Harper’s Index

Chances that a U.S. senator has received campaign contributions from Enron since 1997: 3 in 5¹

Percentage of the 145 lawyers in the offices of Houston's U.S. Attorney who were recused from the Enron case in January: 100²

Months after George H. W. Bush lost the 1992 election that James Baker began lobbying Kuwait on Enron's behalf: 5³

Days before Enron declared bankruptcy that Baker's public-policy institute awarded Alan Greenspan its "Enron Prize": 19⁴

Number of U.S. professional-sports stadiums whose corporate namesakes have filed for bankruptcy since December 1999: 5⁵

Number of boxers who have died in the United States since 1970 from injuries sustained in the ring: 53⁶

Maximum amount one Northern Alliance soldier charged families of dead Taliban soldiers for the return of their corpses: $1,500⁷

Estimated number of Afghan civilians killed by U.S. bombing last year: 3,950⁸

Last year in which a country other than Afghanistan was the world's top source of refugees: 1980⁹

Chance that a homeless-shelter resident in a major U.S. city holds a full- or part-time job: 1 in 5¹⁰

Percentage change since January 2001 in the share price of the largest private prison-management company: +440¹¹

Weeks after Italy passed a new evidence-restriction law that the prime minister tried to use it in his own defense: 2¹²

Minimum number of copies of a new Bulgarian translation of Mein Kampf sold last year: 3,000¹³

Amount the United States spent in 1949 on international aid and diplomacy: $66,400,000,000¹⁴

Amount the United States plans to spend on this in 2002: $23,800,000,000¹⁵

Year in which a Pentagon report warned that banning chlorine sales to Iraq would cause epidemics of waterborne diseases: 1991¹⁶

Minimum number of Iraqis who have died of such diseases since the ban was enacted in 1990: 100,000¹⁷

Chance that a U.S. case of HIV is resistant to at least one of the 16 anti-AIDS drugs in use: 1 in 2¹⁸

Number of Las Vegas strip clubs purchased on September 10 by a Stanford medical-school professor: 3¹⁹

Chances that a movie released in the U.S. last year was pornographic: 9 in 10²⁰

Years by which the average life span of an Oscar-winning screenwriter is shorter than that of one merely nominated: 3.6²¹

Number of copyright-violation notices sent to U.S. universities last year by a firm tracking students' music downloads: 7,873²²

Percentage change since 1980 in the number of births of twins in the U.S. each year: +67²³

Percentage change since then in the number of births of triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, and sextuplets: +448²⁴

Grams of nuclear waste per capita in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, respectively: 7, 15, 50²⁵

Last date the "community right to know" database on hazardous substances was available on the EPA's website: 9/20/01²⁶

Total voting population of a Denton, Texas, tax district when a development plan was approved there in 1996: 1²⁷

Weeks before the vote that the resident was moved there by Dell Computer so that he could approve the plan: 5²⁸

Total number of opposition candidates who ran for the 84 seats in Singapore's parliament last November: 24²⁹

Number of days they were allowed to campaign: 9³⁰

Annual amount that Unilever's acquisition deal with Ben & Jerry's requires it to donate to "social change" groups: $1,100,000³¹

Amount of its donation last year that was given to the Ruckus Society, which trains activists in civil disobedience: $100,000³²

Number of Swedish teenagers convicted of lese majesty in December for hitting the king with a cream cake: 4³³

Total number of Swedish officials hit by cream cakes last year: 3³⁴

Number of the world's 25 civil wars that have been going on for more than ten years: 17³⁵

Number of journalists and U.S. soldiers, respectively, killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan last year: 7, 1³⁶

Number of these journalists who were American: 0³⁷

Percentage of Americans in November who believed the government was censoring news from the war in Afghanistan: 59³⁸

Percentage of these Americans who thought such censorship was "a good idea": 80³⁹

Number of years a sheep can remember another sheep's face: 2⁴⁰

USERNAME
PASSWORD
Subscriber? · Lost password? Lost username? · More help