Japan's earthquake biggest replica: the economic one

First of all, my thoughts are with the Japanese people in these difficult moments. I am sure being such a hard-working, disciplined and respectful country they will have no (unmanageable) problems getting over it very soon. 

Earthquakes as big as the one that hit Japan last night are always followed by numerous replicas of different strength. These replicas can last for several days until the tectonic plates 'settle down' again. Well, we have begun to see what can be the biggest and more widespread replicas of said earthquake: the economic one. Few hours have passed since the disaster and we can already see the effects on the markets: oil prices, gold and stocks go steeply down and the german bond and the US dollar go up. Pure textbook reaction.

Social Media, the ultimate WMD.

When George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq one of the main reasons (of the public and politically correct ones) was not only to free the Iraqis from the oppression of Saddam Hussein, but to stop the menace Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD for short) posed to the stability of the Gulf region. After months long of thorough search for said WMDs none was found. Maybe they were looking for the wrong WMD...

If you look at all the civil unrest happening across Arab countries in the last weeks you can clearly see that the ultimate WMD is neither a nerve gas nor a new virus, but Twitter, Facebook and social media in general.