Okay, so maybe now it's time to PANIC about a NUCLEAR CRISIS. After Thursday night's giant quake, partial meltdowns have occurred at Japan's most heavily damanged nuclear power plant, two more are having the kind of cooling problems that lead to meltdowns, and radiation might be leaking from a fourth.

How bad is it? One expert says: “The situation is pretty bad. But it could get a lot worse.” Nuclear scientists are still trying to determine what kind of nuclear material is being sloughed off into the air, and what kinds of dangers some of that material might pose.

The earthquake has been upgraded again, to a 9.0. (According to Japanese authorities.) Japanese soldiers have been mustered out in the hunt for bodies, joining rescue teams arriving from all over the world. The death toll is now expected to top 10,000. Survivors, hundreds of thousands huddled in shelters, are struggling with blackouts and food shortages.

In less-disturbing tsunami news, hardworking scientists think a giant wave—not UFOs or the CIA or the Freemasons or Aquaman—wiped out the "Lost City of Atlantis." And they even think they know where Atlantis used to sit.

Another trophy from Las Vegas' mobbed-up past is closing. The (condescendingly) Moroccan-themed Sahara is shutting down in May. If it goes kablooey, only the Riviera and the Flamingo will remain as testimony to a less-corporate time.

After Wisconsin's governor signed new anti-union laws, as many as 100,000 obvious wingnuts, pinkos, reds, etc. hit the streets of Madison in protest. That's more kooks and hippies than Wisconsin's capital saw during the height of the Vietnam War. People like that might even live next door to you! Time to ferret them all out!

So he's 91, true. Which makes anything he says kind of quaint. But he's also a voting lawmaker. In New Hampshire, a state representative pondering budget cuts said the world has "too many defective people," explaining as such: "You know the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions—the defective people society would be better off without."

Speaking of cranks (albeit, in this case, a crank with warplanes and phenomenal wealth), Moammar Qaddafi loyalists have booted Libya's rebels out of another refinery town, further starving the opposition of a key military resource: fuel. The U.S. has not seized on a call by Libya's neighbors for an internationally approved no-fly zone.

From the Unwarranted Paranoia Department: A skilled hacker with nothing better to do could mess with an mp3s and turn it into a "Trojan horse" that would then allow said hacker to control your car via remote control.

It's raining in Portland. And it will keep raining in Portland. So, drivers, be kind to bicyclists and pedestrians when you plow through those flooded intersections... 'kay?

And while it might seem like we're headed for the Second Cumming Coming, remember, dudes and dudettes, life's always been rotten!