Visual source: Newseum
WSJ:
realtime crowd-sourced radiation monitoring in Japan
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo quietly distributed potassium iodide pills to U.S. citizens this week in what appears to be a word-of-mouth operation.
A handful of Americans waited for the pills Friday at the U.S.-military-operated New Sanno Hotel, in Tokyo’s upscale Hiroo neighborhood. One person in line said he heard about the offer from a contact two friends removed who works at the Tokyo embassy. Another recipient said he found out about the program through a connection in the military and through an email from a private club that counts some of the capital’s most elite expats among its members.
They shared those details with an embassy official, who asked recipients to write how they heard about the distribution on a waiver that acknowledges they received seven free potassium iodide pills from the U.S. State Department.
"Watch what I do, not what I say." Crowd-sourced radiation link (the picture) is
here.
Evening Standard:
The world today got its first glance of the 50 workers, until now an anonymous group of lower and mid-level managers. Pictures from inside the plant show staff in full protective suits and masks working in debris-strewn control rooms lit only by torchlight. They are also pictured working to reconnect power supplies and trying to make the towers in the plant safe.
Five are believed to have died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them. At first light today officials were alarmed to see steam pouring from reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4. It was the first time that steam has escaped from the No 1 reactor.
So, let's drop the "no one died" part.
Tom Jensen/PPP:
Obama's not likely to win Michigan by his blowout margin of 16 points in 2008 again but if the state voted today he would have an easier time taking it than either John Kerry in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000 did. Mitt Romney does the best of the Republicans against Obama, but still trails 48-41. Mike Huckabee keeps it in single digits as well at 50-41. After the two of them Obama does as well or better than he did last time around- a 16 point advantage over Newt Gingrich at 53-37 and 20 point leads over Sarah Palin at 55-35 and over wild card Scott Walker at 52-32.
and
again:
Much has been written about the weakness of the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate field but what I think might be most remarkable about the leading quartet of Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich is that they've all become more unpopular and by quite a good bit since we started monthly national 2012 polling in April of 2009. The fact that the more Americans are exposed to them, the less they like them certainly does not bode well for their competitiveness next year.
The Fix:
While much of the shifting population is moving to red states, there is increasing evidence that it’s making those red states bluer, and most of the demographic trends are heading in Democrats’ direction.
Census Bureau director Robert Groves summed it up best Thursday: “We are increasingly metropolitan today, our country is becoming racially and ethnically more diverse over time ... and geographically, there are a lot of areas of the country growing in number that have large minority populations.”
All three of those things suggest growing Demcoratic [sic] constituencies.
Bob Herbert:
So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.
NY Times has a brilliant op-art chart on the new potential Glenn Beck channel:
Kathleen Parker thinks SC's Nikki Haley might be committing political suicide by picking a fight with the local R establishment. More tea v the three martini lunch.
