Colin,

I agree that the fighter pilot was probably unrecoverable. The tough
part from my position is how to separate those from the recoverable
ones *before* they make their airplane into an aluminium plate on the
side of a rock. Since I have not yet figured out how to tell, I tend
to give it my best to try to get to whatever common sense might still
be operating while there still is time to try. A lot of that effor is
wasted.

In the interest of effort that probably will not be wasted (you seem to
be listening) , I want to point out that the idea that there was
'something psychologically busted in her brain' misses the most
important point. Most likely there was not; the fact is, we all are
susceptible to the same kind of error. That's the point; that she
*wasn't* different from the rest of us, that the only thing that
separates us from 'them' is a will to choose--and it is a choice--not
to succumb to the same temptations.

There was nothing 'wrong' with her. She was just like us. We could do
the same thing tomorrow, except that--if we choose--we can realize that
and learn from her mistakes and decide to take actions to make sure
that when we are being taken down that path by our emotions, that we
then *choose* to do not what we want to do, nor what everyone else is
doing, nor what will make us popular, but rather that which we know is
better from a purely rational point of view. It sounds easy when we
are not in the midst of it, and in fact it is not.

Gene