Harper’s Index

Hours Alexander Hamilton spent in 1787 arguing at the Constitutional Convention that America should have a king: 5¹

Number of the three states that have canceled their 2004 primaries whose legislatures are GOP-controlled: 3²

Percentage by which a British flag maker's sales of U.S. flags in March exceeded those a year earlier: 25³

Percentage by which its sales of Iraqi flags did: 10,000⁴

Chance that a human being alive today is a refugee: 1 in 318⁵

Chance that an American lives full-time in an RV: 1 in 290⁶

Estimated number of foreign human-rights violators living in the United States: 1,000⁷

Percentage of Americans who said at the end of April that their nation commanded less respect abroad than a year ago: 41⁸

Percentage who said that the Iraq war will have been worthwhile even if Saddam Hussein is never captured or killed: 53⁹

Percentage who said it will have been worthwhile even if weapons of mass destruction are never found: 60¹⁰

Number of Serbian Orthodox churches burned down since the end of NATO's 1999 Operation Allied Force: 134¹¹

Minimum number of people reported killed by militants in Congo since the beginning of the Iraq war: 1,280¹²

Minimum number of Latin American residents whose personal data the U.S. government has bought since 2001: 100,000,000¹³

Number of presidents Argentina has had in the past two years: 6¹⁴

Number of NATO countries besides the United States and Canada that use no form of proportional representation: 0¹⁵

Amount by which the number of government jobs in the U.S. exceeds the number of manufacturing jobs: 5,129,000¹⁶

Amount of the $106,185 price of a Hummer H1 that businesses may deduct under the proposed Bush tax plan: $88,722¹⁷

Number of terrorism indictments brought since September 2001 by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey: 62¹⁸

Number of them brought against Middle Eastern students for paying others to take their English proficiency tests: 60¹⁹

Number of Wisconsin accounting students given take-home tests to accommodate an Enron whistle-blower's April speech: 78²⁰

Number later found to have cheated: 40²¹

Year in which Washington, D.C., neighbors of a WWI-era chemical-weapons test site were told it was cleaned up: 1995²²

Tons of toxic soil that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has removed from the site since 2001: 10,660²³

Minimum number of U.S. homes or properties seized under eminent domain since 1997 for private development: 3,722²⁴

Gallons of water that Boulder, Colorado, saved last year through a water-conservation program: 1,000,000,000²⁵

Estimated number of tons of ocean salt spray that enter Earth's atmosphere each second: 115²⁶

Estimated percentage by which the sun's radiation has increased since 1980: 0.1²⁷

Years by which the 1831 invention of the electric dynamo preceded the first documented use of the word "boredom": 21²⁸

Estimated percentage of U.S. workers who were "creative professionals" in 1900, 1980, and 2000, respectively: 10, 19, 30²⁹

Weekly wage above which new federal regulations forbid the payment of overtime in jobs requiring "talent": $425³⁰

Estimated amount spent on lap dances in Las Vegas each year: $25,000,000³¹

Total child support that went unpaid in Clark County, Nevada, in the last year: $63,100,000³²

Number of years Neil Bush was married before asking his wife for a divorce via email last summer: 22³³

Percentage of married U.S. couples that are raising children: 46³⁴

Percentage of unmarried, cohabiting U.S. couples that are: 41³⁵

Vote in April by which the North Dakota Senate upheld the state's 1890 ban on cohabitation by unmarried couples: 26-21³⁶

Number of American states that have revoked helmet requirements for adult motorcycle riders since 1975: 30³⁷

Ratio of New York City's minimum fine for smoking tobacco in a bar to its minimum fine for possessing marijuana: 2:1³⁸

Number of Grateful Dead concerts attended by columnist Ann Coulter: 67³⁹

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