Harper’s Index

Number of full flight tests of the U.S. National Missile Defense system conducted in the program's first seven years: 2¹

Number that were deemed a success: 1²

Amount by which a congressional estimate of the system's cost exceeds the Pentagon's: $19,000,000,000³

Percentage change since the end of the Cold War in the number of U.S. Army troops: -39⁴

Percentage change since then in the number of U.S. troop deployments: +400⁵

Chance that a U.N. peacekeeping mission to Africa has included American troops: 1 in 9⁶

Chance that a peacekeeping mission undertaken since 1989 was in Africa: 1 in 2⁷

Amount the U.S. proposed charging the U.N. last May to fly a battalion of peacekeepers into Sierra Leone: $17,000,000⁸

Estimated amount it would cost to fly in a battalion via commercial airline: $6,000,000⁹

Number of donkeys used by the U.N. last year to deliver humanitarian aid to displaced families in Afghanistan: 1,500¹⁰

Percentage of wells there that are dry: 60¹¹

Number of months after severe floods hit India last October that the country suffered severe drought: 6¹²

Percentage change in Ethiopia's population since its last famine in 1984: +42¹³

Amount Ethiopia has spent on war with Eritrea since 1998: $300,000,000¹⁴

Change since 1987 in the percentage of sub-Saharan Africans living on less than $1 a day: 0¹⁵

Number of Susan B. Anthony dollars the U.S. minted last year to meet new vending-machine demand: 37,000,000¹⁶

Portion of the funding for a national monument to black Revolutionary War soldiers that has been raised since 1985: 1/5¹⁷

Percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. government is no longer “of, by, and for the people”: 54¹⁸

Percentage of households on U.S. Indian reservations that have phone service: 47¹⁹

Number of U.S. counties in which a full-time minimum-wage earner can afford a one-bedroom apartment: 0²⁰

Number of pawnbrokers for every bank in Laredo, Texas: 1.2²¹

Chance that an American is governed by a Bush: 1 in 8²²

Chance that a Florida maximum-security state prison guard has been arrested: 1 in 6²³

Chance that a U.S. major league baseball player is foreign-born: 1 in 5²⁴

Percentage change since 1995 in the average price of a major league baseball ticket: +41²⁵

Percentage change since last August in the price of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange: -36²⁶

Rank of Manhattan among New York State counties using the largest amount of pesticide in 1997: 1²⁷

Average annual number of civilians killed by New York City police under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: 23²⁸

Average annual number killed under his predecessor, David Dinkins: 29²⁹

Chances that a drug offense by a black U.S. juvenile with no prior jail time will result in imprisonment: 48 in 100,000³⁰

Chance that a drug offense by a white juvenile with no prior jail time will do so: 1 in 100,000³¹

Amount the U.S. government spent on drug testing per employee who tested positive between 1997 and 1998: $35,222³²

Percentage of Icelanders who have declined including their DNA in a private company's national genetic database: 7³³

Percentage by which the estimated number of genes on the human genome has increased since 1995: 100³⁴

Minimum number of new bacteria species discovered to exist in the human mouth last year: 37³⁵

Percentage change in the number of U.S. beach closures or pollution advisories between 1997 and 1998: +74³⁶

Pounds of fossilized wood stolen from Arizona's Petrified Forest each day: 66³⁷

Number of hidden video cameras discovered in the men's showers at a Yosemite campground last July: 2³⁸

Fine for “nudity” that Mississippi has proposed levying on fully clothed men “in a discernibly turgid state”: $2,000³⁹

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