300,000,000

Alex · 10-17-2006, 09:46 AM

You heard wrong. The US Census statistic is a birth every 7 seconds and a death every 13.

What I've hated about the 300,000,000 is that news agencies don't seem to understand (or don't care to convey) the difference between a statistical probably and an actual event.

So on the news last night I had to hear about how the 300,000,000th American would be a white boy born in Los Anges County this morning. Hell, they probably staked out the hospitals so that they could see if a star shined over the annointed one.

They have no idea exactly how many people there are in the country and when or where the 300,000,000th was born. It is a statistical model. When they did the 2000 census they found that their statistical model was off by 7 million people though they've since made changes to improve it, as we get farther away from the decennial census it becomes a fuzzier picture.

As an interesting aside, if I fly to Iraq tomorrow I will still count as one of the 300,000,000. But when a serviceman (such as my brother-in-law) is deployed to Iraq s/he is removed from the rolls until returned to the States. So we would have hit 300,00,000 a couple months earlier if it hadn't been for the massive deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. So think of those wars as Bush's pandering to the anti-population growth people.

10-17-2006, 09:46 AM	#1
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	You heard wrong. The US Census statistic is a birth every 7 seconds and a death every 13. What I've hated about the 300,000,000 is that news agencies don't seem to understand (or don't care to convey) the difference between a statistical probably and an actual event. So on the news last night I had to hear about how the 300,000,000th American would be a white boy born in Los Anges County this morning. Hell, they probably staked out the hospitals so that they could see if a star shined over the annointed one. They have no idea exactly how many people there are in the country and when or where the 300,000,000th was born. It is a statistical model. When they did the 2000 census they found that their statistical model was off by 7 million people though they've since made changes to improve it, as we get farther away from the decennial census it becomes a fuzzier picture. As an interesting aside, if I fly to Iraq tomorrow I will still count as one of the 300,000,000. But when a serviceman (such as my brother-in-law) is deployed to Iraq s/he is removed from the rolls until returned to the States. So we would have hit 300,00,000 a couple months earlier if it hadn't been for the massive deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. So think of those wars as Bush's pandering to the anti-population growth people.
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