West Coast Earthquake? Free Markets? Snow?

What a week this has been. Naturally, the news has been dominated by the disaster in Japan but things in the middle east have been hotting up whilst attention has been elsewhere. The UN finally got off it's duff and voted for a no-fly zone in Libya and Gadhafi folded like the blood sucking coward he is. Some wonder if his quick capitulation might be some kind of dastardly strategy. Time will tell. (Update) Well, seems the cease fire has already collapsed.

The news has been all about the radiation threat from the reactors that were damaged in the quake and subsequent tsunami. The news has gotten people all worked up on the West Coast to the extent that they have purchased all the potassium iodine they can get their hands on. That IMO, is pure hysteria. People will probably be popping the stuff even though they don't need it and making themselves sick from it. The FDA is reporting fake pills are being sold.

Apparently, folks on the West Coast should be more concerned about a major earthquake of their own according to one geologist West Coast Earthquake

I've been invested in and interested in the markets for 50 years. When I was 11 years old I inherited 100 shares of AT&T and those 100 shares became the foundation of all what have accumulated. But, as I watch the antics of the markets today I can only think these are not the markets I was raised on. I am totally convinced that "investing" in the market is an oxymoron, there's no such thing today. They are run by computers and controlled by invisible hands that inject liquidity when it looks like the market might suffer a severe downturn. This past week there was so much bad news one might have thought that there would have been some sort of serious sell off, there really wasn't. Some individual stocks got hammered but all in all it was a pretty ho hum week. It's just nuts.

I ventured down to the Flathead on Friday. Boy, was it ever gorgeous. I've not seen so much snow on the mountains in the nine years I've been here. Big Mountain must be beyond happy as at the rate things are melting they may be skiing right into Easter week. From Kalispell you can look right into Glacier and it's just stunning. I look at all this beauty and wonder if it, and us, are on the brink of extinction. This planet has been uninhabitable for the majority of it's 4.5 billion years. Is it moving toward a return to the norm?

I kinda feel like the people in the 1959 film "On the Beach".

Then to add insult to injury, it snowed all day today.