• 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

• 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

• 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

• Japan has some of its industry curtailed, like auto and steel — but that’s not going to last too long. People are starting to realize that there [sic] economy is not going to be shut down for long — and they’re going to have to start to look for alternative fuel sources.
• INFA Energy Brokers CEO Brad Schaeffer • Suggesting that Japan will have to switch its energy sources to an alternative source. But Schaeffer means “alternative” in the way one might call a band like Nickelback “alternative” — see, he thinks that Japan should move to oil. “Remember, they need to get their nation back on their feet,” he says. “They aren’t worrying about their carbon footprint so much. They’re thinking we need to get oil here now – so we can get our generators up and running.” While there’s some grain of truth here, we wonder how much of what he’s saying is wishful thinking, seeing that he’s the CEO of an energy-brokering company. Quotes like these? They seriously make us cringe. source

• $200 billion the potential cost of the direct effects from the earthquake to Japan, one of the world’s largest economies; power outages could make things worse
• $626 billion the amount of market value Tokyo’s stock market lost on Monday and Tuesday; it recovered somewhat on Wednesday source

• » If this is true: This makes this the most expensive earthquake in Japan’s history, handily topping the $100 billion cost of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.