Quake, coin, quack

Plenty to draw on this week, so let’s go right to our experts: Chip Bok demolished the notion that natural disasters are heaven-sent payback. No comment from Pat Robertson or Osama bin Laden.

Mike Luckovich pondered the epicenter of power preparing for an epidemic of fear preceding a pandemic of bird-to-human flu. Mike ducked the issue.

And John Sherffius scored a medal for uncovering the flip side of the Nobel coin awarded to WMD skeptic Mohamed ElBaradei. Even though cartoonists have repeatedly drawn the prez as Alfred E. Neuman, not Alfred B. Nobel, don’t count him out -- last week’s “tool belt and hammer” photo-op was very Jimmy Carter, and so are the oil prices. Hey, there’s always next year for the peace prize.