• Courtesy of The Daily, this is an excellent two-minute video summarizing the events at Fukushima’s nuclear reactor in Japan, complete with icons, a timeline, and fancy zooming maps. It’s current up to this morning, and to the good folks at The Daily, bravo. It’s really helpful to have such a complex series of events distilled down into such an easily digestible nugget. source

• General Petraeus is giving us the Charlie Sheen counter-insurgency strategy, which is to give exclusive interviews to every major network, and to keep saying ‘we’re winning’ and hope the public actually agrees with you.
• Rep. Lynn Woolsy (D-CA) • Quoting Rolling Stone editor Michael Hastings, who made the comparison at a Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting, on the House Floor. Woolsey wants US troops out of Afghanistan, pronto, and hasn’t taken kindly to the optimism in Petraeus’ recent media blitz. This isn’t the first time she’s come down on Petraeus, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan; in 2010, she accused the general of using “weasel words” to dodge a question about the troops’ withdrawal date. source

• 80km the distance that the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo is urging Americans to maintain from the damaged and irradiated Fukushima Nuclear Plant
• 30km the distance the Japanese government have evacuated their own people, so … that’s a pretty concerning discrepancy source

• » Overly cautious, or overly cavalier? That’s a question that should likely be weighing on the minds of the Japanese today, as the American Embassy in Tokyo’s suggested range of evacuation is 50km more than their own government’s. U.S. Ambassador John Roos, who issued the warning, said that the projection was based on American expert analysis, as well as information provided by Japanese officials, which begs the question- have these Japanese officials given the same advice to their own government?

• Some new intrigue in the case of Raymond Davis: It’s being broadly reported in a number of news sources that Davis, the CIA operative who shot and killed two men in Pakistan, was essentially bailed out of the charges with U.S. cash. Sources claim that the U.S. government paid somewhere around $700,000 to the three families of the victims (the third casualty was a man who was run over by a responding emergency vehicle). This is in accordance with a provision of Islamic law known as “blood money,” in which charges are dropped for financial payouts to victim’s families. This is, obviously, a story that is generating a lot of ink and a lot of ire; the U.S. steadfastly denies any such payment was made, and has thanked the victim’s families. source

• 13 times (allegedly) that Berlusconi had sex with a 17-year-old source

• » He denies this, obviously. As does the girl he’s alleged to have slept with, Karima el Mahroug (better known publicly by her pseudonym, Ruby The Heart Stealer). The Italian Prime Minister mocked the accusations against him, claiming that the charge, which cites 33 total women he was alleged to have slept with, is silly because he’s too old. “I’m 75, and even if I’m a bit mischievous, 33 girls in two months is too much even for someone who is 30.” It says something about Berlusconi’s personality that he’s still coyly describing himself as “mischievous,” even as he faces this major legal threat. He’s basically ceding that yeah, he might sleep around every now and then, but not THAT much. Wouldn’t you generally want to avoid in any way alluding to such a thing?

• cause The big shift from a Democratic House to a Republican one doesn’t simply mean a vote-count edge; it also means Republicans gain control of the various House committees and subcommittees. For example: the Energy and Commerce Committee, helmed by Rep. Fred Upton.
• effect The aforementioned committee approved a bill for the House’s consideration that would bar the EPA from enforcing automobile emissions standards in California. Said Rep. Joe Barton: “We should not put the U.S. economy in a straight jacket because of a theory that hasn’t been proven.” source

• Protest over the Mark 1 reactor The Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor, as we mentioned yesterday, has a long history of safety concerns, so much so that 35 years ago, General Electric scientist Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his fellow employees resigned in protest over the design. He worried that the containment system wasn’t prepared to deal with a massive loss of coolant, which seems on the spot.
• The high price of poor oversight Also unveiled by Wikileaks, a U.S. cable indicates that Tokyo opposed a court order relating to nuclear safety. The court ruled that an earthquake of a magnitude over 6.5 could cause radiation exposure. Japan’s rebuttal: “Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency believes the reactor is safe and that all safety analyses were appropriately conducted.” source

Boron’s (possibly) stabilizing effect

• 52.6 tons of Boron that South Korea is giving Japan

• » That is, obviously, a lot of Boron. The Japanese are hoping this emergency shipment from the South Korean government will help them stabilize the reactor crises happening at the Fukushima Plant. The element, which is crucial in the process of stopping nuclear reactions, will be mixed into the seawater that’s being used to try to cool the fuel rods. South Korea is really coming through for Japan on this one; their own Boron stockpile has been mostly used up at Fukushima.

• Taniguchi has been a weak manager and advocate, particularly with respect to confronting Japan’s own safety practices, and he is a particular disappointment to the United States for his unloved-step-child treatment of the Office of Nuclear Security.
• A U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks • On Tomohiro Tanaguchi, the man who was the IAEA’s (International Atomic Energy Agency) Deputy Director General for the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security from 2001 to 2009. While another cable reveals that Tanaguchi urged fellow officials to focus more on nuclear power safety in 2008 (which seems like the sort of thing you shouldn’t need to tell the IAEA), it seems that this plea late in his career was not enough to salvage the opinion of American diplomats, who express a great degree of angst over the state of Japan’s nuclear earthquake preparedness. Tomohiro departed his position in 2009, leaving the position to another Japanese member, Yukiya Amano, who currently holds the post. source

• 3.9% the leap in February’s wholesale food costs source

• » Why this is a really big deal: Well, see, this is the highest one-month leap in food production costs since, umm … November 1974. So, what caused the increase? We’ll leave that one to the Labor Department: “About seventy percent of the February rise can be traced to higher prices for fresh and dry vegetables, which jumped 48.7 percent,” they write. “Advances in the indexes for meats and dairy products also were major factors in the increase in the finished consumer foods index.” So, umm … yeah. This is not a positive economic trend.

• cause In an effort to improve our country’s air security after the 9/11 attacks, the Transportation Security Administration came to being. They’ve tightened security repeatedly over the years.
• effect The most recent major tightening they’ve made forces people to either walk through a metal clap trap, get felt up by people with latex gloves, or play civil disobedience like this guy did.
• solution? A way to prevent this type of annoyingness for frequent flyers — which would require the exchange of personal info — is on the table. The travel industry wants to see this, stat. source