“Emergency” doesn’t mean what I think the Republicans think it means.

The Brian Setzer Orchestra — That Mellow Saxophone.

There’s a combo blessing/curse: May you live in interesting times.

Fascinating. We live in fascinating times, may be a bigger curse.

Yesterday the spent fuel rod pool at Fukushima Daiichi reactor 4 caught fire. About that time instruments at the plant showed an exponential increase in radiation levels. After the fire was quenched, radiation levels fell. In the hour before I sat down to write this, there was an explosion at the same spent fuel rod pool. As I write, another fire is burning there. NHK reports the radiation level – 300 to 400 milliSieverts – is so high that firefighters cannot approach the area.

“Shared sacrifice,” or as I like to call it, “sacrifice.”

DOD is reportedly preparing to charge Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri for his role in the Cole bombing for trial in a military commission. That’s worth keeping in mind because the Gitmo order is largely based on the protective order the DC District Court uses for habeas cases. The Gitmo order chose not to simply adopt the DC District order, though, suggesting the differences may have been crafted for people like al-Nashiri.

Plenty of people were quick to denounce Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald for announcing that Senate Democrats would not be allowed to participate in recorded committee votes. But if you read the letter he sent, he was saying more specifically that the contempt order, which the Republicans passed in the dark days of the impasse over the anti-union bill, had not yet been revoked. This contempt order could only be lifted on the Senate floor by a vote, and the Senate isn’t due back in session in Wisconsin until April 5.

Early Wednesday morning, March 16, in Japan.

Japanese authorities are reporting a new fire and explosion coming from the area of the spent fuel pond of Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

That’s the same site at which fires were reported on Tuesday and an explosion that released very high levels of radiation. Wednesday’s blast and fire also resulted in increased radiation readings at the site, and, according to one other report, at least two workers are missing.

Why doesn’t President Obama fire David Stevens and terminate his health insurance?

Because radioactivity and the effects of radiation on people are likely to be in the news for some time to come, now seems to be a good time to present a basic introduction to radiation and the effects of the large doses that could be delivered to people within the immediate zone of the disaster.