• "A public disaster that affects life, health, property, and the public peace."

Read the whole thing here.

UPDATE: Further explanation from the governor:

This is purely a precautionary measure. So far, we haven’t received any requests for state assistance—but we know weather conditions are rapidly changing. I want to make sure we have every resource available to ensure our communities are safe. This proclamation would allow us to activate the National Guard if we need to. It also allows state agencies to respond quickly to any storm-related requests from cities and counties for state assistance. A brief waiver of the restrictions on dairy truck drivers’ work hours is needed now to avoid shipment delays that could mean the loss of nearly $1 million a day for the state’s dairy industry.

I'm pretty damn conscientious about only using my phone with a hands-free device when driving, and have been since before it became law in Washington state. Having driven stick-shift for years, I'm used to holding the wheel with one hand, but I've read the studies, and there's no question regarding the safety hazards. That said, I'm a little mixed on the recent National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) recommendations that use of cell phones while driving be banned entirely—with or without hands-free devices.

Again, I don't doubt the data on "distracted driving," but it's not like folks don't have conversations in cars without cell phones. And if you really want to talk about distractions, the NTSB should do something about all those people driving with screaming babies or quarrelsome children in their cars.

“No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman.

Really? If that were true, wouldn't we also halve the legal blood alcohol limit, or go to zero tolerance entirely? Because I'm damn sure there are many, many accidents caused by the diminished capabilities of drivers with a legal .07 percent. In fact, just getting behind the wheel of a car endangers both the driver and others. Maybe we should just ban driving while driving?

I don't mean to dis the NTSB recommendations entirely, but as a generally cautious and conscientious driver, I'd think we'd see more of a benefit from enforcing the laws we already have (like maybe, ticketing people for not using their turn signal while shifting lanes), than by launching into a long and controversial fight to ban cell phones.

Talking Points Memo: "After a pair of pepper spray-related incidents at Wal-Marts across the country, a police Taser has finally made an appearance."

Finally!

WaPo:

Air Force officials say an airman armed with a pistol has barricaded himself in a building at a Colorado Air Force base that controls all GPS satellites, but operations haven’t been disrupted.

THEY JUST WANT A HAIRCUT.

(The part where the pit bull gets ahold of the guy on the counter's ankle is pretty much the beginning of my worst nightmare. Yes, it makes me a breed profiler, but every time a pit bull is walked past me on the street, I see its jaws and their proximity to my ankle and think about the horrible clamping...)

Via Joe Szilagyi via Boing Boing. Thanks, kind of, Joe.

Those irresponsible fear mongers at the New York Times are at it again:

Government officials on Saturday ordered more tests after detecting elevated levels of radiation in rice crops near the crippled nuclear power plant at Fukushima.

Radioactive substances have already been discovered in beef, milk, spinach and tea leaves, leading to recalls and bans on shipments. But officials have been especially worried about rice, a staple that makes up a significant part of the Japanese diet. Japan grows most of the rice that it consumes.

Five hundred becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium have been detected in rice grown 35 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the highest permissible level under Japan's recently revised food safety standards. I guess that means that legally, it's safe to eat. But I sure as hell wouldn't feed it to my daughter.

The fact that Japan economically contorts itself in its effort to be self-sufficient in rice, tells you everything you need to know about the central role of this staple in Japanese culture. That many Japanese must now question if Japanese-grown rice is safe to eat, can't help but be a blow to the national psyche.

USGS:

Even as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continues to leak radiation, independent scientists claim to have found "hotspots" in Tokyo where radiation levels are as high as those in the Chernobyl evacuation zone. Sound improbable? Maybe. But whether it's the radiation itself that presents the biggest threat to Japanese health, or the anxiety over it, this is Japan's new normal.

One worker has been killed and four injured in an explosion this morning at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in France. The explosion occurred in a furnace that processes low level nuclear waste, and officials insist that no radiation leak has been detected at the plant...

Nonetheless, the accident is likely to amplify emerging concerns over the safety of nuclear power after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan. Though French public opinion has remained largely favourable to nuclear power, which provides 78 per cent of the country’s electricity, polls showed a growing proportion of people questioning the role of nuclear power after the Japanese catastrophe. The accident follows another incident three years ago when 75kgs of natural uranium was leaked into the environment after maintenance at the Tricastin waste treatment site, also in the south of France.

The government has begun to examine possible scenarios to reduce the country’s dependence on atomic energy, while the opposition Socialist Party has even suggested the possibility of an eventual withdrawal.

It hasn't been a good year for the nuclear industry, and those advocating its dramatic expansion.

For those who insist I've made too much of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster:

TOMIOKA, Japan (AP) — Vines creep across Tomioka's empty streets, its prim gardens overgrown with waist-high weeds and meadow flowers. Dead cows rot where they were left to starve in their pens. Chicken coops writhe with maggots, a sickening stench hanging in the air.

This once-thriving community of 16,000 people now has a population of one.

It's all very well to argue that Fukushima wasn't as bad as Chernobyl, and that when you look at the big picture, nuclear power is still a helluva lot safer than coal... unless you're one of the 100,000 Fukushima prefecture residents who have been permanently displace.

The return of the bird flu...

Avian flu shows signs of a resurgence, while a mutant strain - able to sidestep vaccines - could be spreading in Asia, the United Nations has warned.

The variant appeared in Vietnam and China and its risk to humans cannot be predicted, veterinary officials said.

Remember 2005? Remember what happened? Yes, like then, this is not a good time to drink raw duck blood:

Nguyen Huu Viet must have thought the worst was over when he buried his two-year-old son on Dec. 25. The boy had drowned two days before in a fishpond near their home in northern Vietnam's Thai Binh province, and Viet was undone by the death. At the funeral the family served raw duck blood and porridge-rural comfort food. Although they had heard that the avian influenza that swept Southeast Asia last year had returned, they thought the disease was confined to the south. The day after the funeral, Viet fell sick with flulike symptoms. He was hospitalized on Dec. 31, and tested negative for the H5N1 virus that causes avian flu. Viet deteriorated rapidly and died on Jan. 9. The next day, his younger brother Nguyen Thanh Hung, who had taken care of Viet in the hospital, became ill. When Thanh Hung's blood test came back positive for H5N1, doctors retested Viet's blood and found that he'd also had bird flu. "The whole family was paralyzed," says Thanh Hung, who has recovered from the disease. "Everyone was stunned."

Read more.

I know it's terribly, terribly wrong of me, and I absolutely shouldn't do it, but I'm a horrible person, so...

A Dominion Resources Inc. nuclear power plant in Virginia may have been subjected to ground motion greater than it was designed to withstand in last week’s earthquake, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

Dominion notified the agency that a review determined shaking from the 5.8-magnitude temblor “may have exceeded” design limits of the North Anna Power Station, the agency said today in an e-mailed statement. The NRC sent additional inspectors to the plant to assist agency officials in their investigation, the agency said.

Damn me!

Yes, I know it is awfully irresponsible of me to even dare to suggest in the wake of Fukushima that, as our nation considers a dramatic expansion in nuclear power generation, we might also want to reconsider the potential seismic hazards these plants are built to withstand. How terribly unsciency of me. I should just stick to something I know—like lying about Republicans—and leave the real debate entirely in the hands of the nuclear industry spokespeople who know what they're talking about. Bad Goldy.

Remember this?

Cantor raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when, in the aftermath of the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled the East Coast and originated in his district, he said Congress will help those hurt by the earthquake but will require finding offsets for any federal aid.

CNN:

Tropical Storm Irene's swipe at the Big Apple proved Sunday that New Yorkers can be a tough crowd to impress.
"I slept through the whole thing," said James Trager, a writer who said he was nonplussed by nature's display of fury that took place outside his windows overlooking 58th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Midtown. "Nothing. It's exaggerated."

A friend (Jamie Keeling) on Facebook:

Boring! Nothin to see here concerned friends and family. It's a weak ending to all the hype. My state of emergency sleepover cohorts are sorely disappointed. Our survival skills were not tested. The skies are grey - in our unheroic hearts