The most fascinating - and educational - article you'll read today

[Blue_Adept]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

A deep look at the DOE with a number of fascinating revelations, historical aspects, and more. And one can imagine several other agencies that are just as fascinating that most people have zero clue about.

A deep read. I remember when those were important here as opposed to twitter-like snark.

[leftstreet]

1. !!!

We don’t want you to help us understand; we want to find out who you are and punish you.

That article was incredible!

Thanks for posting this

[malaise]

2. Off to the greatest page

Good read

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Whoa! That is a great read. And a scary one.

[Binkie The Clown]

4. Can you condense the article to 140 characters so that Trump will read it?

[Blue_Adept]

5. I'd just be happy if people here read it and talked about it

There's a goldmine of interesting things in there, even unrelated to trump and this admin, to talk about.

[hunter]

6. We know Trump and his cronies are incompetent ideologues and clueless fucks...

... it's terrifying to read just how incompetent they are.

It's as if they grabbed a couple of pigeons off the street and put them in the cockpit of a 747 claiming pigeons know everything anyone needs to know about flying.

As passengers we've got to ask ourselves how we are going to land this plane.

Come 2018 we've got to elect Democrats to clean up the shit and discern the people most qualified to fly the plane.

[zipplewrath]

7. Unfortunately, more widely spread than one might realize

It ain't just the DOE. Across the government there are vacancies that still exist. There is only and "acting" secretary of the Navy right now. And this is while the South China Sea becomes a bigger crisis everyday. Not to mention all of the North Korea submarine activity. Budget decisions are a being made across the government without consultation with the agencies involved. The depth of ignorance coming out of the White House about how the government works is beyond astounding. And it isn't getting better. They don't appear to either choose, or know how, to do basic factual research to understand how to run the government.

None of the military services are reacting to Trumps tweet about transgendered members because that isn't how you promulgate policy. Until he formulates SOME policy and OFFICIALLY communicates it, they will continue to operate on the "last known orders". (So I guess Obama is still in charge in many cases).

[Nay]

8. A must read.

This is a fascinating and frightening read -- it encapsulates the whole problem with the human race and, sadly, points to the social forces of human ignorance that will probably wipe us out.




"There is another way to think of John MacWilliams’s fifth risk: the risk a society runs when it falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions. Program management is not just program management. Program management is all the “less detectable, systemic risks.” Some of the things any incoming president should worry about are fast-moving: natural disasters, terrorist attacks. But most are not. Most are like bombs with very long fuses that, in the distant future, when the fuse reaches the bomb, might or might not explode. It is delaying repairs to a tunnel filled with lethal waste until, one day, it collapses. It is the aging workforce of the D.O.E.—which is no longer attracting young people as it once did—that one day loses track of a nuclear bomb. It is the ceding of technical and scientific leadership to China. It is the innovation that never occurs, and the knowledge that is never created, because you have ceased to lay the groundwork for it. It is what you never learned that might have saved you."

***

"Indeed, if you are seeking to preserve a certain worldview, it actually helps to gut science. Trump’s budget, like the social forces behind it, is powered by a perverse desire—to remain ignorant. Trump didn’t invent this desire. He is just its ultimate expression."

[Blue_Adept]

11. It's an incredible piece, really. So much to soak up.

Most of us can't imagine the scale of problems being tackled like this. Honestly, a lot of this made me want to be a part of the DOE.

[Solly Mack]

9. I recommended then went back to read and - damn.

I remember when the news first came out about how trump was treating those at the DOE.

This is a great article for going more in-depth of what happened during the transition.

The one question they asked was ‘Wouldn’t you want the guy who grew up wanting to be a weapons scientist?’

Wow. Damn.

It was only after Secretary Moniz called a few senators to alert them to the disturbing vacancy, and the senators phoned Trump Tower sounding alarmed, that the Trump people called General Klotz, on the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, and asked him to bring back the stuff he had taken home and move back into his office. Aside from him, the people with the most intimate knowledge of the problems and the possibilities of the D.O.E. walked out the door.

Since Perry was confirmed, his role has been ceremonial and bizarre. He pops up in distant lands and tweets in praise of this or that D.O.E. program while his masters inside the White House create budgets to eliminate those very programs. His sporadic public communications have had in them something of the shell-shocked grandmother trying to preside over a pleasant family Thanksgiving dinner while pretending that her blind-drunk husband isn’t standing naked on the dining-room table waving the carving knife over his head.

So much more. All of it alarming...scary. Chilling.

I hope others read this article.

Thank you for posting it!

[Blue_Adept]

12. It's really the kind of piece where there's like a dozen articles in it

And so much to discuss with each aspect. And just the sense of heartbreak and fear from those who have left after implementing so many great ideas. And just the budget allocation reveal of what goes where, such as the nuke hunters!

[Solly Mack]

17. The article could be a series of articles, I agree.

From absolutely no interests in understanding what the department does, to placing Perry in charge, to not bothering to send people in a timely fashion to learn, to once there, not caring what the department does and instead focusing on how to go after Obama - to getting rid of the people who do know how to run the DOE - to the danger of all that ignorance that is Trump administration hoping to gut the necessary programs it takes to actually keep the country safe.

Beyond scary what trump and the GOp are doing to America right now. And it's only been what? 194 days.

The speed of the destruction they are causing throughout government is staggering.

[Arazi]

10. Fascinating, educational and damn scary. Must read!

[iscooterliberally]

13. Wow! I knew some of what they did, but this line:

In just the past eight years the D.O.E.’s National Nuclear Security Administration has collected enough material to make 160 nuclear bombs.

[Blue_Adept]

14. That and the piece about North Carolina in 1961 kind of freaked me out

[iscooterliberally]

21. I had heard that story before.

Ernest Moniz was on one of the talk shows. I can't remember if it was Real Time or The Daily Show, but he briefly spoke about the NC incident. Man, that was one scary article!

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. This kind of story is what should be a day (or week) long special on a network news station

Instead of obsessing on the latest 140 characters from an insane blubbering idiot.

[Elwood P Dowd]

16. Yes it should.

Where the hell is CNN or MSNBC on this? This is scary shit that should have alarms going off everywhere.

[byronius]

18. Wow.

[Martin Eden]

19. Excellent article, Thanks. n/t

[LiberalArkie]

20. It appears that the agenda is to destroy the organizations that the U.S. has in place through all

the different administrations. The people know know where the breaker box is located for kitchen when it trips a breaker, He is out to rid us of all the ones who know who to call when the toilet backs up. Who do you notify when a hurricane hits a major city.

Like Bush 2 before Trump, Bush got rid of the bureaucracy that Clinton left him and when something happened he and his administration had no idea on who to call. Trump like Bush seems to have thrown away the Rolodex that had the phone numbers of the people who knew how to repair, or invent, or fix things when something goes wrong.

[Marcuse]

22. I am now at once more informed and more depressed.

[Blue_Adept]

23. It's definitely depressing

but there's so much backstory there that's interesting in showing what's gone on over the years and the stories of those involved that it was inspiring as well

[Warpy]

24. One of the best reads in a long time, thanks

They're not only clueless, they don't really want to learn, perfect Teflon brains. They're concerned with the tiny system orbiting around The Great Man, and that's it. The rest of the government is basically cut loose to run itself.

I said weeks ago that the US has no one in the executive branch. This article confirms that. Oh, there are people occupying it and collecting fat paychecks. However, they have no interest in learning their jobs or doing them, once learned.

[Blue_Adept]

25. it's utterly frightening!

[Warpy]

33. That boob Perry was appointed because he's from a fossil fuel state

Fuckwit Donny had and still has no idea in the world just what that agency does or why a department store dummy with nerd glasses is a poor choice to head it.

All his appointments have been insane. This is most likely the worst, worse even than Pruitt.

[ms liberty]

26. You're right , it is a deep read and an important one

And frightening as hell. I too remember when we here paid more attention to real issues than petty squabbles between cliques. Too often now there seems to be more chaff than wheat. Thanks for posting. K&R

[Blue_Adept]

30. It just kind of saddens me that it gets so little attention

I know it's easier to snark in other threads, often with just subject lines and no meat, or satirical articles getting dozens of replies, but this is something that I wish got more traction here. i've seen a lot more response to it on FB thankfully, so it's at least slowly making an impact.

[PA Democrat]

27. My favorite quote dispelling the right wing fantasy that the "free market" will solve

all of the country's problems.

John MacWilliams had enjoyed success in the free market that the employees of the Heritage Foundation might only fantasize about, but he had a far less Panglossian view of its inner workings. “Government has always played a major role in innovation,” he said. “All the way back to the founding of the country. Early-stage innovation in most industries would not have been possible without government support in a variety of ways, and it’s especially true in energy. So the notion that we are just going to privatize early-stage innovation is ridiculous. Other countries are outspending us in R&D, and we are going to pay a price.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

[SamKnause]

28. K&R

Thanks for posting.

Bookmarked for my niece to read.

[FakeNoose]

29. Bookmarked - will share with other people

This is an important article, should be shared.

Thanks!

[Saboburns]

31. This is kind of related so I will put this link here

I have a morbid curiosity for things nuclear, how nuclear bombs work and how nuclear power plants work. I mean the inside mechanics of it all. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon these videos put out by Sandia, one of the National Labs mentioned in this article. There are 3 hour long vids, in the vids the actual men who worked on building, proving, and safing our different nuclear weapons discuss their work. Also discussed are many broken arrows and just how close we have come to having an accidental nuclear weapon go off. I am fascinated by this stuff.


https://m.

[Blue_Adept]

32. Definitely adding that to my to-watch pile!

Growing up in the late 70's and early 80's and with the film The Day After, these are the kinds of things that really shaped a mind.