Harper’s Index

Number of articles in major U.S. newspapers that have called any White House statement on Iraq a lie : 0¹

Number of the five tax-cut questions asked the president on Meet the Press last winter that concerned the cuts' inequity : 0²

Average amount a Bush Cabinet member will save this year due to cuts in capital-gains and dividend taxes : $42,000³

Median U.S. household income in 2002 : $42,409⁴

Number of Angola's seven richest citizens who are government officials and former government officials, respectively : 6, 1⁵

Percentage change in Mexico's inflation-adjusted minimum wage since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 : -21⁶

Last year in which U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories were as low as they were in January : 1975⁷

Rank of 2003 among years in which the most HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths occurred worldwide : 1⁸

Percentage discount that Lesotho's prostitutes offered truckers in 2002 who used a condom : 50⁹

Number of Danes who died from heroin or morphine in 2002 for every Dane who died from methadone that year : 1.06¹⁰

Number of people in France who are injured each year opening oysters : 2,000¹¹

Hours it took two surgeons to separate conjoined turtles in Arizona last February : 4¹²

Number of the 76 reported attempts by bears to break into New Jersey homes last year that were successful : 53¹³

Estimated percentage of web links for requests to "unsubscribe" from mass emails that fail : 63¹⁴

Percentage of U.S. voters whose 2004 vote will be cast via a computer system producing no paper record : 29 (see page 83)¹⁵

Number of votes cast in New Hampshire's Republican primary this year for write-in Democratic candidates : 8,092¹⁶

Number of votes by which George W. Bush won the state in November 2000 : 7,211¹⁷

Percentage of Afghans who have registered to vote : 3¹⁸

Ratio of the number of Afghan men who have registered to the number of women who have done so : 10:3¹⁹

Amount Iraqi parents were paid for naming sons born on Saddam Hussein's birthday after him : $200²⁰

Minimum number of Iraq's Saddam Husseins who have officially changed their names or are in the process of doing so : 300²¹

Monthly bonus an Indian chief of police is paying his officers who grow mustaches, which, he believes, command respect : 66c²²

Number of countries whose technologies are suspected of having contributed to Pakistan's nuclear program : 6²³

Number of countries that have received Pakistani nuclear technology : 4²⁴

Estimated number of years that guards at the top U.S. nuclear storehouse have cheated during anti-terrorism drills : 20²⁵

Year in which Citigroup formed a company called Buconero, Italian for "black hole," to help Parmalat conceal debt : 1999²⁶

Factor by which a blimp being developed for the U.S. government by Lockheed Martin exceeds the size of Goodyear's : 25²⁷

Number of plaques bearing biblical verses that the Park Service reinstalled at the Grand Canyon last year : 3 (see page 27)²⁸

Number of states that do not use the word "evolution" in their science curricula : 5²⁹

Number of states in which felons who have completed their sentence are not allowed to vote : 11³⁰

Factor by which Florida's white defendants are more likely than blacks to get a plea bargain blocking felony conviction : 1.5³¹

Median income of black U.S. families as a percentage of white families' in 1968 and 2002, respectively : 60, 58³²

Number of cents a U.S. woman earned for every dollar that a U.S. man did in 1983 and 2000, respectively : 80.4, 79.7³³

Factor by which the average pay of a pro baseball player and a Fortune 500 CEO, respectively, have increased since 1973 : 16, 4³⁴

Maximum fine in Baltimore for dancing or not standing during the singing of the national anthem : $100³⁵

Amount spent worldwide on mobile-phone ring tones, expressed as a percentage of the global music market : 10³⁶

Number of MP3 players designed to be clipped inside an AK-47's ammunition chamber sold worldwide last year : 10,000³⁷

Percentage of U.S. elementary schools that eliminated recess between 1977 and 1997 : 40³⁸

Number of snowballs a New York City man sold on the street one day last December : 10³⁹

Profits he reaped : $9.50⁴⁰

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