Yes, I know, it starts with one of Buddy’s GI Jazz breaks but you get into the story about 1:02. He was signing the checks, after all.

Part 2 of the recording is here.

While we have a few days left to visit the NYT site for free, let’s enjoy this interactive graphic showing that by the time the Paywall goes up, the West Coast might already go down.

Forecast for Plume’s Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather [NYT]

Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume [NYT]

NYT:

The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a significantly bleaker appraisal of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government, saying on Wednesday that the damage at one crippled reactor was much more serious than Japanese officials had acknowledged and advising Americans to evacuate a wider area around the plant than the perimeter established by Japan.

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“The [budget cuts to] tsunami warning centers, it’s really — the timing of that really puts attention on the subject matter. I don’t know that I would go back and look at that… I think we often over-react to emergencies, especially natural disasters, before we assess the limit of the damage, and particularly with the nuclear part of this.” [ThinkProgress]

Updated post:

“There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown,” said Toshihiro Bannai, director of [Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency] international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency’s headquarters in Tokyo. “At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility.”

A meltdown doesn’t necessarily mean a major radioactive release, although cesium has been detected in the air. Depends on how well the containment vessel holds up.

Official: ‘We see the possibility of a meltdown’ [CNN]

Nuclear plant blast ‘appears to have caused meltdown’ [Sydney Morning Herald]

In Japan plant, frantic efforts to avoid meltdown [AP]