Harper’s Index

Rank of Texas among states in which the largest percentage of citizens lack health insurance : 1¹

Rank of Vermont : 42²

Years of insurance that the money lost annually to health-care fraud and overbilling could buy every uninsured U.S. child : 3³

Percentage of Americans living below the poverty level who voted in the 2000 presidential election : 38⁴

Percentage of Americans living at twice the poverty level who voted : 68⁵

Fine paid by two of John Ashcroft's PACs for breaking campaign-finance laws during the 2000 election cycle : $37,000⁶

Year in which then-congressman Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech criticizing war profiteering by Brown & Root : 1966⁷

Ratio of the number of privately contracted military workers in Iraq to the number of British troops there : 5:4⁸

Chances that an American said three weeks after the Iraq invasion began that the U.S. casualty count was acceptable : 2 in 3⁹

Chance that an American felt that way by November : 1 in 3¹⁰

Number of U.S. soldiers whose retirement or leave has been postponed by the Army to maintain troop strength : 3,500¹¹

Number of the 4 million Bosnians made refugees since 1991 who are still waiting to go home : 400,000¹²

Percentage change since 2000 in immigration to Israel : -65¹³

Percentage change since then in the number of Israelis living abroad : +9¹⁴

Number of times Osama bin Laden used the term "Al Qaeda" publicly before September 11, 2001 : 0¹⁵

Minimum number of nuclear weapons in the oceans as a result of U.S. and Soviet accidents : 50¹⁶

Estimated cost to replace Lawrence Livermore weapons laboratory's locks after master keys were lost last year : $1,700,000¹⁷

Days after George W. Bush announced plans for a Moon base that the Hubble telescope's maintenance was discontinued : 2¹⁸

Estimated percentage of television static that derives from the Big Bang : 1¹⁹

Average percentage change in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth per decade between 1960 and 1990 : -3²⁰

Years required for the creation in 2002 of the first virus made from scratch with commercially available ingredients : 3²¹

Weeks required to create the second such virus last fall : 2²²

Chance that a resident of China has never heard of AIDS : 1 in 5²³

Estimated number of doctors in China with experience in treating HIV/AIDS : 100²⁴

Cost of testing each slaughtered U.S. cow for mad cow disease per pound of beef produced : 5c²⁵

Ratio of the number of cows France tests each week to the number the United States has tested in the last decade : 7:6²⁶

Estimated percentage of British food-poisoning infections caused by bottled water : 12²⁷

Days after Italian magistrates began investigating food conglomerate Parmalat last December that its former CEO was jailed : 8²⁸

Months after the Justice Department began investigating Enron in 2001 that an Enron executive was jailed : 21²⁹

Days after a columnist outed an undercover CIA officer last year that the Justice Department began investigating it : 74³⁰

Days after Paul O'Neill criticized the President on TV in January that the former treasury secretary came under investigation : 1³¹

Number of the 420 demonstrators arrested at Philadelphia's 2000 Republican National Convention who were convicted : 23³²

Number whose cases are still pending : 9³³

Percentage of U.S. defendants who require a public defender : 80³⁴

Maximum prison sentence in months for causing the death of a U.S. worker by willfully violating federal safety regulations : 6³⁵

Maximum prison sentence in months for harassing a wild burro on federal lands : 12³⁶

Number of monkeys fed a nine-course meal at last year's Chinese Banquet for Monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand : 3,000³⁷

Average number of handstands an adult male panda does daily : 8³⁸

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