Storing nuclear waste from nuclear power plants has always been a problem. Thirty years after Yucca Mountain as a bright star or hollow mountain for storing the nation's nuclear waste was supported by a Congressional Act- the Energy Policy Act of 1992, most of the nuclear waste from reactors still remains stored in temporary canisters on sites where they are used. President Obama cut funding to Yucca Mountain in 2009. Indian tribes have, because of legal systems somewhat separate from regular judicial oversight, been tempted to store nuclear waste in exchange for economic prospects of an immediate positive nature.
It seems wrong to expect Indian Reservations to be the sites for storing nuclear waste with all of the potential harm that can cause. No systems design is flawless to such an extent that unforeseeable deleterious changes are precluded from occurring. Though the Trump administration has pursued a consent based program of deposition of nuclear waste that began in 2016, if I remember, economic coercion of the poor offered a poison pill in exchange for cash is not an unfamiliar and less than honorable political ploy. It is wrong to pursue an implicitly immoral policy even if the exploited party consents with sufficient pressure. It is morally comparable to starving someone then offering them an opportunity to sell their blood so they can buy food.
There is a prospect for advanced technology to research and find a way to reprocess spent nuclear fuel such that it can be reconditioned and reused and thereby making it more safe for eventual storage with the most dangerous period lasting just several hundred years rather than several thousand. Indian tribes having already lost much of their original lands and being reduced in numbers should be the last people expected to hoist the nation's affluent waste on their lands to potentially poison their health.
Instead, Indian tribes should be provided with some alternative economic betterment opportunities to nuclear waste storage. Perhaps they could become locations for producing solar cells- the Chinese have already achieved solar cell production at 33% efficiency which is near the theoretical maximum, while U.S. production is lagging behind. For some decades it is probable that most of the global economy will pursue development of solar power and electric cars as immediate practical economic development that allows entire nations to practically live and move 'off grid'. Major power plants of course will remain about and that may include atomic power before fusion plants arise some day. Reliance on centralized infrastructure should be de-emphasized for national security- when there are alternate sources that can provide an equal quantity of electrical power.
Circa 1990 I came into a small amount of cash (less than one year's earnings). One of the things I did was invest in making a song from my lyrics that would promote themes bringing long term peaceful global prospects and space exploration fueled with electro-magnetic accelerators. I understood, having read Russian and continental history, that Germany and post-cold war Europe might be a problem one day in regard to eastward expansion. I also knew that chemical rockets are quite slow in comparison to neo-relativistic speed electro-magnetic field accelerators that could be built in space and on moons and planets with good practical design.
Neither purpose worked with the song that was soundly trashed by the band that performed it. Maybe a half million casualties followed in the Euro-Biden-Russian Ukraine war, and space exploration still relies on chemical rickets; the economy hasn't changed and the political economy of the globe is largely the same as it was in 1990 with the exception of a lot of cheap labor and the rise of China and BRIC nations.
I had believed as a Christian and with a degree with depth in history and philosophy that I shouldn't bury my talents, and should instead try to affect society positively. I had written a fairly popular prose poem appx 17 years before-anonymously, and felt that writing poetry and lyrics that are constructive was a talent of mine. Society tends to eschew positive, intelligent change of macro-structure over-all.
Musicians and advertisers were about the only people that took note of that song named 'Beneath the Stars'. basically a few thought to exact slights at me for making it. They are something like Orwell's ministry of truth promoting a daily hate in so many words reinforced to the masses with mild thought conditioning repeated ad nauseum in airplay. For me at least that was domestic terrorism. It is sad that I heard such a CW ditty even today- so I wrote this commemorative post describing some of the dark side of the U.S.A. that mal-effects personal and social economic change.
I had never intended to become something of a rodeo clown distraction to draw public attention to myself and away from the actual rich and heirs inheriting millions. What drew my ire today was a song loaded with the usual demotic that actually used the Hork dis.
When I published the song in 1992 I had recently completed a Bachelors from the University of the State of New York- formerly Regents College and now Excelsior. Not only do they imply that I inherited wealth- I absolutely did not; they attacked an earned college degree. Something more about that.
The bloody country western musical neo-terrorists are no more country than I. Though my degree was from New York I lived my entire life in the far west U.S.A. and actually Alaska for much of it. I did spend three or four years painting homes in South Carolina and Florida as well. And I worked offshore of Texas and Louisiana a while.
I took 91 college semester credits at the University of Alaska and a few at North Seattle Community College. I needed 120 to graduate and just took College Level Examination scores for 30 semester credits in a about ten hours of testing. So I had 121 credits. Instead of borrowing money with student loans and getting additional Pell Grants I enrolled at Regents College Degrees and transferred the entire lot to them. I graduated with 121 credits instead of 150 or 180 for a degree that required 120.
Being poor and already with student debt I thought nothing of utilizing a rational, fully accredited University consolidation program and getting my degree immediately with my earned credits instead of trying to get a B.A. from the University of Alaska and go 10-15,000 thousand farther in debt for another year or two of undergraduate programs. To me, a college degree is nothing more than a certificate of academic work to a certain level. I suppose some mafia style goons view them as a super high-school like local turf empowerment so lesser intellectual capacity might want to make them cliques of academically challenged athletes that prosper and heavily influence a local economy.
I got an A.A. from the University of Alaska and a B.L.S. from the University of the State of New York and about the same time and went out about the country looking for a job to afford a graduate school without luck. I wanted to become an educator in some foreign, poor country with an internationally recognized M.A. degree in philosophy and history, as my B.L.S. was.
So for that degree from New York- it should be fair to purchase a fully accredited degree- the cost was just $1500 or so and at least a 90% savings over what a comparable degree would have cost in Alaska, the musical and advertising people have over the decades occasionally thrown or sung some trim my way. They probably kiss ass of Harvard grads in their industries while hating on the academic work of the poor and or entrepreneurial.
Unknown European powers have started a global wolfpack-style war sinking Russian oil tankers probably with an intention to damage Russian oil sales. Selling oil help Russia pay for its special military operation to recover land lost to the west during the 1991 carpet bagging era following the Soviet collapse.
Russian ships have been sunk in the Black Sea off the coast of Senegal, West Africa in recent days. That escalation to a global battle changes things significantly; risking Russian responses that could be attacks on England, France or Germany- the most likely perpetrators of the expansion of the theater of war.
With Russian military forces making slow, steady progress advancing toward the Dnepro River- a simple demarcation line to end the conflict, the Trump administration has sought to bring both sides to agreement on ending the war, yet the Western powers backing Ukraine have no intention of allowing peace to occur unless it is on their terms. Regardless of the fact that a neutral Ukraine with reduced exterior borders where Russia and the West could resume East-West trade and normal commerce would be best for all concerned, the corruption of Ukraine's government and surreptitious will of the Western European traditional powers to own all of Ukraine and intimidate Russia with military forces on Russia's border such that they support Ukraine's war efforts vociferously have continued the death machine of thousands locked into combat.
Peace with Russia can only occur with international recognition of a reduced Ukraine and Russia recovering its former Ukraine lands and a neutral, demilitarized Ukraine that poses no threat to East or West. Ukraine as the middle ground or borderland should recover quickly enough and prosper from international trade. The alternative of moving further down the road to global disaster is a reprehensible one. If Russia chooses to retaliate by sinking western ships arriving at European ports that alone could begin a collapse of the world economy and swift advance toward nuclear war. One feels that European leadership have their heads up their arses regarding the opportunity cost of pursuing the course of fomenting continued war instead of peace.
It may be that the rampant godless atheist trend of Europe away from faith has naturally brought the leaders to cluster into claves of violence and aggressive expansion Eastward toward Russia. They may feel entitled with natural exuberance such that developing hegemony over Russia and its vast natural resources is their right. U.S. Presidents have not, since the end of the Cold War, perhaps with the exception of President Trump, recalibrated their view and opinion of European military and political increase and unification, They tended to be blind to the implicit dangers of a very large, recrudescent European military that has a history of being the source of all global wars tamed only a little by the devastation of Europe in the two World Wars of the 20th century.
"In non-relativistic physics, energy is beautifully simple: Total energy = kinetic energy + potential energy + internal energy, and it works perfectly because:
Time is absolute (same for everyone).
Space is Euclidean and absolute.
Mass is invariant.
You can cleanly separate "kinetic" from "rest" contributions.
In special relativity, none of these assumptions hold, and that’s why the old definitions of energy break down or become ambiguous/meaningless. Here’s why each common non-relativistic notion of energy fails:1. Kinetic Energy as (1/2)mv²Fails spectacularly. At high speeds, momentum is p = γmv (where γ = 1/√(1−v²/c²)), not mv. The work–energy theorem still holds, but when you integrate F·dx = dp·v along a path, you get:Total energy E = γ m c² Kinetic energy K = (γ − 1) m c²The classical (1/2)mv² is only the low-speed approximation (Taylor expansion of γ − 1 ≈ v²/2c²).2. Rest Energy (or "mass energy") wasn’t even a conceptClassically, energy can be zero when an object is at rest. In relativity, even a particle at rest (in some frame) has energy E = m c². You cannot separate "rest mass energy" from "kinetic energy" in a frame-independent way — the split depends on who is looking.3. Potential Energy becomes frame-dependent and problematicExample: Two charges at rest in one frame have electrostatic potential energy. Boost to another frame → they’re moving → there are magnetic fields → the energy is now partly in the fields, partly kinetic, etc. The division between "potential energy in fields" and "kinetic energy of particles" is not Lorentz-invariant. Different observers disagree on how much energy is potential vs kinetic vs field energy.4. Total energy is not a scalar in the old senseIn relativity, energy is the time component of the four-momentum vector: P^μ = (E/c, p_x, p_y, p_z)The magnitude P^μ P_μ = (m c)² is invariant — that’s the rest mass. But the energy E itself transforms under Lorentz boosts, just like time and space do. So "total energy" is observer-dependent.5. Conservation laws require the full energy-momentum tensorFor continuous systems (fields, fluids), the old idea of "total energy = ∫ kinetic + potential + internal" fails completely. You need the stress-energy tensor T^{μν}, whose component T^{00} is energy density, but the total 4-momentum of a system is only well-defined if the system is isolated or you specify a frame carefully.Summary: Why ordinary definitions don’t work
Concept
Non-relativistic assumption
Why it fails in SR
Kinetic energy = ½mv²
Linear momentum p = mv
Momentum is γmv; wrong low-speed limit only
Rest energy = 0
Mass has no energy when v=0
E = mc² even at rest
Potential energy
Frame-independent
Depends on observer (mixes with kinetic/field)
Total energy
Scalar, same for all observers
Part of 4-vector; different in different frames
Energy conservation
Just conserve scalar E
Must conserve full 4-momentum
The relativistic fixWe stop trying to split energy into "kinds" in a universal way and instead define:
Four-momentum P^μ = (E/c, p)
Invariant mass m²c² = E²/c² − p² (the true, frame-independent "mass")
Total energy in a given frame E = √(p²c² + m²c⁴)
That’s the only consistent, frame-independent way to talk about energy in special relativity. All the comfortable classical categories dissolve — just like space and time themselves dissolve into spacetime.
Explain stress-energy tensor
General relativity energy"
I asked; What about covariance and energy?
"Covariance is the key reason why the old intuitive definitions of energy collapse in relativity — and why the relativistic definition is the only one that survives.What “covariance” demands-A physical law (or a physical quantity) must look the same in every inertial frame. If two observers use different coordinates related by a Lorentz transformation, every equation must keep the same mathematical form (tensor equations). Energy in classical physics is a scalar that every observer agrees on (same number for total energy, same kinetic energy formula, etc.). That cannot be true in relativity.Why classical energy is not covariant
Classical total energy E_classical = ½mv² + … changes differently under Galilean boosts than under Lorentz boosts.
Even the conserved quantity is different: under Galilean transformations the conserved energy transforms as E′ = E + mv·u + ½mu² (u = boost velocity) → different observers get different numerical values for “total energy” and even for what is conserved.
That is fine in Galilean relativity, but in special relativity the laws must be Lorentz-covariant, not Galilean-covariant.The only covariant way to define energyEnergy must be part of a 4-vector, because only then do the laws of physics keep the same form under Lorentz transformations.The energy-momentum 4-vector is P^μ = (E/c, p_x, p_y, p_z)Under a Lorentz boost, E and p mix together exactly like t and x do in spacetime. → Different observers naturally measure different energies for the same system (just as they measure different times and lengths).Concrete consequences of covariance for energy
Energy is frame-dependent A photon has E = pc in every frame, but the actual value of E depends on the frame. A moving proton has much more energy than when it is at rest in your lab frame.
There is no universal “total energy of the universe” Because boosting the entire universe would change the total E, but not the physics. Only the invariant mass of an isolated system (√(E²/c⁴ − P_total²/c²)) is the same for everyone.
Conservation of energy is frame-dependent too Proper statement: In every inertial frame, the total 4-momentum is conserved. That automatically implies that the time component E/c is conserved in that frame, but the numerical value of the conserved energy is different in different frames.
You cannot separate kinetic, potential, and rest energy covariantly
Rest energy mc² → becomes part of total E in other frames.
Potential energy in electromagnetic or gravitational fields → mixes with kinetic and field energy under boosts. Only the total 4-momentum of particles + fields together transforms covariantly.
Bottom line-Covariance kills every classical intuitive notion of energy and forces the replacement:Classical picture → Relativistic (covariant) picture Single scalar energy E → Component of the 4-vector P^μ “Energy at rest = 0” → Invariant rest energy mc² Kinetic/potential split → Not covariant, meaningless in general Conservation of E → Conservation of entire P^μ in every frame. That is why textbooks say “energy and momentum are unified into a single 4-vector in relativity.” It’s not just a mathematical trick — it’s the only way to have physical laws that are covariant under Lorentz transformations, i.e., the only way special relativity can be consistent."
I asked Gemini to answer a few questions about why I had to pay a local tax for an online purchase of items not manufactured or sold locally or even made in the U.S.A. The following is what it wrote...
Taxing the Fiction: Why Alaskans Pay Local Use Tax on Out-of-State Purchases
Alaska is one of the few U.S. states with no statewide sales tax. However, many residents living in boroughs like Wrangell find that purchasing goods essential for daily life—such as a new computer—from an out-of-state retailer still incurs a local Use Tax.
This scenario presents a persistent legal and economic conflict: How can a local government legitimately impose a tax on an item that is neither manufactured, sold, nor readily available within its local market?
This post examines the legal framework that permits this tax structure. We will analyze the constitutional justification (the Dormant Commerce Clause) used to uphold the tax, why it is defined as a "compensatory" measure despite the lack of local commerce, and the legal rationale for distinguishing between individual consumers and businesses (the resale exemption). Finally, we confirm where this revenue goes and explore the limited avenues available for challenging this specific tax policy.
The Legal Basis: Jurisdiction Over "Use" The legal justification for the Use Tax rests entirely on one single fact: The item is being used (consumed) within the taxing jurisdiction. Taxable Event: The local tax is NOT on the sale (which occurred outside the state). The tax is on the privilege of storing, using, or consuming the goods in Wrangell. Legal Nexus: By establishing a home or a place of business in Wrangell, a resident establishes a "nexus" (a sufficient connection) with the local government. This allows the local government to tax activities that occur within its borders.
The Private Affair: While the purchase is a private affair, the courts view the use of property (and the benefit derived from that use) as something that requires municipal services. Even computer use benefits from a stable, maintained community: Police/Fire protection for the residence where the computer is kept. Roads and infrastructure that allow the shipping company to deliver the package. The basic public safety that supports all commerce, including the ability of external companies (like phone providers) to operate.
The AT&T Analogy This concept is clearest with services like cellular connections: When a service is paid for, the Wrangell Use Tax is applied to the service being delivered and used in Wrangell. The tax is a percentage of the service cost because the service is being consumed within the municipality that provides the infrastructure and governance for the community.
Why the Use Tax Must Exist (Legally) If Wrangell did not have a use tax on out-of-state purchases, the entire local sales tax would be considered discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Dormant Commerce Clause. Local businesses in Wrangell would have to charge the full sales tax rate (7.0%). Out-of-state retailers would charge 0% tax. This creates an illegal economic incentive to buy from out-of-state, and the tax would be ruled an illegal burden on interstate commerce because it favors out-of-state sellers over local sellers. The Use Tax is what legally "compensates" for the missing local sales tax, neutralizing the effect and making the tax constitutional.
A Philosophical Divergence: The Court and Taxation To illustrate how deeply rooted the power to tax is, consider a hypothetical scenario: How would U.S. tax laws change if the Supreme Court were packed with anarchists?
Anarchist Philosophy: Anarchism fundamentally rejects the state and all forms of involuntary, coercive authority, viewing taxation as a forced taking of property.
Judicial Impact: Currently, the Court uses the Commerce Clause and Dormant Commerce Clause to uphold taxes. A majority of justices holding an anarchist philosophy would likely dismantle these legal precedents, viewing any compelled tax payment as a violation of fundamental individual liberty and property rights.
Likely Outcome: An "anarchist" Court would likely rule that taxation, as a coercive act of the state, is unconstitutional because it violates due process and represents an unconstitutional taking of private property without the state having a legitimate moral or legal claim to the funds. This would trigger a constitutional crisis and effectively end the existing tax system in the United States.
The Bottom Line: Your Options The perspective that the tax is on a "fiction" (the potential for a local sale) and is for a "private affair" (personal computer use) is economically and logically sound, but it does not align with the standard used in U.S. constitutional law for use taxes. As long as the Use Tax Rate = Sales Tax Rate (7.0% in Wrangell), the courts will almost certainly uphold it as a valid, non-discriminatory tax on local consumption. The most effective path to challenging this specific tax is local policy advocacy to persuade the Wrangell Borough Assembly to add a specific tax exemption to the municipal code for items proven to be unavailable within the community.
The word ‘science’ means knowledge. The ‘what is wisdom to man is foolishness to God’ remark of Paul is applicable to scientific knowledge too. There is a difference between spiritual concerns and the experience of the world; the world is good as a product of God yet there is thermodynamics in it that contain willfulness to a certain extent. It is difficult to say how far human freedom is limited within the secular for the answer lies in metaphysical uncertainty. We know from Genesis that Adam and Eve and presumably the entire realm of being was changed when they were cast from the Garden of Eden after eating of the tree of knowledge. Then there is the issue of Wittgenstein's Indeterminacy of Translation concerning the interpretation of Genesis by readers.
Science occurs within a paradigm of contingent being for humans apparently enmeshed within some ultimately unknowable sort of field as innocently as Isaac was. We are spared the fate of spiritual death through Christ’s blood.
Scientific products are pragmatic in a sense- they emerged from what is knowable and practical. The logical fallacy of authority applies to science as well as political opinion. Much of scientific opinion is reliant on language definitions and descriptions of objects these days and that is a philosophically challenging field regarding linguistic epistemology. So the practical. Pragmatic opinions of science are more useful than the overly speculative.
The field of cosmology might be most relevant for Christians in regard to science; and it should be viewed with an informed awareness that it is loaded with uncertainty in theory and in interpretation of observations from sources like the Webb Infrared Space Telescope. It is fun information with new theories every week. These days pre-big bang Desiderata are paradigms for interpreting the Universe as a malleable theoretical model of about any configuration and hypothetical composition. Even the order of time or thermodynamic evolution is somewhat agnostic; that is, it is theoretically reversible or isometric mathematically, if not actually because of issues involving destruction of information in black holes, although there are theories about that too- exculpatory evidence if you like lol.
In a way Bishop Berkeley’s idealistic paradigm in his Three Dialogues still serves as a criterion for making an analogy of the experience of mind and being; that is; no one can be really certain of what it is- even with physics. In physical cosmology too the criterion in largely pragmatic. One does need faith in God who maintains or structured the reality of things- whatever they are for-themselves in regard to cosmology.
