Doc and Calvin and Vlad go Lame!

Doc and Calvin and Vlad can't seem to keep up with the blogging can they?
What a buncha LaOoosers!

"don't forget to turn out the lights on your stupid blog when you leave" - anonymous

Surely, Blogging in this context is a bit on the thankless side. Extra Kudos to Doug, Brad, Pat, Pinky and the rest... and even Eric for his extraordinary tenacity!

We'll leave the lights on a little longer here, thank you.

- Doc

A Few Simple Numbers: Juxtaposed for Effect

Nagasaki Japan August 6, 1945 - 21 Kilotons

Mount St. Helens Washington, May 18, 1980 - 24 Megatons

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to defend the design, manufacture, or use of Nuclear Weapons, especially against civilian populations. It is intended to try to offer some humbling perspective on the works of man.


This post is in response to Ms. Shigeko Sasamori's visit to Los Alamos this weekend. Unfortunately, we did not attend her public speaking engagement.

About 6 years ago, former Beat Poet and contemporary Buddhist, Gary Snyder came to Santa Fe to read from his latest book of poetry. While on stage, he told a very interesting pair of anecdotes:

It seems that in August of 1945, Snyder was hiking on Mount St. Helens and upon returning to the Forest camp at the base, read the newspapers announcing the devastating bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He reported thinking how those cities would not see life again for tens of thousands of years.

In May of 1980, Snyder was visiting Nagasaki where he marveled at how little evidence of the destruction of 1945 remained noticeable. He was in Nagasaki when he heard the news of the Mount St. Helens eruption and was immediately taken back to the days he hiked it's slopes while Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed. 20 or so years after the eruption, Snyder returned to Mt. St. Helens and saw the marvelous rebirth of an ecosystem yet-more fully destroyed than even that of an atomic blast.

Snyder did not make the comparison but with a little research we discovered that the estimated amount of energy released in the Mt. St. Helens eruption was about 24 Megatons, or about 3 orders of magnitude more energy than in the Nagasaki-21 Kiloton (or Hiroshima-16 Kiloton) bombs. Krakatoa was apparently good for about 200 Megatons.

A good hurricane is apparently worth 8 Gigatons or (yet another) 3 orders of magnitude. The combined nuclear stockpile around the world is estimated at around 13,000 weapons with a combined energy of about 5 Gigatons or one modest hurricane! Killer asteroids such as the one which may have wiped out the dinosaurs clock in at a mere 100 Gigatons.

56 people were known to be killed in the Mt. St. Helen's eruption while an estimated 200,000 were killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, also about 3 orders of magnitude difference. WWII included 40-70 Million deaths or 2 more orders of magnitude. The recent tsunami in southeast asia (2005) took a little over 200,000 lives.

Man is clearly pretty good at using his contained and directed energies at killing people while mother Nature wields quite a bit more on a regular basis but is a bit less bent on such directed violence. Until humans escalate to anti-matter weapons (1 lb => 20 Megatons), we will be quite second-rate to mother nature. The amount of solar radiation, for example, impinging on the earth every second is about 10^18 joules or a Gigaton per second. Imagine what the sun is generating!

Enough of the goofy anecdotes and numbers... but let's back down on our human arrogance a couple of notches and think about what we are doing.

Do as you are told and nobody will get hurt!

Great minds think alike... and so do Vlad's and the Good Doctor's I guess.

And we both have a Pinky and the Brain fetish too apparently!

From the Aboriginals of the North American continent to the Jewish peoples of Germany to the Palestinians, we have heard this line over and over. "Do as you are told and nobody will get hurt!" In hindsight it is always a euphamism for "do as we tell you and we will get what we want and you will be exterminated".

Vlad the Impaler takes on Bechtel?

Go Vlad Go! See Vlad Go.

It looks like LLNL-the-rest-of-the-story has now been coined... and is run by Vlad the Impaler and has comments turned ON... LLNL-the-corporate-story does not allow comments .

But don't get too carried away, it also has the following caveats and warnings:

"This Blog is for ( LLNL / LLNS,LLC) employees only. "
" this blog is reviewed daily and if comments are out of line they will be removed."

Vlad's record is only a little worse than our own with a mere 2 comments on a total of 5 posts. We may try a comment just to see how he responds. We may risk impalement!

Vlad appears to have about as much use for Bechtel as We do, but with his odd syntax, it is a little hard to tell exactly.

Tragedy of Similar Proportions?

2500 abruptly w/o jobs is not the same as over 3000 dead and many more injured, but the conspiracy theorists are having a heyday noticing that both may be the very deliberate and ruthless acts of our own top government in cahoots with the military-industrial complex.

Can you say "Bechtel"? "Halliburton"? "Bush-Cheney"?

What is in it for Bechtel to have taken the LANS contract only to have to (get to?) fire 2500 employees, many highly educated, trained and skilled scientists? Their operating contract valued everywhere between $60M and $79M just doesn't seem like it is worth all of the trouble to them. What *else* are they in this for?

Any guesses?

Outsourcing RIF notifications

In a cost savings measure, LANS/Bechtel has outsourced it's RIF notification process.

"The total cost of RIFing 2500 employees should be under $20K with this company" says LANL Director.

Kindly Director Mike Anastasio is shown here:
"Making his list and checking it twice." "Gonna find out whose been naughty and nice!"

RIF Management - Monte Carlos Style!

OK boys and girls, the fun is about to begin. LANL management is about to start "making plans for a Reduction In Force" something they have adamantly denied (refused) to be doing until last week.

We are smart people, we can come up with a "highly efficient" but "fair" way to make the "hard decisions". The Deer Hunter has nothing on us.

If we can find someone with P-card authority, we could buy one of these for each AD (along with 2500 rounds of "ammunition"). Anastasio could hold an "all-heads meeting for his upper management". He could pass these out, keeping one himself. This could be simulcast via LABNET for the staff. After Anastasio pulls the trigger on his own, if he survives, he would instruct all of his AD's and staff to do the same. If not, his second in command would step forward and repeat the procedure.

HR would be on hand to pass out pink-slips to the "unlucky ones".

Each surviving AD, or their (surviving) deputy, or a predetermined designee if all deputies of a directorate should "fail", would then call their own "all-head's" meeting for the their DL's and Division Staff who would be expected to repeat the process. GL's would be in attendance to observe but not participate.

By now, we should be up to nearly a hundred (somebody get the numbers, do the combinatorics for me?) very high paid employees who would never have left otherwise.

The GL's can then call all-heads meetings of their own, commit hari-kari themselves (or not) and then the staff, bolstered by the stoic performance of their upper management will be happy to participate in the final round.

A quick recalculation might show that in fact, the number of employees needing to be laid off has reduced significantly by the number of upper management leaving!

Now *that* is efficiency!

- Doc

Gone Missing? Gone Crazy? Loose Nukes?

B-52 mistakenly flies with nukes aboard

Meanwhile:
Los Alamos National Laboratory is Gutted
by butchers who can't get Golden Eggs from their Golden Goose fast enough.

RIF or RIP ?

The LLNL Blog is starting to kick some ass in content and style...

Those who know me personally have accused me of being it's ghost-author... sorry boys and girls, I really have been hibernating!

I don't want to exaggerate the rumors of my resurgence just yet, so don't get your hopes up (or your knickers in a twist either) I might just be going on a short riff here.


"Riff", "RIF", "RIP"... hmmm?

It is the Blogger's perogative if he/she wants to enable comments, to moderate them or even to edit them mercilessly... I *like* public participation, even if it is only to provide me with lame hecklers to make fun of.

Anastasio Reassures LANL Staff - "No Plans for RIF"

LANL Director Mike Anastasio assures
LANL staff that the lab is NOT about to be burned ground.

A New Day Dawns in NM.

Only a few miles and 60+ from the infamous Trinity Test in Mew Mexico, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic is building the world's first-ever commercial SpacePort - SpacePort America.

In a press release today, Branson stated: "We knew we were doing the right thing when we decided to locate SpacePort America in New Mexico. Today, we received an unprecedented number of applications for employment by some of the most highly qualified scientists and engineers in the world". Virgin Galactic's Personnel department was unable to be reached to verify whether in fact, 9,600 applications had been received en-masse from the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Human Resources department.

Branson was later overheard saying: "This is awesome, I am going to have the most highly overqualified staff on the planet working at my spaceport. Nobel Scientists and world-renowned Engineers are going to be polishing our spacecraft, emptying our dump tanks, and personally greeting and schmoozing our celebrity passengers... and all for a mere $8 per hour. I love this colony! This is better than that deal I had with Hooters a few years ago that (pardon my expression) kinda flopped! Some of those scientist blokes have enough money saved up to commute from their quaint little village on that hill of theirs on our airlines. I may just have to set up daily round-trip service from the Los Alamos Airport to SpacePort America! There are lots of pilots living and a pretty darn long runway too! But we may have to improve their flight control procedures a bit."

Rumors of Demise

"The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated!"


"He must have something better to do!"

Despite the many rumors, The Good Doctor is alive and well and have not died or taken ill. Neither have we been incarcerated by the rumored FBI undercover masquerading as the Los Alamos Police Chief.

Instead, we have been rather busy elsewhere and quite frankly have lost interest in the bulk of the commentary being generated on *any* LANL Blog. We do not hold our fellow bloggers accountable, but do hold many of those who choose to comment so. Get your stupid heads out of your asses people! Quit with the whining and the cheap shots, be thoughtful. Please.

We give our thanks to Pinky AND The Brain, to Buck Turgedson, to Calvin (who has also lost faith in the quality of participation on the blogs... relayed via private correspondence), to Brad and Doug, and to Gussie Finknottle herself for keeping the blogging spirit alive here.

Amongst the commentarians, only the random interjector known as "Darko" has consistently impressed us. There have been other comments of merit, but most have not even offered a psuedonym and therefore seem to be one-shot wonders (or perhaps they are!).

We know it is hot... so maybe that explains the lethargy. Or is it the continued grind of the machine?

Carry on,
- Doc

Unattributed Peafowl

The Doctor and I thought for quite a while on whether or not to write about this next story. However, after some consultations with our colleagues, we decided that in the interests of full disclosure it just had to come out.

It's not pretty, but unfortunately this is what we have come to expect from LANS, LLC.

Unattributed peafowl.

Yes, LANS has sunk that low. Our investigators have discovered that the bird in question featured in the June 15 edition of the LANL NewsBulletin belongs to none other than Doug Roberts, creator of the original LANL, The Real Story blog. Roberts is now living in Nambe, New Mexico.

When contacted by reporters this weekend to verify whether the hen in question was actually one of his birds, Roberts said, "Why, yes! That's Priscilla! I'm so pleased that the photographer caught her good side." Asked if it upset him that LANL choose to publish a photograph of one of his flock without permission or attribution, Roberts replied, "Well, you know, LANL is going through a difficult period now. Perhaps it just slipped Mike's mind."

So there you have it: another gross violation regarding the dissemination of electronic media by LANL. However, both the good Doctor and I were impressed by the graciousness with which Roberts forgave Dr. Anastasio for this latest in what has been a veritable series of missteps regarding the handling of sensitive electronic media by the crack management team of LANS, LLC.

--General Buck Turgidson

We have a plan!

Thanks for the nice introduction, Dr. Strange. You're right about Gen. Jack D. Ripper, btw. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. Precious bodily fluids, my ass.

However, as to the current state in which LANL finds itself, my good friend Major T. J. "King" Kong put it this way. I mean, really. Look at you. Charging more than $450,000 per FTE for any work you do.

Now, the Democratic majority in Congress is calling for the lab to readjust its priorities and subscribe to a "bold vision" (the words of Rep. Tom Udall, D-Santa Fe, in a press release) that would put energy independence rather than nuclear capability at the top of the national-security "to do" list. Excuse me, but isn't that NREL's mandate? What good would a bunch of (really expensive) stodgy old bomb designers be at renewable energy, anyhow? And who would pay LANL $450,000 per person to do it these days, no matter how good LANL says they would be at it? My buddy "King" has a few words about turning LANL into an energy lab in today's environment.

Speaking of what a "world class" lab LANL considers itself to be: how good a lab is LANL, really, these days? Face it, since that madman (and believe me, I know a madman when I see one) Nanos shut the place down for the better part of a year back in '04, many of the good scientists have been leaving. Look around you. How many world class scientists do you see remaining? Me neither.

Oh, and speaking of "in the toilet", too bad about the funding for that billion $ Pu facility being taken off the table. Nice hole in the ground you've got going out there at TA-55, though.

Did I mention the potential for around 2,000 more layoffs at LANL for FY '08? LANL is apparently not Congress' favorite budget line item. This, of course, would be in addition to the 600 - 1,000 RIFS that were already anticipated as a result of LANS' $175 million budget shortfall for this fiscal year. Life at LANL is good, however, at the top. It sure was nice of you to pay your top managers all those bonuses.

But wait! What about nuclear power? We could do nuclear power, couldn't we? Yes! that's it! We have a plan!

Well, maybe not. I never was too sure about Doc Strange, to tell you the truth.

I suppose that's enough musings for now. Tell you what, let's all just pretend that some miracle will happen, giving LANL a chance of not fading into complete irrelevance.

--General Buck Turgidson

The GENERAL is in the House!

Our good friend, General Buck Turgidson, has agreed to take up the banner here for a while. The Good Doctor has prescribed Himself some much needed time off.

Trust Us, however, We are up to no good in Our Absence! Watch the headlines for Our name!

Meanwhile, let's give the Good General a warm round of applause!

Welcome Buck!

Hooked and Beaten

What a "fuckaroo"...

Tommy Hook and wife
(nice depth-of-field effect!)

2 get plea deals in beating of LANL whistle-blower outside Cheeks
Is anyone (Hook, his lawyer, Cheeks owner/bartender/stripper/lawyer, FBI agent man, SF Police, Sandoval, Navarez, ???) telling anything like the truth here? Or are they all telling a convenient (to their own agenda) fiction? Hook might be lying about why he was there, but who in this story isn't? Geeze!

Here is our earlier post on the topic.


Joseph Sandoval, the 26 (then 24) year old, 275 pounds is represented by his lawyer as non-drinking, non-drug-using, w/o a criminal record. His lawyer also paints him the victim. Just coming to pick up his friend, he is struck by Hook's car as it backs up. Hook jumps out and verbally abuses him, then goes for his throat. Sandoval pushes him down and then stands back while "someone else" (Navarez by implication?) beats Hook to a bloody pulp, stopping only when interrupted by Cheeks' staff?


Zeke Navarro, a 29 year old, credited by implication with beating Hook to a pulp.


Hook, beaten to a pulp at his fighting weight of 150 lbs.

Two Gadgets

America's Two Gadgets


Of Bombs and Polygraphs

Ken Alder*

ABSTRACT

This essay pairs two prototypically American technological objects of the mid-twentieth century: the atomic bomb and the lie detector. Although the former has been touted as the supreme achievement of modern technoscience, and the latter dismissed as a placebo device, the two "gadgets" actually performed in analogous fashion. Indeed, the essay suggests that these technologies are best understood not in terms of narrow functionality but in terms of their performance—akin to that of Frankenstein's monster—in the domains of justice, popular culture, and geopolitics. Specifically, it argues that the mutually supportive roles played by the two objects underscore the ways in which the theater of deterrence sustained American sovereignty during the era of the Cold War.

---

There are some important similarities:

We agree that both devices are designed to intimidate.
We agree that both are attempts to innovate technical solutions to sociopolitical problems.

Nuclear Weapons do not "keep the peace", they pre-empt overt violence with the threat of bigger violence.
Polygraphs do not "detect lies", they pre-empt lies through the application of a bigger lie ("we can tell if you are lying")

There are also some important differences:

Nuclear weapons generally do precisely what they are designed to do... destroy huge areas of real-estate and people and leave the area contaminated.
Polygraphs do not "detect lies".

Nuclear weapons are most effective if "never used".
Polygraphs are only effective if misused.

Just our opinion here, what do YOU think?

I Cannot Tell a Lie!

This post is from a source wishing to remain anonymous. We are soliciting more posts with this level of detail. Two more anecdotal accounts have been offered as comments on this post and appear here as well. Keep them coming, I can already see how they might be useful to those who are facing the same.

- Doc

---

Original Posting
Here's a fairly detailed account of the CI polygraph I took for HRP a little over a year ago. I am assuming this will come to you anonymously.
The polygraph center is located in an office park near the ABQ airport. You enter a hallway from the parking lot and there are two badge reader controlled doors. The one on your left is a waiting area, where you sign in, deposit your belongings in a locker, and wait. There's no restroom in the waiting area, you have to go out the badge reader door and down the hall and then have them badge you back in. There's a video camera, a water dispenser, and a bookshelf filled with Tom Clancy novels (how long DO they plan for me to wait?) and past issues of Guns & Ammo. After browsing through the sign in sheets to see if I knew anyone, I waited. Probably a half-hour, it's hard to say under the circumstances. I was the only person waiting.
When my turn came, they took me across the hall through a second badge reader, into an office area. The polygraph rooms are cubicles with ceilings, built from modular walls like you'd see in many LANL office buildings. The room contained a blocky upholstered chair (function of which is obvious) in the corner opposite the door; a desk with a computer on it, set to the right of the chair, mostly out of the view of the person sitting in the chair; and a folding chair directly in front. The examiner was friendly and helfpul in a rehearsed and measured sort of way. Not as cheerful as a flight attendant, but more solicitous than the average LANL buyer. (Cheap shot, I know). His overall demeanor suggested that he wanted to help me get through the process as smoothly as possible. I did not experience anything that I would describe as threatening or unprofessional during the test, but I would not describe it as a pleasant experience, either.
I don't exactly remember how I was hooked up, I think there was a velcroed strap that went around my chest and a thingy on my right hand. You are supposed to sit extremely still while they are recording, which is not easy for a fidgety person. The recorded sessions take just a few minutes each, and there are four of them at a minimum, or more if you have trouble producing the right kind of signals. The rest of the time is spent going over the questions. You can't see what is being recorded, because it's on a computer screen facing away from you, and because the examiner is out of your field of view when you are sitting perfectly still.
The examiner went over the three types of questions. The first is intended to be a completely neutral question, such as "Are the lights on in this room?" Your are supposed to answer this honestly. The second type of control question is intended to produce an emotional reaction and you are asked to lie, for example, "Have you ever deceived a loved one?" or "Have you ever violated a traffic law?" These are supposed to be questions that everyone should be able to truthfully say "yes" to, but the examiner asks you to answer "no." For this to produce useful results, you have to think of a specific situation that you feel strongly about. For example, thinking about speeding on I-25 on my drive to Albuquerque, then answering "no", did not produce the desired reaction on the polygraph. But thinking about an instance where I was actually pulled over with the potential for a big ticket (a real "oh shit" moment) - and visualizing that instant of seeing the flashing lights in my rear-view mirror - did the trick. (This could be ripe for abuse, but my examiner made it clear that he didn't want to know any details.) I had to stop for a moment after the question was posed, think, and then very deliberately say "no" to produce the right response to these controls. I could actually feel a slight numbing sensation in my hands when I was producing a good lie. This took a little coaching and I had to repeat two segments. I honestly feel like my reaction was to the memory of the incident itself, not to my "lie" about it (which really felt more like following directions in order to pass a test, something which most LANL employees are well practiced at). This is the primary reason I question the polygraph process.
The third type of question, of course, was the actual counterintelligence questions. These were, approximately: Have you ever disclosed classified information to an unauthorized person? Do you have any unreported relationships with foreign nationals? Have you ever attempted to sabotage a classified computing system? and Have you ever conspired to overthrow the US Government? Each round of recording contained only one of these questions, asked two or three times, mixed in with a few of each type of control question. The examiner presented each question he would be asking, gave it a little more definition, and then asked me if I had any reaction to the question that I'd like to discuss. Those weren't his exact words, but the idea was, if I had any particular question or concern about it, I was supposed to discuss it with him. I went through a few possibilities on the foreign national one (coworkers, incidental contact) and reviewed a near-infraction I was once incidentally involved in. While the recorder was on, he then said "Other than what we have already discussed, [insert question]?" I am told that if your polygraph indicates deception on these questions, they will stop the recording, give you another chance to get things off your chest, and then do the round over again. I have also been told that what comes out of your mouth during these interludes is the only thing that can really get you into trouble. (Everything that happens in the room is recorded, and I would imagine there is a second person watching the process as it occurs.) If you simply answer "yes" and "no" and then decline to provide any further elaboration on your answers, the worst that can happen is that you will fail to pass. Eventually if you fail to pass on multiple tries, they can order a field investigation to look deeper into your background.
That's about it. There was a break in the middle of the session, back into the waiting room. At the end, he told me the data had to pass through a QA review but that I had provisionally passed. It took me about three hours from arrival at the test center until I was back in my car. It wasn't horrible, just very weird. I do not believe it improved national security.

---

Posting 2
Anonymous said...

Doc,

I will add my experience to the list of CI polygraphs. I took mine about 18 months ago. Same place as the first poster. Identical experience up until I got called to go on over to the polygraph suites. I got this examiner, (his mentality I guess was that of a used car salesman, just by the way he talked and acted) I asked him his name, he said it didn't matter for me to know it. That set me up on the defensive right there. I had researched the polygraph online and through my local library. I literally read everything I could get my hands on. The polygrapher line for line did exactly what most of my reseach said he would do. The pretest was exactly as described. It was at this point I realized that I was dealing with a neanderthal, who couldn't think beyond the scripted process he was employing. So we went through the questions, and he hooked me up. As we were going through the questions, he yelled a couple of times, he said I was breathing too shallow, and accused me of trying to manipulate the test. I just continued breathing at my normal rate. I was more relaxed than I thought I would be. And I think he didn't much like that. We went through the questions 3 times. He stopped the questioning a couple of times, because he said I was having a reaction to the foreign national contacts question. I wasn't, I knew that this was a ploy and an area of concern for everyone I talked too, other folks said the same after their polys. I said nothing was bothering me. We completed the testing and he left to examine and score the charts, at least that is what I assumed he was going to do. I had no worries as I 100% told the truth. But it was interesting to note that the knowlege of the polygraph procedure and the format used was predictable. The upfront study on the polygraph was a great comfort. Mr Neanderthal came back in and had me go sit in the waiting area. Within a 1/2 hour I was told I could go home. I never heard anymore about it. Total time was about 3.5 hours. After that experiece, I now more than ever know and believe that the polygraph is a complete waste of time. The key thing is not to be intimidated and also not allow the brainwashing routines (pretest and examiner bluster) and the little numbers test, (they use it supposedly to calibrate the machine), swing you into believing that it really does work. Its nothing more than a mind game. Anyone with game theory experience will see it for what it is.
May 19, 2007 11:35 PM

---

Posting 3
Anonymous said...

I've had 3 or 4 CI polygraphs over the years and the best advice I ever received was from a DOE Security Mgr who said "All I know is never admit to anything... they'll take the slightest indiscretion and turn it into a major security breech".

His point was that DOE was looking for "examples" to justify the success of the CI polygraph Program.

May 20, 2007 5:02 AM

---

Keep the cards and letters coming folks, this kind of documentation of personal experiences can't help but be helpful in a couple of ways: 1) It gives the rest of us something to base our hopes and fears on beyond the threats and promises of LANS/DOE and 2) It provides a modicum of oversight to those in charge of the process; If they act in abusive ways it is likely to be exposed through this kind of publication.

We are moderating comments on this post as we do NOT care to let the hecklers "tag" this thread with their need to be heard. This is why there are two posts here, the original which drew in a couple of hecklers right away and this one which is dedicated specifically to these testimonials. Random commentary can go to the other post.

Submitters may simply make their comments here, or may send them via e-mail to mailto:strangeloveomatic.gmail.com and We will post them w/o your e-mail address included unless you specifically ask us to include

I Cannot Tell a Lie!

On Pinky's Blog -

Anonymous said...

Dr. Strangelove, I can talk about the CI polygraph I took for HRP. Can you give us a new thread?

5/17/07 11:32 AM

We dunno if 11:32 mistook us for Pinky&theBrain or if they intended us to start this thread but if for no other reason than to jump-start out of this funk the whole Kaupilla thing put us into...


Let us have our first "testimonial", eh?

Bring it on 11:32!

And here it is:

---

Doc,

Here's a fairly detailed account of the CI polygraph I took for HRP a little over a year ago. I am assuming this will come to you anonymously.

The polygraph center is located in an office park near the ABQ airport. You enter a hallway from the parking lot and there are two badge reader controlled doors. The one on your left is a waiting area, where you sign in, deposit your belongings in a locker, and wait. There's no restroom in the waiting area, you have to go out the badge reader door and down the hall and then have them badge you back in. There's a video camera, a water dispenser, and a bookshelf filled with Tom Clancy novels (how long DO they plan for me to wait?) and past issues of Guns & Ammo. After browsing through the sign in sheets to see if I knew anyone, I waited. Probably a half-hour, it's hard to say under the circumstances. I was the only person waiting.

When my turn came, they took me across the hall through a second badge reader, into an office area. The polygraph rooms are cubicles with ceilings, built from modular walls like you'd see in many LANL office buildings. The room contained a blocky upholstered chair (function of which is obvious) in the corner opposite the door; a desk with a computer on it, set to the right of the chair, mostly out of the view of the person sitting in the chair; and a folding chair directly in front. The examiner was friendly and helfpul in a rehearsed and measured sort of way. Not as cheerful as a flight attendant, but more solicitous than the average LANL buyer. (Cheap shot, I know). His overall demeanor suggested that he wanted to help me get through the process as smoothly as possible. I did not experience anything that I would describe as threatening or unprofessional during the test, but I would not describe it as a pleasant experience, either.

I don't exactly remember how I was hooked up, I think there was a velcroed strap that went around my chest and a thingy on my right hand. You are supposed to sit extremely still while they are recording, which is not easy for a fidgety person. The recorded sessions take just a few minutes each, and there are four of them at a minimum, or more if you have trouble producing the right kind of signals. The rest of the time is spent going over the questions. You can't see what is being recorded, because it's on a computer screen facing away from you, and because the examiner is out of your field of view when you are sitting perfectly still.

The examiner went over the three types of questions. The first is intended to be a completely neutral question, such as "Are the lights on in this room?" Your are supposed to answer this honestly. The second type of control question is intended to produce an emotional reaction and you are asked to lie, for example, "Have you ever deceived a loved one?" or "Have you ever violated a traffic law?" These are supposed to be questions that everyone should be able to truthfully say "yes" to, but the examiner asks you to answer "no." For this to produce useful results, you have to think of a specific situation that you feel strongly about. For example, thinking about speeding on I-25 on my drive to Albuquerque, then answering "no", did not produce the desired reaction on the polygraph. But thinking about an instance where I was actually pulled over with the potential for a big ticket (a real "oh shit" moment) - and visualizing that instant of seeing the flashing lights in my rear-view mirror - did the trick. (This could be ripe for abuse, but my examiner made it clear that he didn't want to know any details.) I had to stop for a moment after the question was posed, think, and then very deliberately say "no" to produce the right response to these controls. I could actually feel a slight numbing sensation in my hands when I was producing a good lie. This took a little coaching and I had to repeat two segments. I honestly feel like my reaction was to the memory of the incident itself, not to my "lie" about it (which really felt more like following directions in order to pass a test, something which most LANL employees are well practiced at). This is the primary reason I question the polygraph process.

The third type of question, of course, was the actual counterintelligence questions. These were, approximately: Have you ever disclosed classified information to an unauthorized person? Do you have any unreported relationships with foreign nationals? Have you ever attempted to sabotage a classified computing system? and Have you ever conspired to overthrow the US Government? Each round of recording contained only one of these questions, asked two or three times, mixed in with a few of each type of control question. The examiner presented each question he would be asking, gave it a little more definition, and then asked me if I had any reaction to the question that I'd like to discuss. Those weren't his exact words, but the idea was, if I had any particular question or concern about it, I was supposed to discuss it with him. I went through a few possibilities on the foreign national one (coworkers, incidental contact) and reviewed a near-infraction I was once incidentally involved in. While the recorder was on, he then said "Other than what we have already discussed, [insert question]?" I am told that if your polygraph indicates deception on these questions, they will stop the recording, give you another chance to get things off your chest, and then do the round over again. I have also been told that what comes out of your mouth during these interludes is the only thing that can really get you into trouble. (Everything that happens in the room is recorded, and I would imagine there is a second person watching the process as it occurs.) If you simply answer "yes" and "no" and then decline to provide any further elaboration on your answers, the worst that can happen is that you will fail to pass. Eventually if you fail to pass on multiple tries, they can order a field investigation to look deeper into your background.

That's about it. There was a break in the middle of the session, back into the waiting room. At the end, he told me the data had to pass through a QA review but that I had provisionally passed. It took me about three hours from arrival at the test center until I was back in my car. It wasn't horrible, just very weird. I do not believe it improved national security.

---

Todd Kauppila

This spot intentionally left blank...
in respectful memory of Todd Kauppila

Family Jewels

The back rooms are filled with smoke.
Bechtel now owns all of the family jewels.

grey men in grey suits

10 Republicans vs 8 Democrats vs 6 Agent Smiths (1 not showing) vs Calvin for President.
And all the mouth-breathers who don't notice they are all the same.
Quite the lineup for 2008.

Politics bore Us...

However, Calvin, his stiff-necked hecklers, and now the anonymous poster darko have raised our dander. Guess which candidate we support?

It seems unlikely that our problems here in this little drinking town with a small science problem is not correlated with what is going on in the White House and Congress.

The current administration and half of the Congress or more is owned by Bechtel and Halliburton and their ilk (or is it the other way around? who owns whom? does it matter?).


Clipped from a comment on Calvin's Blog..
Pinko -

These Dungeons are FILLED with Trolls. bwahahHAhaHAhahaha....

Methinks the tides are turning against the grey men in dark suits.

But the questions are:
Is it soon enough?
Will a new cadre fill their places?
Have we learned anything?
Are *we* part of the problem?

- Darko

Calvin has gone Nuclear!

Go Calvin!


Army of None
Artwork by David Hollenbach

This image was too good not to share.
Thanks to Calvin for posting it and providing his own commentary!

Calvin really laid into the poor folks who had the bad luck to be in office of late.

A couple of stiff-necked (Feynman or Oppy's words) hecklers tried to suggest his talk was "treasonous" and got bitch-slapped with their own hankies by a whole cadre of folks coming to his defense.

And before any of you wing-nuts (knee-jerk conservatives) take me on in the comment section, I want it clear that I am NOT a "liberal democrat" and am very patriotic.

But that doesn't mean I'm above kicking the chair out from under people who are tearing our country (or community or laboratory) down from the presumed safety of an elected or appointed office of the government or the board of a privately held corporation holding huge no-bid and hardly-bid contracts (LANS?) with the government.

Protecting my country from those who are trying to destroy it for their own greed and profit is not treason.

If the young man giving Uncle Sam the finger here is pissed (like Calvin) it is because of what some pretty immoral people (supported ironically by the "moral majority") have done to their generation. The chickens are starting to come home to roost. Go figure.

Just say Yes!

Italian Fascist Headquarters in Rome

Si! Ja! Ya! Da! Oui! Yes!
Sir, Yes Sir!
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full! Sir!

---

LANL, despite our high security has been an open society in many ways, but this has been shifting significantly over the last decade.

In this post, the Good Doctor summarizes Naomi Wolfe's 10 Steps to Close an Open Society. For the knuckleheads in the crowd (and there seem to be a few who simply cannot grasp the relevance of this kind of post to LANL) we also describe this relevance from our own point of view. Collectively our audience (what appears to be a steady 100+ daily readers) have a lot more detailed evidence of these steps being taken locally. We wonder if anyone but the hecklers and sycophants will speak up. (Hecklers and Sycophants are still welcome of course, but we will tease you mercilessly!)

---

10 STEPS TO CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY by Naomi Wolfe

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Internal:
* Spies (goes with the territory)
* Cowboys and Buttheads (Thanks Pete, thanks a lot!)
* Polygraphers
* Piss Collectors
* Incompetent and Self-Serving Middle-Management
.
.
.
External:
* Evil Enemy Nations who want our secrets
* Evil Terrorists who want our secrets
* Greedy and Incompetent Bechtel who want ???
* Executive Branch who wants to give us to their corporate friends
* Legislative Branch who wants to shut us down because we are "evil"
and/or give the golden goose to their corporate friends
.
.
.

2. Create a gulag
* We already have the fences and guards.
* When will we quit worrying that the automated badge readers won't let us in and start worrying that they won't let us back out?
* Wen Ho Lee spent a year in Solitary *before* they proved anything (or not)...
* When will the results of our Urine and Poly tests (false positives and all) be used to prosecute the implied crimes related (illegal drug use, mishandling/misreporting/misthinking)?

3. Develop a thug caste

* Internally, our middle-to-upper management often fit this description.
* We have some powerful bureaucracies in the lab that fit this as well.
* Our guards have been pretty careful to avoid this image in the past, will this last?
* New "crimes" (anti-policy activities) may provide the thug cast new opportunity to exercise their (metaphorical) sappers, batons, tear gas, and stun guns. These new policies include drug-testing and searching of private vehicles (don't shop over the lunch hour and leave a bottle of wine in your car... that is technically against policy... alcohol on lab property), don't even pretend to take a picture with a personal camera or cell phone on lab property (say of the 3 pissmobiles lined up all red-white-and-blue), be in your office by 8 and don't leave it for 9-10 hours excepting the required minimum 30 minute lunch... the list goes on and the "thugs" are standing by for their orders to "enforce" them.

* Bechtel is a "privately held corporation". They can hide behind a different mask than DOE to protect their potential thuggery.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system
* This comes with the territory.
* But it can be amped up and abused.
* And the various new policies being put in place seem to support that potential abuse.
* Nanos encouraged us to weed out the Buttheads and Cowboys sitting next to us... sound like Fascist Italy and Germany and a few hundred other places?

5. Harass citizens' groups
* Notice how unwelcome any dissent in this environment is.
* The list is too long to put here.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
* If you don't show for your piss test in 30 minutes (by policy) you are considered to have failed and you are fired. If you show and cannot produce, you are not allowed to leave and after 2 hours are "escorted" to see a doctor to determine the reason.

* During Wen Ho Lee, NEST years, people were taken from their homes in the middle of the night for Polygraphs. Maybe they could have refused, but I don't know if we know that. Did anyone refuse? How did it turn out?

*Wait until YOU find yourself on a no-fly (terrorist watch?) list because you:
A) attended some dissenting rally
B) spoke up in public (including a blog)
C) read a blog (not trying to chase anyone off here!)

7. Target key individuals

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't
toe the line.

* We might *all* be considered "key individuals". The abuse we are suffering (including the implied threat of it) might very well be little more than this Step being taken in a larger arena. Big as we feel in some ways here, we are "small potatoes" to the larger forces at work.

8. Control the press

* This is an important feature of these blogs... to gather relevant press information, to vet it against our own experience, to discuss it' s implications... and to notice what is NOT being published, what the biases are, etc.


9. Dissent equals treason

* There are voices in the commentary on our blogs that seem to precisely say this. LANS policy on misuse of government resources could easily be used (and may already) to slam the lid on people even glancing at these blogs on "company time and equipment". This might be well within their policy but their motivation is surely to intimidate potential dissenters.
* Very few bloggers (Pat the Dog, Pinky, The Brain, Strangelove Ourselves, MaskedCalvin, Oppy, Feynman, et alii) seem to be too excited about exposing their "true names" and few of the commentors seem to be interested in this. Hmmm???

* Doug, Brad and Eric are the only ones to speak up in-persona. Brad is the only one within immediate reach of LANS/Bechtel and as it has been pointed out, he only has a little to lose by this self-exposure compared to say, an early-mid career employee.



10. Suspend the rule of law
* By accepting a job and a security clearance, many of us have (voluntarily?) given up some rights explicitly and implicitly. How many of these they add as a condition for employment or clearance (adding drug-testing and polygraph screening, ...) and the (increasing?) consequences of refusing or of not passing (different than failing) are a close parallel to this. Get us to waive the "rule of law" around privacy and habeus corpus and ???

---

This Post is framed around the 10 steps in:

10 STEPS TO CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY by Naomi Wolfe

* Naomi Wolf's ‘The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot’
will be published by Chelsea Green in September.

To Blog or not to Blog?

Even Scott Adams gets into it!


an anonymous poster said...
How ridiculously juvenile....

then later...

Do you really think ridiculously juvenile blog entries with silly pictures and a fake memo has a net positive effect on anything related to what you are railing against? Of course not. That was my point. All it does is help paint the picture that Congress is right about us scientists at LANL. It simply propagates the general picture. We are losing the perception war that we just don't get it and stuff like this does not help. Sorry I did not spell it out with silly pictures and fake memos for all of you. Nice job giving the enemy more fodder for their canon.

and then after a little more back-and-forth with other posters:

Kind of right back to the beginning of the comments on this blog posting, aren't we?

Perhaps you should reflect on my original question and ask yourself if you think blog posts like this one and the inane comments (including my own of course) that follow help or hurt the laboratory. The blog post itself does not irritate me. And it is kind of funny, but (in my opinion) it is also harmful. Perhaps I just don't understand the purpose of the blog. If it is to blow off steam and make fun of folks and assign blame to people we disapprove of like a bunch of preening middle school kids, great! Looks like it is hitting that mark perfectly. And it does make for fun reading at times.

Unfortunately it also serves those aligned against the laboratory, but at least it's fun. But I guess nobody said we can't have fun while we feed fuel to those trying to burn the place down. I'm sure all of those "C students" that pay our bills can't stop laughing at our non-stop self-annihilation.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh lads?

The Good Doctor wants to open the question: To Blog or Not to Blog?

What are the merits of a public forum like this?

Do we need a place to discuss things anonymously?

Does dark humor and satire (and juvenile humor?) have a place in any public forum?

Does this forum have any value beyond "venting"?

Are we doing more harm to ourselves, to our cause, than good?

Do our critics and detractors get what they want through our public self-examination?

Is what we are doing too important to have this kind of open discussion?

Is what we are doing too important NOT to have this kind of open discussion?

We have asked "anonymous" to compose his (or her) own post... to open a serious discussion on this topic right here.

This may or may not be the right forum.

- Doc

Los Alamos Blocks Researcher Access To Archives

That would be Bechtel/LANS doing the blocking
(we have no policy to cover this)
Read about it here.

Training Day

How to NOT beat a Polygraph (Video)

Brad gets Pissed too!

This in from a friend of Brad's