Aug 15, 2008

"nobody on this blog knows anything"

That quote is from a comment on the Breakfast with Nancy post in response to a report of yet another contamination injury at LANL. This time it appears to have happened at TA-55 on Wednesday.

I have more confidence in the blog's readers than the person who left that comment. In fact, I'm betting they can get most of the facts out before we hear any official word from lab management. If you know something about this latest incident, please send a comment (from your home computer). I'd also like to hear suggestions for phrases that can be woven together with the facts to create the official story. Here are my suggestions:

a small number of personnel
very low-level radiation
a limited number of plutonium particles
no health effects are expected
no evidence of danger
only trace amounts
it was an unexpected result

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Schultz: I see NOTHING! I know NOTHING!

Anonymous said...

Mikey:
I see nothing.
I know everything.
I want a bonus!

Anonymous said...

Frank, this is the silliest post I've seen thus far. Under the previous article, I left a brief post as to what happened at TA-55 so your imaginations don't go wild.

Anonymous said...

As a private company LANS is not required to ........
National security considerations prevent .....
Records will be released after the standard FOIA procedures have been ...
A high school student working over the summer seems to have been the cause .....

Frank Young said...

3:33 PM,
I thought this post was sillier.

Anonymous said...

From The Sunday Times - August 17, 2008

---------------------------------
Russia’s new nuclear challenge to Europe
---------------------------------

Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, senior military sources warned last night.

...Under the Russian plans, nuclear warheads could be supplied to submarines, cruisers and fighter bombers of the Baltic fleet based in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between the European Union countries of Poland and Lithuania. A senior military source in Moscow said the fleet had suffered from underfunding since the collapse of communism. “That will change now,” said the source.

**********

Seeing as the only true threat to America is ominously rising, once again, do you really wish to continue your attacks to wipe out America's remaining nuclear weapons research within the weapon labs, Mr. Dingell?

How about the rest of the gang of constant NNSA lab attackers in Congress... Mr. Barton, Mr. Stupak, Ms. Feinstein, et al?

Do you have any earthly idea how much damage has already been done to these beleaguered labs? Are you aware that things have become so bad that LANL's former Director, Sig Hecker, now refers to Los Alamos as feeling very much like a "prison"? That the morale of scientists at the weapon labs is at dangerous new lows (regardless of the story that "for-profit" Bechtel/LANS LLC is feeding to NNSA and the public)?

Keep up the work, Congress, and you'll soon see unrepairable damage to America's strategic defense labs. NNSA lab cuts of a couple hundred million followed by mass lab layoffs in the next few years should just about do the trick. At least Russia will be happy with the outcome.

Frank Young said...

From the previous post:

Anonymous said...

Okay all you blog whiners. A machinist, who works for pit man[ufacturing], received a glove puncture while cutting apart a "part." He was wearing leather gloves over his GB gloves. His wound was contaminated, excised and now undergoing chelation. His uptake was small in the relative sense.

8/15/08 3:27 PM


cutting apart a "part."


Are we to surmise he was modifying a pit?

Anonymous said...

8/17/08 10:45 AM

How does more money and time spent reinventing nuclear weapons in this country keep the Russia from rearming it's Baltic fleet? I am confused.

Anonymous said...

Headline from London Times Online - August 18, 2008

------------------------------
Cross us and we will crush you, warns Medvedev
------------------------------

Sounds like a great time to start down-sizing and crippling our nuclear weapon labs, doesn't it Mr. Dingell?

Perhaps Mr. Medvedev recent message is a bit too subtle for some in Congress to fully grasp.

Perhaps Medvedev or Putin should have used the more direct Russian phrase from the early 1960's:

"We will bury you!".

Anonymous said...

"How does more money and time spent reinventing nuclear weapons in this country keep the Russia from rearming it's Baltic fleet? I am confused.

8/18/08 8:10 AM"

Yes you are confused.

Anonymous said...

8/18/08 4:16 PM

You don't seem to have a rational explanation.

Either I wasn't clear or you can't answer the question.

I'll try again.

How does reinventing (or for you, continuing to develop) nuclear weapons at great expense here keep the Russians from deploying nuclear weapons on the Baltic fleet?

Good luck (theme from Jeopardy please).

Anonymous said...

"Cross us and we will crush you"

You are suggesting we wouldn't do the same? You must be an appeaser.If someone crushed us I suppose you would run to your room and hide.

Anonymous said...

"Sounds like a great time to start down-sizing and crippling our nuclear weapon labs, doesn't it Mr. Dingell?"

The downsizing was a result of George Bush and a Republican congress. If you are going to spew try to get the facts right. The mess you are in right now was brought to you by George Bush. Try to remember that.

Anonymous said...

8/18/08 7:09 PM
Flip side - so the Democrats with their strong military and strong science backgrounds, supportive voting records and desire to see the labs succeed share no responsibility and will correct this mess in the fall?

Anonymous said...

"How does reinventing (or for you, continuing to develop) nuclear weapons at great expense here keep the Russians from deploying nuclear weapons on the Baltic fleet?"

How does it not?

Anonymous said...

Nah, I don't think so. If it were true Ed Moses would have yelled at the NIF staff for causing it.

Anonymous said...

8/19/08 9:03 AM

The Russians assume our arsenal is viable. They have no choice but to assume that. In fact, nobody has ever suggested that there is anything wrong with our arsenal (except for people like you who don't know what they are talking about). The Russians decision to deploy weapons is not impacted in any way by what we do in the laboratory with regard to weapon development but more likely impacted by our agreement with Poland to place a defensive weapons there.

Look at it this way. The North Koreans have tested a weapon and everyone knows it. There is some question as to how successful those tests were. Would you assume the weapon they tested was viable or would you assume it is a dud? I would assume it was viable and so would you.

Care to try and answer the original question?

Anonymous said...

...will correct this mess in the fall?

Of course. The Republicans have made a mess and the Democrats are going to clean it up...again.

Anonymous said...

8/20/08 7:56 AM

I do not follow what you are saying. At any rate it is mere speculation on your part.

Anonymous said...

7:58 am: "The Republicans have made a mess and the Democrats are going to clean it up...again."

Uh, the Dems have been in control of congress for over 1 1/2 years. They've accomplished...nothing! Why should we expect this will change?

Anonymous said...

Liberal Democrats would have us all believe that the rest of the world is eager to shower America with loving kindness if we just begin to dis-arm the country and surrender to the diplomatic wishes of are enemies.

Obama and his liberal Democratic friends will get to run this little experiment after they win in November. As with past episodes of this type, execution of this liberal delusion will be found wanting and will again put America at risk(*).

(* See "Jimmy Carter" and the late 1970's).

Anonymous said...

Many of the LANL workers with "No War" and "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers on their cars are going to be shocked to find that they are kicked out of a good paying job in the next few years. They seem to have no clue as to which people have been working to keep their jobs funded, but they'll soon learn the truth.

Here's a hint: Don't look to either Tom Udall or Barrack Obama for any real support once the lab's massive budget cuts begin in earnest.

Anonymous said...

8/20/08 8:38 AM


Rrright...
uh, the Rep.'s were in control of congress for 6 1/2 years. They accomplished... the destruction of both weapons labs.

Did I miss something?

Anonymous said...

5:51 pm: Yeah, you missed the point of my post. Did you actually read it? Your response was irrelevant to the comment I made. Try again.

Anonymous said...

8/20/08 6:47 PM

ohhh, I get it. Yep, the Democrats haven't cleaned the weapons lab mess up. You are right on that point. Of course it took 6 1/2 years to for the Rep.'s to create the mess so it may take a while to straighten things out. After all, we are still stuck with Bush which turns out to be a serious obstacle to any serious clean up effort.

Do you understand now? Sorry, can't use sock puppets.

Anonymous said...

8/20/08 6:47 PM

So you seem to think the 6 1/2 years of Rep rule was a good thing? Are you illiterate? If so watch t.v., you can catch up on events without reading.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

"Did you actually read it?"

yes, I read it. Sounds like the typical ultra-right wing blather. I'll bet you vote Rep. everytime without regard to candidate or issue. Your one of those. Not capable of independent thought. You like group think. It makes you all warm inside.

Anonymous said...

At least here we all stay on topic:
"nobody on this blog knows anything"

Anonymous said...

8/20 7:19 pm: "Your one of those."

Oh, YOU'RE one of those.