In a statement released yesterday, a Washington-based think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, said that the situation at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan ”has worsened considerably,”

The Institute was referring to a series of explosions that happened earlier in the day at the site and problems in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods. They went on to say that:

This accident can no longer be viewed as a level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events scale that ranks events from 1 to 7.

While saying that a level 4 incident involves ”only local radiological consequences,” it also announced that the ongoing crisis is ”now closer to a level 6, and it may unfortunately reach a level 7”. As you’ve probably guessed, a level 7 is a worst case scenario with extensive health and environmental consequences.  The Institute went on to advise that:

The international community should increase assistance to Japan to both contain the emergency at the reactors and to address the wider contamination. We need to find a solution together.

In a related story, Reuters News Agency has reported that:

Japan may seek direct U.S. military help to end a crisis at a quake-damaged nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, the chief government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, on the Left Coast of the United States, Californians have stripped pharmacy shelves of Iodine tablets, reacting to the possibility that a nuclear cloud could float from the shores of Japan to their state.

State and county officials had their hands full Tuesday trying to keep the citizenry calm by telling them that getting the pills wasn’t necessary, but the, Obama’s United States Surgeon General stuck her nose in, saying that thee idea was a worthy “precaution.”

Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency disagreed. She countered , by saying that state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and that people don’t need to buy the pills.

So, what is the leader of the Free World going to do about this, you ask?

He and his family are heading to Rio.

Obama will arrive in Brazil on Saturday, where he will mix a little bit of business with a lot of vay-cay.

He’ll be in Brasília first, where he will focus on business of the visit. Globo has reported that Dilma and Obama will sign a bilateral agreement that will allow Brazilians paying Social Security in the US to count their Social Security earnings towards their retirement/Social Security benefits in Brazil, and vice versa for Americans working in Brazil. Obama will have a series of meetings with business leaders, which will also hopefully help ease trade tensions from recent years. They will also probably discuss Brazil’s attempt to land a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

In Rio, the First Family will visit the Christ Statue, and then will visit a UPP (a branch of the Military Police) in the Cidade de Deus favela, which was chosen for security reasons, since it is relatively flat with wider streets than other favelas that were proposed.

And, of course, what would a Foreign Trip by Scooter be without an opportunity to demonstrate how well he can read a teleprompter?

Obama is scheduled to a speech open to the public in Cinelândia, a historic site in Rio’s downtown. Of course, the speech will be aimed at “all Brazilians” and will have been translated into Portuguese.

Scooter will bring along his usual huge entourage and will, by necessity, have an incredible amount of security during the whole trip, particularly during the speech, and will have protection from not only the Secret Service, but the Brazilian Federal, Civil, and Military Police, the Brazilian armed forces, and BOPE (Elite Forces).

Besides his trip this weekend, Scooter tackled the important task of filling out his NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets yesterday.

And, before that, last week, he and Moochelle hosted a White House Conference on Bullying, attended by an enormous crowd of 100 people.

Then, he had to play his 61st game of golf as POTUS last Saturday, and go entertain all the sycophants at the annual Gridiron Club Banquet that night.

So, you see, he’s just waaay too busy to get personally involved in a little thing like the Japanese Disaster.

After all, a man’s got to have his priorities.