Japan update: 17 March 2011

Another round up of developments in Japan with special focus on the Fukushima accident.

• Global warming activists won't find much to celebrate after discovering that even if the Japanese and Germans abandon nuclear power, they have no intention of just shivering in the dark,
• John Hutton tells Britain to grow a pair.
• Earthquake/tsunami death toll may reach 25,000.
• MIT is monitoring Japan's nuclear situation.
• The Daily Mail goes off the deep end and starts babbling about "suicide missions".
• http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-eu-nuclear-idUSTRE72F5ND20110316.
• Reuters reassures everyone by throwing out "desperation" for all to read.
• Radiation levels at the Fukushima complex are falling.
• No surprise:  Amazon runs out of Geiger counters.
• Spend fuel rods at reactor no.4 dry or not?  Depends on who you talk to.
• The disinformation campaign in the service of Blessed Gaia.
• Popular Mechanics looks at radiation worries.
• So does Popular Science.
• Dow drops after Japan jitters.
• So does the Footsie.
• I don't know if the Americans are panicking, but the BBC is doing what it can to make them.
• US Officials alarmed–at least, the anonymous ones are.
• Seattle isn't the only place in the US hoarding needless "anti-radiation" pills.
• US Surgeon General makes an ass of herself.
• Safer reactor designs.  Personally, I'm betting on pebble bed, thorium, and modular reactors.
• Bullet train was NOT lost in the tsunami, but as many as four commuter trains were.
• Japan is already rebuilding.  Plucky little blighters.
• Red China turns... Oops, almost did a Prince Phillip there.
•  House on fire IN A FLOOD.  That's what I call bad luck.
• BBC: Nuclear power is evil.
• More scaremongering from Seattle.
• Jerry Pournelle weighs in.
• And finally, lets look at the real disaster in Japan by the numbers.