The Obama administration today made commitment to prisoner abuse a central pillar of its policies. State Department spokesperson P. J. Crowley has abruptly resigned after intense pressure from a White House furious that he criticized the Defense Department’s abuse of Bradley Manning. With this action the Obama administration has signaled its continuity with the Bush administration program of abuse. Alas, there are fewer and fewer people of conscience, like Crowley, left in this administration. As Crowley said in a statement today:

The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.

These are not the sentiments of someone who can survive in the current lawless administration, just as such a person couldn’t survive in the lawless Bush administration. Those who believe in human rights have been driven out by Obama’s flunkies who think that the only reason to be in power are to get reelected while handing the country over to Wall Street and the military-intelligence establishment.

A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown. The key piece of technology in a nuclear reactor is the control rods. Nuclear fuel generates neutrons; controlling the flow and production rate of these neutrons is what generates heat, and from the heat, electricity. Control rods absorb neutrons — the rods slide in and out of the fuel mass to regulate neutron emission, and with it, heat and electricity generation.

A meltdown occurs when the control rods fail to contain the neutron emission and the heat levels inside the reactor thus rise to a point that the fuel itself melts, generally temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing uncontrolled radiation-generating reactions and making approaching the reactor incredibly hazardous. A meltdown does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster. As long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the core breaches but the containment facility built around the core remains intact, the melted fuel can still be dealt with — typically entombed within specialized concrete — but the cost and difficulty of such containment increases exponentially.

RIA Novosti: At least 15 Japanese hospitalized with radiation poisoning
Sydney Morning Herald: Emergency at 2nd Japanese nuclear plant
Washington Post: Japanese nuclear plants' operator scrambles to avert meltdowns
Stephen Lendman: Nuclear Meltdown in Japan
CBS News: Japan upgrades killer quake's magnitude

March 13, 2011: New video of the March 11th tsunami as it was filmed by an eyewitness in Iwaki City, Japan.

NYT: Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and TsunamiClose up footage of tsunami rolling into city streets, dragging along cars and destroying buildings
BBC: Tsunami sweeps through Kesennuma City in Japan
BBC: Japan earthquake: Footage of moment tsunami hit
You Tube: HD video of Japan Tsunami, Natorigawa River

Tokyo: A volcano in southwestern Japan erupted on Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometres (two and a half miles) into the air, a local official said. It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas on Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami and sparking fears that more than 10,000 may have been killed. The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1. Authorities have maintained a volcano warning at a level of three out of five, restricting access to the entire mountain.

TimesLIVE: Japanese volcano erupts
Goldfizz: Japanese volcano erupts

One of the problems with everything going haywire at once is the possibility of letting a really, really important thing go unnoticed. While we've all been looking at Wisconsin, Michigan could actually be facing worse, and more draconian measures intended not only to break unions, but the public schools, municipal governments and much, much more. The Michigan Martial Law Act of 2011 is fast-tracking right onto Governor Rick Snyder's desk just in time to take center stage after the fact. Despite large protests in Lansing, it's getting very little press while the Wisconsin conflict continues.

PublicBroadcasting.net: THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE: Massive Crowd of More Than 150,000 Gathers in Madison to Protest Anti-Union Law
Register-Herald: W.Va. delegates support Wis. state employees

A US drone attack has killed at least five people and wounded several others in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of South Waziristan, intelligence officials in the region say. The five were killed on Sunday morning when a US drone aircraft fired two missiles at a vehicle in Azam Warsik, a militant hotbed on the Afghan border, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Meanwhile, locals said US predator drones were still hovering over the South and North Waziristan tribal regions. The attack comes two days after two US drone attacks killed at least six people and wounded several others in North Waziristan Province near the border with Afghanistan. The US frequently carries out such attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas. Attacks by unmanned American planes have left dozens of people dead in the volatile region over the past weeks. Nearly 1,200 people were killed in 124 unauthorized US drone attacks in Pakistan in 2010.

The existing social networks on the internet can no longer be reliable platforms for organizing anti-government uprisings, because corporate cartels are beginning to own them, a political analyst says.

“You cannot rely on Facebook and Twitter …. [because] those avenues and weapons have already been corrupted by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan,” David DeGraw from AmpedStatus.com told Press TV.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are among the gigantic corporations, infamous for their corrupt records across the world. Corrupt global cartels are beginning to seize the ownership of such networks on the internet to neutralize their “amazing” effects in organizing the ongoing anti-government uprisings across the world, he said. “Goldman Sachs has just caught a deal with Facebook to be its major shareholder and JP Morgan is moving to be a shareholder of Twitter,” DeGraw mentioned. This is while the popular uprisings against the dictatorial regimes are in fact uprisings against the current global economic system, in which the IMF gives such corrupt corporations a free rein over the regimes and economies in those countries, he added.

An Al Jazeera cameraman has been killed in what appears to have been an ambush near the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya. Ali Hassan Al Jaber was returning to Benghazi from a nearby town after filing a report from an opposition protest when unknown fighters opened fire on a car he and his colleagues were travelling in. Two people including Al Jaber were shot. Al Jaber was rushed to hospital, but did not survive.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from Benghazi, said Al Jaber was hit by three shots and was wounded through the heart. "This is an extension of the campaign against Al Jazeera, and Al Jazeera Arabic particularly - because everyone here watch Al Jazeera Arabic. Their work has been heroic, and it has been a great shock to lose a colleague."

NYT: Al-Jazeera Says Cameraman Killed in Eastern Libya

From the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing of May 5, 2009. Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. [GRTV]

[GOOGLE TRANSLATE] Organization comes to 300 thousand demonstrators in London, police points to 200 000. Still be too early to make statements, but who's on the street says you can not remember so many gathered at Liberty Avenue in many years. Socrates accepted the resignation "or" Mr. President dissolves Parliament "are the ideas that generate the most consensus. Avenida da Liberdade was full of end to end for several hours, as is common in other manifestations. Moreover, there is still several thousand protesters to reach Restorers. The figure put forward by police is equivalent to the number of teachers who demonstrated last year, also on Avenida da Liberdade. Who is on the ground says "Generation of junk" is having a much higher membership. Members of the organization talk about 300 000 people.

A whale found dead off the south coast starved to death, initial findings have revealed. The 45ft long sperm whale was found stranded on a beach in Pegwell Bay, off the Kent coast, yesterday. The juvenile male had not eaten for some time and had become dehydrated, a preliminary post-mortem examination found.