That it is. I blame Joe.
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Now that's interesting. Apparently, the quake was so great that it made the earth spin faster, and some parts of Japan's coastline have shifted up to 4 meters to the east.
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Earth quakes do that. Jumping does that. It makes little difference, the axis gets shifted around in all directions by these things, they pretty much cancel out. As for rotation, loads of things affect that. and overall the Earth's rotation is slowing anyway. Post glacial rebound affects that (the rising of several land masses after being squashed down by the weight of ice, the effect being like spinning in a chair and extending your legs). Tidal acceleration as a result of the moon's gravity slows the Earth's rotation by about 20 millions of a second every year, so the Earthquake's effect will have been cancelled out in a month. 1.8 microseconds isn't all that much an increase, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake sped up rotation by 3 microseconds.