> But rock formation stability is not stocks nor coin flips. 
> The first is often
> controlled by peoples emotions while the second are 
> independantly random
> events. When an area is nowhere near a fault line and the 
> research shows
> that it hasn't changed in 2 million years, there's no 
> obvious reason to
> think that conditions would change anytime soon.

Murphy does not do "obvious reason" well.


> that it would be very difficult for anyone to access, even 
> if they had a
> desire to do so.

Person. Desire.
Mechanisms need not (and probably wont) be directly people 
related. Which is not to conjure random bogey men but to 
note probability.

> Funny, but very true. There are many more risky behaviours 
> that ordinary
> folks engage in on a dialy basis. It's the same type of 
> fear that many
> people have of flying though from a safety standpoint it 
> is unmatched in
> the transportation industry. They happily hop into their 
> cars when cars
> cause 90+% of the travel fatalities per year.

I am uncomfortable at a gut level with the 'flying is the 
safest trip you can take' arguments.

At a minimum I think that trip distance is a poor metric.
I'm not even too happy with trip time.
I'd begin to think we were all eating apples if you talked 
about fatalities per journey. That should compare favourably 
enough with car travel, I'd hope. No?

I'm a resigned & realistic but happy enough flyer. I place 
my life in the hands of people who are well paid and well 
trained and who should be competent, but whose peers have 
time after time after time demonstrated the ability to kill 
people in the most stupid and thoughtless ways imaginable.

I stood in the connecting link to my last internal flight in 
China on a cold morning after snow had been cleared from the 
taxiways and carefully examined the wing that i could see 
for ice. If I'd seen any I'd not have flown. Trouble due to 
this is rare, but it happens.


        Russell




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