Harper’s Index

Estimated number of news stories published worldwide this year on India's imminent nuclear-test plans: 500

Number of CIA analysts who predicted the country's nuclear test last May: 0

Percentage by which India expects to increase the budget of its Department of Atomic Energy in the next year: 59

Percentage change since 1993 in the annual number of American tourists visiting India: +55

Number of years the U.S. trained Pakistani nuclear-research scientists as part of the “Atoms for Peace” program: 19

Ratio of average worldwide military spending per conflict during the 1980s to spending per conflict in the 1990s: 7:5

Estimated number of firebomb-wielding live bats that the U.S. considered dropping on Japan in early 1944: 1,000,000

Truckloads of nuclear waste the Department of Energy plans to begin driving to New Mexico for storage this year: 37,000

Number of highway accidents the DOE estimates these shipments will be involved in through the year 2033: 50

Chance that an American fell asleep at the wheel last year: 1 in 4

Chance that a Detroit household has no access to a car: 1 in 3

Rank of Detroit, among the 20 largest U.S. cities, in municipal spending on public transportation: 20

Minimum number of times per year that a car's engine should be steam-cleaned, according to Martha Stewart: 1

Total number of marriages experienced by the co-authors of Staying Married and Loving It : 5

Number of months one co-author spent married to the original Bozo the Clown: 18

Percentage of Americans who would rather vacation with O. J. Simpson than with Jack Kevorkian: 16

Minimum price of an autopsy from 1-800-AUTOPSY: $2,000

Estimated number of undocumented migrants who have died since 1993 while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border: 1,185

Factor by which Cuba's percentage GDP growth last year exceeded that of Russia: 12

Estimated portion of the value of the currency circulating in Russia that is in U.S. dollars: 1/2

Number of bids received by the Russian government last May when it put its remaining national oil company up for sale: 0

Percentage by which the asking price was reduced a month later: 24

Amount British Nuclear Fuels paid the British Scouts last year to add its logo to their scientist badge: $49,776

Fuel mileage of the QEII , in feet per gallon: 29

Chances that a Briton believes that Britain did more good than harm to its colonies: 3 in 5

Number of days after July 4, 1776, that the majority of signatures were appended to the Declaration of Independence: 29

Year in which the Tennessee legislature approved the Fifteenth Amendment, granting blacks the right to vote: 1997

Chance that a work of art on display in the Capitol includes a depiction of an African American: 1 in 70

Ratio of the number of raises Congress has granted itself since 1938 to those it has granted minimum-wage workers: 21:19

Ratio of highway spending Congress passed last May to the cost of gold-plating one lane of the U.S. interstate system: 2:1

Attendance last June at Oklahoma Congressman Tom Coburn's annual safe-sex slide show: 170

Acres of blue netting with which the Washington Monument will be draped for renovation this summer: 1.3

Acres of U.S. farmland lost to “development” between 1982 and 1992, per hour: 50

Number of credit-card solicitations mailed to Americans last year: 3,000,000,000

Number of $530 monogrammed Louis Vuitton World Cup soccer balls sold in the U.S. since last April: 87

Percentage of Americans who have watched Seinfeld who say they will miss it “not very much” or “not at all”: 51

Amount by which the decibel level of the scream of the new Godzilla exceeds that of a jackhammer: 18

Factor by which the 1915 birth weight of Frank Sinatra exceeds the average weight of a baby born in New Jersey today: 2

Ratio of the number of Sinatra's gold records to those of Kiss: 1:1

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