Bodman all-employee talk scheduled for today
On LABNET Channel 9
Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is scheduled to speak to DOE employees this afternoon from Washington, D.C. The talk begins at 12:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).Bodman will speak about the reality of the nation's energy and national security challenges and highlight the unique ability of the DOE complex to respond to these challenges both today and moving forward.
His talk can be watched at the Laboratory on LABNET Channel 9. LABNET can be viewed on desktop computers using Real Media Stream or IPTV technology.
I need at least two volunteers (to keep each other awake) who will watch this and report back to us if he says anything blogworthy. Any takers?
15 comments:
Bodman is a lame duck. Neither Obama nor McCain will keep Bodman on as he was responsible for no energy or security initiatives of merit whatsoever. He did nothing to help avert the oil/energy crisis. What will Bodman's legacy be? He and D'Agostino screwed up the weapons labs.
What's the point? How could he possibly say anything of importance?
Not me. I will be using my time more effectively. I will be trying to eat 10 lbs. of crickets.
Rah! Rah! What a pep talk. I feel so much better being a LANL employee now! Do you think we'll be treated better too, now that he realizes how valuable we are????
Bodman is nothing more than a complete joke and wasted his time as S-1... Only one question needs to be asked - Are the Labs (NNSAs and DOEs) better off today than they were before he took over.
The only thing missing from that picture of Mr. Bodman is a small red ball on his nose and some white face paint. He makes a perfect clown.
My perspective
The overall agenda of the so-called "zeroists," i.e. the very naive view of actual zero nuclear weapons in the world, and that the US should unilateral surrender its nuclear deterrence, and believe other to follow this idealistic idea, is to be a fool of grand proportion, in other words, political correctness is hurting US nuclear weapons policy, as well as in other areas, like nuclear power, foreign policy, expanding domestic oil and natural gas exploration and production, environment issues, et cetera.
This idea that political correctness gain you, is severly wrong, if US continue on this political correctness path, paths that are expanding, that hurt US status as a superpower, not a route to embark.
And the policy of no nuclear testing, no new nuclear weapons systems introduced, no real modernization, is essentially political correctness, that in the long term perspective hurt US national security policy.
A path out of this labyrinth, first created with President George H. W. Bush´s voluntary test moratorium for US in 1992, further cemented by President Bill Clinton in 1996 with the signature of the CTBT, but at least not ratified by the Senate in 1999, is essentially a belief in the so-called "End of History," a perspective intoduced by Francis Fukuyama in the essay "The End of History?" in 1989, and the expantion to "The End of History and the Last Man" in 1992, it is also the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet Union, the US victory against Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the first Gulf War, 1991, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but nothing of these events protected that Pakistan and North Korea became nuclear powers, the rise of China, Iran to seek nuclear weapons, the rise of Islamic terrorism, and 9/11 to happen.
As of August 2008, US should address this policy, for its nuclear deterrence:
(1) We have the right to underground testing, if there is a need.
(2) We have the right to introduce new nuclear weapons in the stockpile, if there is a need.
(3) We have the right to change the military capabilities of every nuclear wepon in the stockpile, if there is a need.
(4) We have the right to withdraw from the Moscow Treaty and the CTBT, if there is a need.
And finally; there are essentially two ways to make history:
(5) What preserves the species.- The strongest and most evil spirits have so far done the most to advance humanity: again and again they relumed the passions that were going to sleep- all ordered society puts the passions to sleep- and they reawakened again and again the the sense of comparison, of contradiction, of the pleasure in what is new, daring, untried; they compelled men to pit opinion against opinion, model against model. Usually by force of arms, by toppling boundary markers, by violating pieties- but also by means of new religions and moralities. In every teacher and preacher of what is new we encounter the same "wickedness" that makes conquerors notorious, even if its expression is subtler and it does not immediately set the muscles in motion, and therefore also does not make one that notorious. What is new, however, is always evil, being that which wants to conquer and overthrow the old boundary markers and the old pieties; and only what is old is good. The good men are in all ages those who dig the old thoughts, digging deep and getting them to bear fruit- the farmers of the spirit. But eventually all land is exploited, and the ploughshare of evil must come again and again.
Nowadays there is a profoundly erroneous moral doctrine that is celebrated especially in England: this holds that judgments of "good" and "evil" sum up experiences of what is "expedient" and "inexpedient." One holds that what is called good preserves the species, while what is called evil harms the species. In truth, however, the evil instincts are expedient, species-preserving, and indispensable to as high a degree as the good ones; their function is merely different. (The Gay Science, Book One, section 4, Random House, Inc., 1974, by Friedrich Nietzsche.)
(6) Historia abscondita. - Every great human being exerts a retroactive force: for his sake all of history is placed in the balance again, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their hiding places- into his sunshine. There is no way of telling what may yet become part of history. Perhaps the past is still essentially undiscovered! So many retroactive forces are still needed! (Ibid, section 34.)
I don't think the Secy Bodman is too worried about a job after he leaves office.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds
/overview.php?type=W&year=2006&filter=E
To the 8/8/08 5:43 PM poster
Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity. - Friedrich Nietzsche
"I try to explain to them something about the Aloha Spirit. I try to explain to them this basic idea that we all have obligations to each other. That we’re not alone. That if we see somebody who’s in need, we should help. If there’s a child who doesn’t have a decent school, we should help rebuild that school. If there’s someone elderly, then we should make sure that they have a life of comfort and dignity. That we look out for one another, that we deal with each other with courtesy and respect, and most importantly when you come from Hawaii you start understanding that what’s on the surface, what people look like — that doesn’t determine who they are and that the power and strength of diversity. The ability of people from everywhere, whether they’re black or white or whether they’re Japanese Americans or Korean Americans or Filipino Americans – whatever they are - they’re just Americans. And that all of us can work together and all of us can join together to create a better country."
- Senator Barack Obama [next President of the USA] on his home sate of Hawaii, 8/8/08
Yes, Bodman and D'Agostino screwed the lab and employees, but at some point its time from some positive views on our future and that of the lab... Both Obama and McCain have energy policy ideas that point to a potential rebirth of the lab, and we need to be ready.
8/9/08 12:01 AM
When you try to address a "bill of nuclear weapons rights," you have to be subjective and vague by definition, if they gonna work continously over time for you, there are really no other methods.
(You quote Nietzsche out of context, your quote reads: "Being profound and seeming profound.- Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water." (The Gay Science, Book Three, section 173, Random House, Inc., 1974.))
If we could harness all of the hot air out of Washington and covert all of the BS into biomass, Bodman would have solved the energy problem.
Harnessing Bodman's flappin' gums would solve the energy problem.
8/8/08 5:43 PM
I think you need to read the treaty
And? Anything of significance what Bodman said?
Nope.
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