Gary, the way you tell that old joke gives it a completely new twist which made me smile.

In the trad. version the odds for being in a plane with two bombs is one instead of ten million which means that the two incidents (one bomb carried, another bomb carried) are completely independent. The laugh in the trad. version is on the stupid statistician who wrongly thinks that he can influence something by carrying out an act that is completely independent of that something.

In the new (ten million) version the two incidents (one bomb carried, another bomb carried) are interdependent in a very curious way, namely that the probability of a second bomb being on board under the condition that a first one is on board is much smaller than can be expected by chance alone. Kind of bombs repelling each other. With this scenario, carrying a bomb that is under my control actually lowers the rsik that another bomb is on board and therefore is a completely rational action. In this version, the laugh is on those who wrongly consider the statistician's action irrational.

This is the version I would expect to read in a 'Statistics Monthly' for it creatively changes the target of the joke from statisticians to non-statisticians by just changing three letters. That's their crooked way of thinking.

Wolfgang