7.9 Earthquake Hits Alaska -- Fracking In North Dakota; California Senators Want Answers

Yes, there is a report of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Alaska. At least one local resident says he has felt worse earthquakes in the 17 years he has lived in the area.

Yes, there is fracking going on in North Dakota -- in fact, Strata-X has announced it has just begun drilling east of the Bakken, and although a reasonable person would suggest there is no connection between an earthquake in Alaska and drilling in North Dakota, if one believes in the "butterfly wing flapping/chaos theory" I suppose anything is possible. Or it could be global warming. I'm not sure how George W. Bush could be responsible but we will know more in tomorrow's New York Times op-ed. The amount of damage will determine to what extent George W. Bush will be blamed for the earthquake. I assume Sarah Palin can see cracks in terra firma from her back porch.

As far as I know, no California senator wants specific answers on this most recent Alaska earthquake, but I know they (California senators) have asked if there is any connection between drilling in Kern County, California, and the swarm of minor tremors over the past few months being recorded in southern California, averaging two such tremors every two or three day. I do believe that it's pretty settled science that the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was not due to fracking, though the earthquake did cause natural gas pipelines to rupture.

Folks in earthquake-prone Oklahoma are preparing for the tsunami by moving to higher ground, which in Oklahoma can be hard to find. Perhaps the CLR skyscraper, top floor.

Nebraska will use this as another reason to delay the Keystone XL.

Finally, this is why there are no penguins in Alaska; earthquakes scared them away many years ago.