quicksand.

Anonymous said...

Funk or no funk, the top mission priority for LANL and LLNL is meeting PBIs.

Anonymous said...

And the reason for meeting all those PBIs? It's so LANS (Bechtel and BWXT) can earn their $80 million per year profit fee. LANL employees do all the work while Bechtel and BWXT take home all the rewards with no risks. We're all working to help Riley Bechtel buy a new yacht.

Anonymous said...

"The Lab’s engine is sputtering" - Tómas Díaz de la Rubia (LLNL)

Sputtering? Yeah, that's because NNSA decided to fill it with cheap gas and never bother to change the oil. They've pretty much totaled the engine at this point. Fixing it will require a complete overhaul, which means NNSA and the for-profit LLCs have to go!

Anonymous said...

related?

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-04-07/

Anonymous said...

As long as we're on Dilbert, Wednesday's seems like a good model for the behavior exhibited by the bulk of those posting here:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-04-08/

Anonymous said...

scott adams must read this blog.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-04-09