Harper’s Index

Annual amount that Americans spend on vodka, expressed as a portion of the value of Russia's publicly traded companies: 1/3¹

Number of Moscow's major newspapers that mentioned last August's Clinton/Yeltsin summit the day before it began: 0²

Number of U.S. households that chose professional wrestling over the President's televised apology that month: 6,379,000³

Ratio of the number of “cigar” references in Kenneth Starr's report to the number of “Whitewater” references: 9:1⁴

Fine that the report's Internet posting might have brought if 1996's Communications Decency Act had become law: $250,000⁵

Percentage of current members of Congress who voted for both the Communications Decency Act and the report's release: 72⁶

Number of pages of the Watergate special prosecutor's report that have been released to the public: 0⁷

Portion of the $19.98 price of a video of President Kennedy's 1963 assassination that goes to the Zapruder family: 1/5⁸

Percentage by which Abraham Zapruder underreported his initial profits from the film to the Warren Commission in 1964: 50⁹

Amount that CBS is paying Rome's Atlante Star hotel to use its rooftop view of St. Peter's when the Pope dies: $180,000¹⁰

Amount for which a North Dakota town has agreed to rename itself after a brand of schnapps for four years: $100,000¹¹

Chance that a character depicted last year in a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon is trademarked: 1 in 2¹²

Cubic feet of gas Macy's devoted last year to Bumpé, a “capricious Laplandic cow” sponsored by a Swedish firm: 14,000¹³

Number of ornamental figures based on German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Germany's Garden Gnome Museum: 14¹⁴

Number of political parties represented by the 5,065 candidates running for the German legislature last September: 34¹⁵

Number of candidates besides Kim Jong Il nominated this year for each of the 687 seats in North Korea's legislature: 0¹⁶

Number of Sudanese factories besides the one the U.S. bombed last August that had U.N. approval to export drugs to Iraq: 0¹⁷

Number of Tomahawk cruise missiles the U.S. could launch for the price of the Whitewater investigation: 40¹⁸

Estimated ratio of satellites in the path of the last Leonid meteor shower in 1966 to those in its path this November 17: 1:10¹⁹

Number of days that an unauthorized visitor spent at a NASA mission control console during a launch last year: 2²⁰

Price a Houston company charges for sending a DNA sample into outer space for possible cloning by aliens: $50²¹

Number of “I Slept with Kenneth Starr” bumper stickers sold by a Little Rock gift shop since last April: 990²²

Total amount that individuals have spent since 1994 on legal fees related to Starr's investigation: $23,000,000²³

Chances that a 1996 campaign contribution of over $200 came from a white man earning at least $100,000 a year: 2 in 3²⁴

Chances that a white male donor, making over $100,000 a year, and who gave over $200 to a 1996 campaign “personally knows” a member of Congress: 3 in 4²⁵

Votes cast in an Oklahoma Democratic Senate primary last August for a candidate who had died a month earlier: 56,393²⁶

Number of heart attacks on Wall Street the day the market dropped 513 points last August: 2²⁷

Number of heart attacks there the next day, when the market rose 288 points: 3²⁸

Average percentage by which an American woman's out-of-pocket medical spending exceeds that of an American man: 68²⁹

Chance that a fee-for-service health-insurance plan's prescription coverage includes oral contraceptives: 1 in 3³⁰

Estimated number of American women arrested for child abuse since 1977 after using drugs or alcohol while pregnant: 200³¹

Years in prison to which a South Carolina woman was sentenced for this in 1992: 8³²

Years in prison to which New Jersey's Amy Grossberg was sentenced last July for killing her newborn: 2.5³³

Average number of Americans under the age of 18 killed by their parents or caretakers each day: 5³⁴

Average number of Americans who turn fifty each day: 10,065³⁵

Percentage of Americans who believe that President Clinton should see a psychotherapist: 44³⁶

Months after publicly calling the President a “scumbag” last April that Rep. Dan Burton admitted his own adultery: 4³⁷

Number of wild turkeys in New Hampshire in 1968: 0³⁸

Number there today: 10,000³⁹

Tons of U.S. chicken feet exported last year to China: 264,000⁴⁰

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