This seems like good news:

This decline in death rates was so big it offset the increase in population, so the number of total deaths actually dropped by about 50,000 to 2,398,343 in 2004 from 2,448,288 recorded for 2003. Declines are rare -- the last one was in 1997 -- and this one was huge -- the biggest decline in 6 decades.

It's the undead that I'm worried about. A zombie uprising could ruin your whole day.

The death rate remains unaltered at one apiece, it seems to me.

As Henry Gibson reminded us back in 1977, "Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be our nation's number one killer."

eventually the ultimate conclusion of life will catch up. That conclusion is of course "death"

This year, the death rate is down 50K, so it just means that next year it will be easier to politicize it by saying "Record level of increase in deaths" or "record increase in number of deaths" or "Bush loves zygotes! hates humans!" "BUSH SLAUGHTERS VETERANS" (since such a large percentage of the old peole dying were vets of one sort or another) "Medicare Plan a Failure due to increased rate of death"

Etc etc etc.

This is just a statistical anomoly, exxacerbated by the fact that we have the BEST FLOGGING HEALTH CARE ON THE FLOGGING PLANET! no matter the scare tactics of the powerhungry.

Murray Feshbach was one fo the few people to actually predict, accurately, the decline and fall of the USSR. He did so by looking at the Soviet health statistics, and uncovering the startling fact that Soviet life-spans were declining.

So, for those convinced that Bush, between increasing arsenic in waters, ending the EPA, allowing industry to pollute freely, etc., what does it say when the death rate declines? Still the end of Amerikkka, as we know it?

That's an old joke, Jane. I was telling it probably before you were born.

It's like my comment on how infrequently airplanes crash: usually, not more than once.

I'm still confused by this little bit of seemingly contradictory logic: "This decline in death rates was so big it offset the increase in population"

How exactly does a lower number of deaths *offset* an increase in people? I can see a decrease in the number of deaths offsetting a decrease in population (i.e., 2.4M people died, compared to 2.45, but the birth/emigration dropped from 3.05M to 3.0M), but the use of the word "offset" in this sentence causes me mental distress.

Anyone have any ideas? Was the word "offset" misused, or am I missing some fundamental concept of population mechanics?

"Strange Ages" indeed.

Gah! "Strange eons", not "ages"...*sigh*, I really need a memory upgrade.

population is a snapshot of current situation. Death rate DOES apply to population in that it is compared to BIRTH rate and immigration.

THIS YEAR, if Birth rate Plus Immigration, is then compared to the death rate, then you have X percentage value.

Last year, if The Birth rate Plus Immigration compared to death rate, is less than X percentage, then it affects the population rate.

thats the explanation john.

and I think that the joke about life and death dates back AT LEAST to Dickens, and likely before. I think I once read a joke Arthure C Clarke (prolly wrong attribution) made when asked to critique himself, he said "everything ever to be done has been done, I just did it better" I don't know if it was Clarke to tell the truth, but it's a good summary of the nature of man. We don't necessary do anything new, we just do it better now.

DOH! sorry john misread. Thats the problem with pan and scan reading. ARGH, sorry.

John - The offset thing refers to the fact that, in a population that is increasing year-to-year, a constant death rate would produce more deaths in the current year than in the one preceding it. The point about the death rate for 2004 was that it dropped enough, compared to that for 2003, that it not only eliminated the "extra" deaths one would have expected to see in 2004 owing to the total population being larger by one year's worth of growth, it left another 50,000 people still standing besides.

Thanks for the clarification, Dick. It makes a bit more sense now; I just wish the original writer would have used a better word than "offset" or made the concept a little clearer for the layperson like me.

This seems like a bit of a misleading statistic, considering no matter what...we all die, whether or not some people die in one year or another doesn't seem to say much to me.

Paging Jack Kevorkian! Death shortage on horizon!

Nobody mention the airplane that crashed into the cemetary? 20,000 bodies recovered!