Harper’s Index

Pages of Reagan White House archives to be kept from the public indefinitely by order of President Bush last October: 68,000¹

Number of attendees at a Washington, D.C., conference that month entitled "What if Congress Were Obliterated?": 60²

Amount the Pentagon has paid a Washington P.R. firm since then to help sway public opinion abroad: $7,100,000³

Minimum amount the Saudi government spent last fall on multi-page U.S. print ads touting King Fahd: $3,200,000⁴

Percentage of oil imported by the U.S. last year that came from Persian Gulf countries: 23⁵

Percentage that came from Canada and Mexico: 27⁶

Estimated percentage change in the fuel efficiency of an S.U.V. if it flies a small American flag from its antenna: -0.5⁷

Ratio of U.S. public high schools named after Abraham Lincoln to those named after Jefferson Davis: 11:1⁸

Estimated number of acres of Civil War battlefield that were lost to development last year: 50,000⁹

Estimated number of U.S. cluster bomblets dropped on Afghanistan last fall that remain unexploded: 5,000¹⁰

Ratio of bodies dug from Kosovo's mass graves since 1999 to people killed in the September 11 attacks: 1:1¹¹

Percentage of Americans who believe that U.S. Muslims have an "obligation to help authorities track down terrorists": 60¹²

Last year in which there was a decrease in racial-profiling claims made against U.S. airport security: 1998¹³

Ratio of the number of such claims made last year before September 11 to those made in all of 2000: 2:1¹⁴

Chance that a U.S. resident has a valid U.S. passport: 1 in 5¹⁵

Chances that a resident of Florence, Arizona, is living in prison: 3 in 4¹⁶

Number by which a new study claims that media estimates of the U.S. Muslim population are inflated: 3,200,000¹⁷

Estimated number of weeks after September 11 that the American Jewish Committee sponsored the study: 1¹⁸

Percentage of Newsweek's September health issue that was sponsored by a pharmaceutical lobbying group: 100¹⁹

Rank of the Coca-Cola Company among Africa's largest private-sector employers: 1²⁰

Year in which Bayer trademarked "Heroin": 1898²¹

Year in which "idiot," "fool," and "nitwit" were removed from Microsoft Word's thesaurus: 2000²²

Date of an Economist correction apologizing for ever implying that President Bush was elected: 11/17/01²³

Minimum number of physical assaults made on Russian journalists in 2000: 60²⁴

Minimum number of criminal defamation lawsuits pending against journalists and cartoonists by Panamanian officials: 81²⁵

Change since 1990 in the number of hotel rooms in Cuba: +22,400²⁶

Percentage of hotel rooms in Cuba in hotels awarded a four- or five-star rating by the Cuban Ministry of Tourism: 65²⁷

Total annualized percentage return on New York City's stock markets on perfectly sunny days between 1982 and 1997: +25²⁸

Total annualized percentage return on perfectly cloudy days during that period: +9²⁹

Percentage change in a state's consumption of alcohol for every one percent its unemployment rises: -3³⁰

Amount a nonprofit U.S. conservative group pays drug-addicted women to undergo sterilization: $200³¹

Number of women who have accepted such payments since 1997: 567³²

Estimated number of FDA-approved prescription medications on the U.S. market: 10,000³³

Percentage of all U.S. prescription-drug mass-media advertising in 2000 that was accounted for by 50 drugs: 95³⁴

Percentage increase since 1999 in the number of prescriptions for these 50 drugs and all other drugs, respectively: 25, 4³⁵

Estimated number of appendectomies performed each year on Americans without appendicitis: 40,000³⁶

Minimum percentage of votes in each New York City election since 1988 not counted due to mechanical or human error: 3³⁷

Percentage of votes by which Michael Bloomberg won the city's mayoralty last fall: 2.3³⁸

Number of May Day demonstrators the city prosecuted last June for "masquerading in public": 12³⁹

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