Beware the Nuclear Meltdown Ides of March

• Happy March 15, a day of disaster made famous by the haunting line "beware the Ides of March" -- from one of Shakespeare's most revered works, The Muppet Christmas Carol. (SPOILER: Caesar ignores this prophetic warning and then gets foreclosed on by Fozzie Bear.) Anyway, you've probably already heard about that third, devastating explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Things have basically just gotten worse since then! Although radiation measurements at the facility's main gate have decreased significantly, radiation levels are still 20 times greater than normal in Tokyo, 170 miles south of the plant. France's nuclear watchdog rates the Fukushima crisis a "six on a seven-point scale of gravity." Also, just to add to the hysteria: "A fake text message warning people that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant has leaked beyond Japan has been panicking people across Asia." Good grief. [ NYT ]

• Hillary Clinton met with Libyan opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril. She probably promised him "lots of freedom, America's #1 export" or something dumb like that. [ BBC ]

• "Only 26% of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say they're optimistic about 'our system of government and how well it works,' the fewest recorded since 1974." [ Political Wire ]