WHEN not IF

People who want to emphasize the danger posed by terrorists often point out that the next terrorist attack is a matter of when, not if. That's absolutely true, but it shouldn't add to our perception of danger. Here's a list of other things that are a matter of when, not if:

- A pandemic Flu
- A super Volcano (like the one that nearly extinguished our species over 200,000 years ago, and one that is sitting under Yellowstone)
- An asteroid hitting earth
- the next world war
- the cubs winning the world series
- the death of you, your family, your friends, and every other person on the planet.

The critical piece of information for all these events is how often or how probable they are. Sure, many terrorist attacks will happen this year, but what about one like 9-11? Not likely - that kind of terrorist grand slam is a once in a blue moon thing. Cheney likes to give the administration credit for not having any attacks since 9-11, but there hadn't been an attack by a foreign terrorist (so we don't count Oklahoma City) since 1993, when they attacked THE SAME DAMN BUILDING. It's not likely we would have been attacked again if we hadn't changed a thing, and of course we were going to beef up security - the question is whether we needed warrentless wiretapping and indefinite detentions.

Given that the amount of people killed by an asteroid or a pandemic flu would outnumber those killed in 9-11 by orders of magnitude, shouldn't we be devoting at least of fraction of the resources we devote to preventing terrorism to allieviating those threats?