It is shown that a Lie algebra having a nilpotent radical has a fundamental set of invariants consisting of Casimir operators. A different proof is given in the well known special case of an abelian radical. A result relating the number of invariants to the dimension of the Cartan subalgebra is also established.

We study natural $*$-valuations, $*$-places and graded $*$-rings associated with $*$-ordered rings. We prove that the natural $*$-valuation is always quasi-Ore and is even quasi-commutative (\emph{i.e.,} the corresponding graded $*$-ring is commutative), provided the ring contains an imaginary unit. Furthermore, it is proved that the graded $*$-ring is isomorphic to a twisted semigroup algebra. Our results are applied to answer a question of Cimpri\v c regarding $*$-orderability of quantum groups.

The orthogonal projection of the free associative algebra onto the free Lie algebra is afforded by an idempotent in the rational group algebra of the symmetric group $S_n$, in each homogenous degree $n$. We give various characterizations of this Lie idempotent and show that it is uniquely determined by a certain unit in the group algebra of $S_{n-1}$. The inverse of this unit, or, equivalently, the Gram matrix of the orthogonal projection, is described explicitly. We also show that the Garsia Lie idempotent is not constant on descent classes (in fact, not even on coplactic classes) in $S_n$.