Here's one for discussion -

I am going thru newspaper and updating my scrapbook (DAMN bin Laden!  WAYYYYY too much paper to make it easy now...) and every now and then I see some item derying a "rising death rate."

Excuse me?

Save a small percentage of us (I will probably get two, due to my current medical Hx) I thought the death rate was pretty constant - one to a customer.  Everyone is born once, and pretty much everyone dies once.  At least, once than matters...

Some people (again, like me) will bring the death rate to slightly above 100%, but it seems that in the long run, the number of births and deaths is pretty damn close to equal.  

This sounds like specious logic to me - like when the media was wringing its collective hands about the proliferation of "high capacity ammunition" - the closest thing we can come up with to that is the Winchester Ultra Magnum (in .300 and .308) and the Holland .700 Nitro Express...

FFZ

Am I being too obvious to point this out?  I'll take a wild guess that they're referring to a death rate per time from a specific cause, rather than the death rate per person.

What a concept.

While I agree that there is one death per person, just as there is one birth per person I don't think that's what is being pointed out.

I believe that what "death rate" means is the total number of deaths within a certain period (like say a year's time).  Birth rate is similarly accounted for.  If the birth rate outpaces the death rate, then we have a net gain of people...an increasing population.  If the converse is true, then we have a net loss of people...a decreasing population.

I know what you guys are referring to, and what the paper is referring to.  It's just interesting to think that this can sound like "the death rate is rising" referring to people dying more than once, or a revocation of granted immortality, and perhaps "decreasing death rate" referring to the conferrence if immortality upon segments of hte populace...

Like I said, it's wierd.  Somehow, I don't find it quite a stretch given the current paucity of sound logic and reasoning these days...

I was aiming for a laugh.  Guess I missed - I'll look for something better next time (consider your collective self warned!)

FFZ

To me it is simple; the death rate is inadequate!!!  If we had an adequate death rate, world population would not be growing.

Hay the wars just starting.  Look again in a few years.

Benjamin

He's right! Everyone must take responsibility for solving this problem. That's right, every one of us must start killing people as soon as possiple. We all know this would solve all sorts of problems. We can start with criminals, terrorists, and democrats.
[kill]

As for only dying once, where's your ambition, man? Personally, I plan on dying at least 2 or 3 times. [;D]