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Harper’s Index

Chance an American believes it is very likely that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will lead to World War III: 1 in 5¹

Chance an American believes that peace in the Middle East will require a military victory: 1 in 2²

Military budget of Israel in 1967 expressed as a percentage of the budgets of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria combined: 58³

Israeli military budget today expressed in these terms: 187⁴

Number of references to Israeli "retaliation" on U.S. network nightly newscasts between September 2000 and March 2002: 118⁵

Number of references to Palestinian "retaliation": 14⁶

Number of hours Israeli soldiers in Ramallah broadcast pornography on seven Palestinian television stations in March: 48⁷

Number of years that a member of the Council on Foreign Relations has authored Parade magazine's celebrity-gossip column: 11⁸

Number of subscribers to Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's email magazine Lionheart: 2,200,000⁹

Ratio of Japanese to U.S. companies among the top ten recipients of U.S. patents last year: 7:2¹⁰

Length in pages of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear-arms-reduction treaty signed by George H.W. Bush in 1991: 630¹¹

Length in pages of the U.S.-Russia nuclear-arms-reduction treaty drafted in May: 3¹²

Percentage of their respective nations' popular vote won in 2000 by George W. Bush and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: 48, 60¹³

Amount that Bush's first 320 appointees spent on campaign contributions in the previous election cycle: $1,590,000¹⁴

Amount that Bill Clinton's first 320 appointees spent on campaign contributions in the election cycle prior to Clinton's election: $1,040,000¹⁵

Number of times Attorney General John Ashcroft has overruled a local prosecutor's decision not to seek the death penalty: 12¹⁶

Average number of times former attorney general Janet Reno did this in as many months: 7¹⁷

Number of Florida State University students arrested in March for protesting while not in a designated "free-speech area": 12¹⁸

Rank of "no religion" among responses given in 1990 by Americans asked to identify their religious grouping: 5¹⁹

Rank today: 3²⁰

Daily fine introduced last month for the outdoor use of upholstered furniture in Normal, Illinois: $100²¹

Number of fishing boats bought and sunk by the U.S. government since 1995 in efforts to protect overfished species: 88²²

Number of years after its founding that the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List last April stopped referring to ships as "she": 268²³

Percentage of male fish in two English rivers that scientists say have been "effectively feminised" by estrogen in the water: 100²⁴

Percentage of Britons who feel "vulnerable" in forests: 31²⁵

Ratio of Avon ladies to soldiers in Brazil: 5:2²⁶

Ratio of the size of an Amazonian "paradoxical frog" to that of its tadpole: 1:3²⁷

Percentage of Americans who would sign away their right to sue the maker of a pill that could make part of their body bigger: 3²⁸

Percentage who say they would do so for the maker of a pill that could make part of their body smaller: 6²⁹

Chance that a prescription drug approved by the FDA will be recalled or require relabeling within 25 years of its release: 1 in 5³⁰

Percentage change in the number of prescription-drug products recalled by the FDA since 1998: +40³¹

Days after receiving it last year that a California dump lost its landmark status because it is a Superfund site: 20³²

Amount spent since 1989 to clean up the site: $23,000,000³³

Percentage change in the number of U.S. beach closings between 1999 and 2000: +83³⁴

Minutes after a tornado hit Shiloh, Illinois, in April that the town's warning siren sounded: 30³⁵

Months after enacting it that California's energy commission last spring renewed its ban on using duct tape on ducts: 16³⁶

Chances an American believes the government should regulate comedy routines that make light of terrorist attacks: 2 in 5³⁷

Number of requests Nevada has received since January for a new license-plate design featuring a mushroom cloud: 322³⁸

Amount Congress allocated Blue Springs, Missouri, this spring to help the town combat "gothic culture": $237,437³⁹

Miles from Blue Springs to the nearest Gothic cathedral: 4,280⁴⁰

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SEE ALSO: Animal Rights; Clinton, Bill; Great Britain; California; United States Congress; Death Penalty; Democracy; Egypt; Energy; Entertainment; Food and Drug Administration; Fish and Other Aquatic Life; Florida; Folly; Freedom; Bush, George H. W.; Bush, George W.; Chávez, Hugo; Hunting; Illinois; Iraq; Israel; Japan; Ashcroft, John; Forms of Justice; Missouri; Nevada; Nuclear Energy; Palestine; Pollution; Pornography; Propaganda; Regulation; Religion; Russia; Science; Suicide Bombing; Syria; Television; Terrorism; Venezuela; War

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