The 1000x normal level might not threaten anyone right now, but it does indicate that this plant is far, far out of normal operating parameters.

If coolant isn't restored, extreme heat can melt through the reactor vessel and result in a radioactive release. Reactors have containment domes to catch any release. But there is always the chance that an earthquake could create cracks or other breaches in that containment system.

Attempts to cool the thing off are proceeding more slowly than expected.

The site has other nuclear reactors -- and cooling has now failed at a second reactor, too.

I think maybe there are four reactors:

Reuters Mexico tweets that the Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has secured outside power and has begun providing water to Fukushima reactors 1, 2 and 4.

Correction: I'm not able to keep my nuke plants straight. Apparently there are multiple plants experiencing failures, and each plant contains multiple reactors-- and in some cases multiple reactors are failing at the same plant.

I am getting "plant" and "reactor" confused. This story alludes to all the failed reactors.

Over FoxNews, Shep Smith just clarified that one plant has two three reactors, and another plant has two. There are two plants which are overheating; at one, at least two reactors are compromised.

I think that's it. I'm confused.

...

Although there's no immediate health hazard, everyone within 10km has been ordered away.

Commenters who seemed to know what they were talking about disputed the report I relayed that the US was rushing "coolant" to Japan. Turns out, you were sort of right, but such a plan does seem to have been contemplated:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier had said that U.S. Air Force "assets" had delivered "some really important coolant" to a Japanese nuclear power plant.

One U.S. official said he believed Clinton was told Japan had requested the material, that the United States had agreed to provide it, and that an operation to do so was under way.

But it's possible Hillary Clinton just totally misspoke and her flacks are covering up for her, pointlessly -- who cares if she got a minor bit of information wrong in a fast-moving story? -- by claiming he "believes" such a plan was in effect.

Posted by: Ace at 03:47 PM | Comments (469)
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Hypocrisy and racial get-out-of-jail-free cards. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (295)
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He just lied. And lied and lied some more.

Because he doesn't want to do what the public wants to be done (and knows needs to be done). So he just lies and says he's already doing all that.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (301)
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The Secret Service releases a previously withheld tape.

By the way, a new book about the shooting, Rawhide Down (Rawhide was Reagan's Secret Service codename), has just been released. Despite apparently painting a very positive picture of the First Patient...

They decided to call him Mr. Reagan rather than Mr. President; the situation would be less frightening that way. They were amazed by his joking, his courtesy and his general lack of V.I.P. attitude.

They were also impressed by his bravery.

...even the New York Times praises the book.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (60)
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So, it's over.

That's the wonderful thing about procrastinating -- if you procrastinate long enough, you lose an opportunity to act altogether, and so you never actually have to make a decision.

Well played, Pres**ent Obama.

Important Update: Obama just birdied twice on the back nine. After finishing his golf game, he'll do a little monitoring and consulting, time permitting.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (159)
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Arab unrest is taking a rest.

The "Day of Rage" planned by critics of the Saudi Arabian government may have turned into a day of rest on Friday, with quiet streets in the eastern city of Qatif one day after police fired on protesters there, and peaceful demonstrations outside the town.

Witnesses reported a heavy police presence in Riyadh, the country's capital, but no protests. One witness said hundreds marched in Al-Ahsa, in the southern part of the country's largely Shiite Eastern Province, and several protesters were arrested, but that there was no violence.

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 AM | Comments (119)
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Global warming "weirding:"

The Passaic, Rockaway and Ramapo rivers will continue to rise through the late afternoon and will start to crest tomorrow, Heavener said, and there is "major flooding" along the Pompton River.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (85)
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Boats and homes along the shore have been destroyed. Reports are that most (or all) were evacuated out first. Update: Reports that four people were swept out to sea by the tsunami.

Meanwhile, "slightly radioactive vapor" may be released at that Japanese nuclear plant to reduce the pressure building in the pipes. The pressure (and heat) have to be released to prevent a core meltdown.

The US is rushing coolant to the plant. I'm not really sure why the Japanese wouldn't already have as much of this as needed at the ready, but we're sending some.

The last I read, 88,000 were missing in the disaster. Even if you assume that 90% of the missing are just waylaid and not dead, that's obviously a catastrophe of deadly dimensions.

Coolant? Commenters don't think that business about rushing coolant to Japan is accurate, since the coolant, they say, is just highly pure water.

It was mentioned of FoxNews. Maybe they have the details wrong.

Huh? A commenter writes that the earthquake was so powerful it shifted the earth's axis by 10 inches/25 cm.

Pictures of the Disaster: Awful.

The video is arresting because water and debris is slowly rushing into huge areas of land. Because our eyes are not used to seeing things this big, it baffles the eye -- we do not have a sense of scale which would make sense of this disaster. For example, watching the debris move across farmland, it looked sort of like water from a leaky sink moving across the floor, except swept up in that water were cars and what, on second inspection, appeared to be pieces of houses' walls and roofs. At first it looked like small bits of debris -- like chunks of cardboard boxes -- but in fact it was chunks of houses.

That gave an idea that the "spill" of water flowing over the farmland was a really about ten feet high (or more), and therefore, while it appeared, in the big picture, to be moving quickly, it must in fact be moving very fast on a human scale.

Did I say pieces of houses? I just had a scale-check again and saw that entire houses are floating in the tsunami water.

The point I'm struggling to make is that this is so large I don't have any scale-references to make sense of it.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (337)
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Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”

...

I got 'nuthin. Or to be more accurate, I got so much that I don't even know where to start.

Update [ace]: Obama again claims that Democrats have met Republicans "halfway" on spending cuts. Refuses to be specific, but hints he wants to see something between the Republicans' number (61 billion) and the Democrats (6 billion).

Um, that's a lot of frickin' range. Lead much? Oh right that's not your job.

"Irresponsible:" Thinks doing 2-week extensions is "irresponsible" because he's got a war in Afghanistan. Does not seem to grasp that the issue is not being resolved because he will not lead, follow, or get out of the way.

His leadership style is to lead from the rear, that is, not to lead; he says nothing and defers to others to figure it out, then rides in at the end to claim credit.

That's why the process is taking this long, because of his own dilatory voting-present style.

But when he calls this "irresponsible," you can bet he doesn't have himself in mind.

Nothing Can Be Cut: He basically defines cuts as belonging one of two forbidden categories:

1. Cutting our "Investments in the future." High speed rail and Pell grants cannot be cut because they are investments in the future.

2. "Sneaking" a political agenda into a budget dispute. This category includes pretty much everything else -- if you're cutting an unnecessary program like NPR, that's really just sneaking an ideological agenda into a budget discussion, and that's not allowed.

After this political bickering by Obama, he heroically calls on others to "stop their political bickering."

My Hero: Chip Reid confronts him with an old quote in which Obama said that if a tyrant was massacring civilians, the US would be morally obligated to intervene.

Obama claims that's still the rule but doesn't want to make commitments on this score -- says it will all be "judgment calls."

Note he had an opportunity here to set a Red Line for Gadaffy and specifically declined to do so.

I know what I'm thinking about Obama's "moral obligation." That it's a non-obligation.

Says he will "monitor" the situation and continue "consulting" with everybody.

You know what's scary? In Halloween, when The Shape "monitors the situation" and then "consults with Secretary Gates and the international community" about killing people. So scary.

Jaws was scary too. When the shark was "monitoring the situation" and then consulted with cabinet to do some fact-finding, that was scary.

Parallel Universe: That's the reaction from cobloggers, who are amazed at how blithely Obama makes claims about a counterfactual alt-history.

RDBrewer giggles at these:

--"gas prices are important"

--earthquake in Japan is "potentially catastrophic"

--"economists like Warren Buffet" say we should expect strong job growth this year

--"we need to continue to increase production of oil and gas" (by issuing a single offshore permit)

--"we are encouraging offshore production" (Is he living in his own, private fantasy world?)

I get the feeling he views this conference as obligatory, and he's already trying to run out the clock. While laying a pretext ignoring/avoiding questions. (For pulling the rug out from under expected questions): "As I've already said, oil production is important. Next question." "As I mentioned previously, we're working to ensure America's energy future (whatever that means)" His statements create a potential rope-a-dope defense.

A combination of platitudes, falsehoods, and wishes that he won't back up with meaningful action (such as actually drilling for oil).

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:16 AM | Comments (490)
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Democrats seem likely to purse this before the recalls. Having a 4-3 liberal majority on the court (rather than the current 4-3 conservative majority) will of course endanger the law just passed.

Not because anything untoward was done, of course. But because liberals' Plan B (often Plan A, actually) is to get judges to exercise what should be an extraordinary intervention in functioning democratic processes over nothing more than a "We lost, make us win, Daddy" whine.

You can volunteer for Justice David Prosser's re-election campaign here.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (36)
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