Hurricane Statistics

I keep hearing too many enviro-terrorists and ignorant whackos out there screaming about the increase in the frequency and strength of hurricanes the last few years. Does it seem to you like there have been a disportionate number of hurricanes hitting the United States these last couple years? The National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center has the following information online:

Number of hurricanes by Saffir-Simpson Category to strike the mainland U.S. each decade.
Decade      Saffir-Simpson Category     All      Major
            1    2    3    4    5    1,2,3,4,5   3,4,5
            
1851-1860   8    5    5    1    0       19         6
1861-1870   8    6    1    0    0       15         1
1871-1880   7    6    7    0    0       20         7
1881-1890   8    9    4    1    0       22         5
1891-1900   8    5    5    3    0       21         8
1901-1910   10   4    4    0    0       18         4
1911-1920   10   4    4    3    0       21         7
1921-1930   5    3    3    2    0       13         5
1931-1940   4    7    6    1    1       19         8
1941-1950   8    6    9    1    0       24         10
1951-1960   8    1    5    3    0       17         8
1961-1970   3    5    4    1    1       14         6
1971-1980   6    2    4    0    0       12         4
1981-1990   9    1    4    1    0       15         5
1991-2000   3    6    4    0    1       14         5
2001-2004   4    2    2    1    0        9         3
 
1851-2004  109  72   71   18   3        273        92
Ave/Decade 7.1  4.7  4.6  1.2  0.2     17.7       6.0

Now I'm no expert statistician but I occasionally do a little data analysis at work. To my point of view the last 35 years seem to be a bit of a lull in the hurricane activity. If we look at the statistics for all hurricanes, the only decade of the last 155 years that had less hurricanes slamming into mainland America than the last 25 years was the decade of the 1920s. The only decade that had less major (catagory 3, 4 or 5) hurricanes than the last 25 years was the 1860s.

So maybe instead of complaining about global warming, and CO2 layers and the preceived excess of hurricane landings all the fact-ignoring wackos out there should just be happy that we aren't getting hurricane landings like the 1940s.