I haven’t — and won’t — watch or listen to a single second of "Hurricane Dean coverage," principally because over the preceding months I’ve cut my "news" intake to nearly nil and am still working on getting it lower. I’m interested in the signal, so I’ve got to ignore the noise. More on that, below.

I’m still somewhat addicted to some of the news commentary on a handful of blogs, but I’m pretty choosy. Most blogs I read have the sort of commentary on news and events that’s simply unavailable from any mainstream source. I didn’t need to hear or see a single news item to know this has got to be the truth.

For days the media have screamed about the "Hellstorm Dean," the
"Killer Hurricane" bearing down on Jamaica, and sure to wreack havoc
and mass death, film at 11 (actually, film continuously).

This morning, they were visibly disappointed that thousands hadn’t
died on Jamaica, but they were still holding out hope that there would
be massive destruction in Belize or Mexico.

Of course, politicians love hurricanes too. In Jamaica they were
busy suspending elections, declaring states of emergency, and warning
against free-market prices

If you don’t get the reference to "warning against free market prices," it’s a sign that you’re not thinking very well, or clearly, so think hard.

I got the idea of curtailing news intake from observing that I make more money in the markets if I listen to no to very little commentary on the markets, bullish or bearish. So I’m trying it in "real life," and the results are — so far — fantastic.

My "theory," if you will, is that we are more motivated towards avoiding pain or loss than we are towards producing gains for ourselves. The media, in general, is geared towards telling us what we want to hear, and what we seem to want to hear is bits of information that fool us into thinking that we are being vigilant in anticipating and avoiding pain and loss, and this distracts us from producing gains and profits and happiness and prosperity.