Right now with a pencil and paper can you tell me approximately how many people die every year in the USA?  

You should be able to do a good job of approximating this number without looking anything up.  This is an exercise in common sense math applied to a problem where the answer can be verified easily.   It is to demonstrate how math can and should be used to do reality checks on things you hear on the news and read wherever.

Here is how to do the approximation

1) assume to first order that the population is not growing.  Therefore:   #Births ~= #Deaths

2) Life expectancy is about 70 years.  Therefore divide up the population into 70 bins.  The probability you are in any one of the 70 bins is a uniform 1/70 to first approximation.

Therefore people are born march up in age to age 70 and die.  Remember 70 is an average so it accounts for the untimely demise of some individuals.

Thus the number of deaths per year in the USA ~= 300 million / 70 =  4.28 million people per year die

Checking CIA FactBook

Birth rate:
14.14 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
8.26 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Thus the measured death rate = 

14.14 * 300,000,000/1000=4,240,000

Pretty close!

Now you know why I’m so damned sure of myself on certain issues.  Using logic and math one can often blow gaping holes in political arguments. Once I do this often in my mind the politician is also discredited to a degree or another.  Global warming has lent itself to this type of argument.  It has been discredited totally in my calculations.

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