Yeah....But How Afraid??

After watching King George II the other night, I got to thinking.  How afraid should I really be of terrorism?  I sorta expected that the odds were pretty slim.  But with all these folks around me being very afraid....so afraid they'd sell their constitutional soul to keep Bush in office.....I wondered if there must be something to it.

Well, here's what I found:

From here

 

Using the odds of dying in a terrorist related attack during your lifetime as noted below from the CDC, let's compare them to the odds of dying from a long list of real, everyday dangers.

    1 in 88,000 of a terrorist attack
    1 in 1,500,000 of a terrorist-caused shopping mall disaster assuming one such incident a week and you shop two hours a week
    1 in 55,000,000 in a terrorist-caused plane disaster assuming one such incident a month and you fly once a month ( 1 )

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    1 in 55,928 of death by lightening    
    1 in 20,605 in your clothes igniting
    1 in 10,455 of dying in your bathtub
    1 in 10,010 by falling from a ladder or scaffolding
    1 in 9,396 due to excessive heat
    1 in 8,389 due to excessive cold
    1 in 7,972 in a drowning accident
    1 in 6,842 in a railway accident.

Using odds of dying in a way that Americans can relate to, let's compare the above numbers to the odds of dying during your lifetime to homicide from various forms of weapons.

    1 in 197 of dying in a homicide
    1 in 299 of dying in an assault from a firearm
    1 in 5,330 of dying in an assault by hanging or strangulation
    1 in 207,261 in operations of war.

There's more statistics here

So, effective immediately.  I want a constitutional amendment banning lightening. Or at least Tom "I have no mouth" Ridge to assign officers to begin emergency training exercises on anyone having anything to do with ladders and scaffolding.