While the Japanese government continues to say that the yellow rain seen in Japan was simply "pollen," many have been reminded of a very similar occurrence after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Almost on que, the Japan Meteorological Agency has confirmed the rain to be pollen after receiving hundreds of calls from concerned citizens.

The ''yellow rain'' seen Wednesday in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo was caused by pollen, not radioactive materials as many residents had worried, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Thursday, reported the Japan Times.

That's right, according to so called experts, enough pollen to cause hundreds to report their findings, rained down on Tokyo at the same time as a devastating nuclear disaster has released high levels of radiation at least 20km from the nuclear plant.

This explanation has reminded many of the yellow rain that hit after the Chernobyl disaster.

The darkness is broken only by the flashing torchlight of the heroes who stayed behind.

These first images of inside the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant reveal the terrifying conditions under which the brave men work to save their nation from full nuclear meltdown.

The Fukushima Fifty - an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers - have battled around the clock to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods since the disaster on March 11.

The cataclysm in Japan pushed it off the front page, but last Friday was a landmark day in America as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a controversial bill restricting the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.

There's been a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, about whether the standoff in Wisconsin was about pure economics or partisan politics. (See: Wisconsin Lt. Gov: This Is About Balancing the Budget, Not Political Payback)


"It's pretty clear there's an agenda nationwide: Republican governors backed by the Koch Brothers [and] extreme right wing money want to crush the unions," says Columbia Professor Jeffrey Sachs. "The public is against it, but public opinion doesn't count much in this country these days."

Retired USGS geologist Jim Berkland, who is credited with predicting (four days in advance) the 1989 San Francisco Bay area 6.9 magnitude earthquake, has stated that North America looks to be next for a major quake. Berkland says that the months of October March and April are historically the months on which the most powerful earthquakes have struck the San Francisco Bay area. He also links the upcoming 'supermoon' on the 19th and, the next day, the equinoctial tides. A 'top seismic window', according to Berkland, is developing between the 19th and 26th of March. Berkland also implies that massive recent fish kills at Redondo beach and Acapulco are not a result of the Japan quake or its aftermath, but rather signs (changes in magnetic field) of a coming quake on the Western seaboard of North America.

• Officials admit they may have to bury reactors under concrete - as happened at Chernobyl
• Government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of twin disasters
• Japanese upgrade accident from level four to five - the same as Three Mile Island
• We will rebuild from scratch says Japanese prime minister
• Particles spewed from wrecked Fukushima power station arrive in California
• Military trucks tackle reactors with tons of water for second day

The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.

Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.

After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.

He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.

Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

While Japan struggles to recover from one of the greatest earthquakes in world history, West Coast seismologists are warning that a quake just like it could occur at any time off the Washington and Oregon coasts.

Friday's subduction earthquake in Japan has been calculated at magnitude 8.9, although experts say the number may be increased slightly. The last subduction quake off the West Coast, which occurred on Jan. 26, 1700, has been judged at between magnitude 8.7 and 9.2.

The size of the 1700 earthquake was determined from evidence buried in sediments along the coast. The date is known, because it created a tsunami that washed up in Japan, where observers recorded the date.

In broad-brush terms, "the two earthquakes are very similar," said John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network at the University of Washington. "As a first guess, what might happen here is what happened there."

Subduction earthquakes are caused by the slippage between two tectonic plates. Plates on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean are different, but in either case a tsunami would travel a short distance before hitting land. As in Japan, people living in Washington's coastal communities might have less than half an hour to escape from a surge of water from a subduction earthquake.

Robert Yeats, professor emeritus of geology at Oregon State University, said West Coast residents should take the Japanese experience to heart.

"What you are seeing in Japan today is what you will see in our future,"he said, "except that they are better prepared than we are."

Around 800 people had to be rescued from their cars after a blizzard in North Dakota made roads impassable.

Motorists were yesterday forced to abandon their vehicles after 60mph winds created whiteouts and plunging temperatures turned roads to ice rinks throughout the state.

Traffic came to a grinding halt and there were multiple pileups that caused more delay. Miraculously there were reports of only minor injuries.

Rescue workers, including around 70 soldiers, had to use military lorries and other heavy vehicles that could plough through huge snow drifts to pluck people from more than 500 cars abandoned along major highway routes.

They were taken to churches, schools, bars and gas stations that became makeshift shelters while the highways were closed.

Katie Woodbury, a North Dakota State College freshman, was driving from the school in Fargo to her family's farm in Stanley, northwest North Dakota, when road conditions forced her take shelter at a church in Medina.

'It was scary - I was talking to myself the whole time,' she said of her drive. 'I just want to get home and see my mom and dad and the 13 new piglets at the farm.'

She said she talked to her parents by phone today and, after having a hot meal, was just waiting for the weather to clear.

Three days after a massive earthquake that is now estimated to have registered a 9.0 magnitude, Japanese rescue crews are being joined by foreign aid teams in the search for survivors in the wreckage. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called the disaster the nation's worst crisis since World War II, as the incredible scope of the destruction becomes clear and fears mount of a possible nuclear meltdown at a failing power plant. It is still too early for exact numbers, but the estimated death toll may top 10,000 as thousands remain unaccounted for. Gathered here are new images of the destruction and of the search for survivors.

To start with, let me be clear: The oppression and general subjugation of women is not an exclusively Republican issue. Measures proposed, adopted, or supported by some Democrats, such as the Stupak-Pitts amendment and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, make that clear. Nor is the oppression and subjugation of women even an exclusively male issue. The fact is, a lot of conservative women adhere and/or contribute to the doctrine of male domination, perhaps because it is politically useful (see Palin, who is no feminist), or perhaps because they have simply been indoctrinated to do so. Despite all the calls for equality and the efforts of feminists throughout the country and around the world, everyone who has grown up in the United States has been influenced, in one way or another, by the pervasive and prevailing mindset of masculine domination. Some of us are more resistant to indoctrination than others, but few are entirely immune. We are all subject to the influences of gender stereotyping, no matter how careful our parents may have been to prevent it. Every day, we are inundated with indoctrinating images and ideas, through television, literature, music, and innumerable other mediums.


What is most important isn't that we are completely free of assumptions about the opposite sex, or even our own, but that we strive to understand the causes and effects of sexism and rail against it when we perceive it.

So let's make sure I am being sufficiently transparent about this issue and my overall take on it. I am not writing this diary to "blame men" in general. I happen to be very fond of men, and in fact, most of my friends are male. But while both men and women in this country are confronted with a nigh constant deluge of sexist and/or stereotyping information and behavior, and while people from both parties occasionally participate in attacks on women's rights, it is the GOP which has specifically made the oppression, domination, and even degradation of women a party platform.