The attack on education continues

Help, please, from the scientists here. About the problem of nuclear waste

I have been generally against nuclear power, both because of the danger of nuclear accidents and because of the problem of storage of contaminated material and spent rods.

I remember the results of Reagan‘s commission studying how to make nuclear waste storage safe for the ages that proposed we create basically a generational priesthood that would carry the information of the danger into the thousands of years of the future to warn people off. Crazy, right? Absurd.

It was suggested to me recently that we only needed to worry about the next hundred years because we would find a way to use the radioactive waste to generate new energy and in passing make it safe.

I would like to believe this, particularly in the light of the horrific dangers of climate change and with the current push to build a new generation of small reactors, as New York’s governor is currently proposing.

So, for my scientific friends here, what do you think? Is there any realistic basis for that idea or is such recycling a fantasy?

It seems to me that once the waste is buried to our current specification for eternal entombment, it is unrealistic to expect it could be “mined.“. If recycling is ever to become feasible, then our storage systems should be designed accordingly for prospective retrieval of materials that could potentially be reused. Right?

Censorship now

Has anyone heard from Mousetoescamper?

I don’t see anything since mid-October. I get worried.

I killed a bird with my car just now

I stopped and picked it up, hoping it might just be stunned. I don’t even know what kind it was, maybe an eastern wood pee-wee. I feel awful.

Fortunate Son

Epic trolling, if true. The word is they had the troops in DC marching to CCR’s Fortunate Son. A medal for the guy who got that one in the mix. Epic.

Social Security madness

What a difference a week makes.

Last week I had a great conversation with someone at Social Security to finalize my application for benefits, according to an appointment for a phone call I had been given at my in-person visit to the local office. She was helpful and positive and went through all my details of employment history, including that I was applying under the new (Biden-era) end of the windfall elimination provision. Hurray, I was eligible.

Amazingly, my retroactive payment was credited to my account this week.

Then I got the paper confirmation, and there’s an error in it that makes the whole application invalid, maybe even appearing fraudulent. It specifies that I state I have no other pension income, which I do, which is why I had not applied for SS before the WEP repeal. The agent I spoke to understood that.

So I go to the SS page to check my account information. I can’t access the account using my new password because it says it’s only accepting logins created after 2021?

So I am going to sequester all payments until I can clear this up of course, and be very grateful I can do that.

What does this mean for everyone else?

Al Stewart

I am listening to his Roads to Moscow. It seems so poignant and apt right now. Can anyone here find it and post it? I need to step up my skills, but right now I would really just like to share it.

Cowards die a thousand times

Heroes die but once

Our local (Augusta, Maine) Democratic Party has just canceled tomorrow’s rally at the State House because of unspecified infiltration and threats.

This is caving in advance and unworthy of us. Warn us, yes, but to call it off is in my opinion craven and wrong.

So I need a sign…

Will there be a march in Augusta Wednesday?

I don’t know who to contact about it. Anybody know anything?