USERNAME 
PASSWORD 
Subscriber? · Lost password?
Lost username? · More help
Archive > 2004 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
June 2004 · Harper's index · Previous · Next   PDFPDF

Harper’s Index

Minimum U.S. spending on missile defense each year since President Reagan's 1983 "Star Wars" speech : $2,700,000,0001

Number of the ten missile-defense components to be deployed this fall that have been field-tested as a system : 0 2

Amount that next year's Defense Department budget proposal requests for researching low-yield nuclear weapons : $9,000,0003

Number of years that such research was illegal before Congress repealed the ban last November : 104

Number of countries given weapons-grade uranium since the 1950s under the U.S. Atoms for Peace program : 515

Minimum amount, per kilogram, that the U.S. charges "high income" countries to return spent nuclear fuel : $3,5006

Number of actors, musicians, and clowns in a U.N. troupe touring Liberia to convince citizens to disarm : 1017

Number of members of the Iraqi Communist Party who belong to the Governing Council : 18

Number of times that none-of-the-above won a Duma seat last winter in Ulyanovsk, Russia, Lenin's birthplace : 29

Chance that a Western European has a positive opinion of George W. Bush : 1 in 1010

Average price per gallon Americans would have paid for gasoline in March if U.S. gas taxes were as high as Europe's : $2.3111

Amount by which total Social Security contributions since 1983 exceed total benefit payments since then : $999,059,000,00012

Year in which the Medicare hospital trust fund will be "completely exhausted," according to the trustees : 201913

Year in which trustees predicted in 1991 that the fund would be exhausted : 200514

Minimum number of U.S. surgical patients sewn up each year with sponges, clamps, or other tools left inside them : 1,50015

Number of Americans who died in 2002 from infections they contracted while hospitalized for other ailments : 90,00016

Number of accidents on Florida highways in 2002 caused by cars parked on the side of the road : 4,22017

Ratio of the average number of vehicles to the number of children per U.S. household : 5:218

Ratio of the average number of television sets to the number of children : 7:219

Estimated revenue lost by an Oregon county since it suspended granting heterosexuals marriage licenses last March : $2,00020

Minimum number of times a Houston woman stabbed her husband last year : 19321

Estimated percentage of women in Pakistani prisons whose crime was fornication : 8022

Average number of people who die every day in Bombay commuter-train accidents : 1023

Percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who lack regular access to food : 4024

Percentage who are at risk of losing regular access to food if conditions there persist or deteriorate : 3125

Number of countries in which the average life expectancy was less than 40 in 2002 : 626

Number of African countries in which the average life expectancy has declined since 1978 : 2227

Estimated percentage change since 1970 in sub-Saharan Africa's share of world trade : -5728

Rank of Venice and Kuwait City among cities where hotels generate the most revenue per room : 1, 229

Estimated value of a painting that the Saudi ambassador has given George W. Bush for his future presidential library : $1,000,00030

Value of the solid-gold model of a Saudi fortress on display in his father's presidential library : $1,000,00031

Minimum number of the brand names mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses that are still extant : 2832

Number of the brand holders that are sponsoring Dublin's centennial Bloomsday celebration this month : 233

Number of Library of Congress book collections it would take to hold the data created worldwide in 2002 : 36,76434

Chances that a sixth-grader at one Oklahoma City school was suspended for being disruptive during lunch last March 24 : 4 in 535

Chance that a British infantry recruit's reading and writing skills are no better than the average 11-year-old's : 1 in 236

Decimal places to which Japanese scientists have estimated pi : 1,241,100,000,00037

Chances that God exists, according to a British physicist working as a risk analyst in Ohio : 2 in 338

Weight in carats of the 2,500-mile-diameter diamond resulting from the crystallization of the star BPM 37093 : 1 x 103439

Street value of a rock of crack cocaine the size of the sun : $5.6 x 103440



15
SEE ALSO: Business; Corruption; Death; Democracy; Drugs; Economics; Education; Entertainment; Florida; Food; Bush, George W.; Gods; Health Care; India; Iraq; Kuwait; Liberia; Literature; Marriage; Mathematics; Medicare; Mendacity; Oil; Oregon; Pakistan; Palestine; U.S. Department of Defense; Reagan, Ronald; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Sex; Social Security; Space; Texas; Transportation; United Nations; Weapons of Mass Destruction
Previous · Next
As little as $16.97 for 12 months of Harper's—
plus access to our 158-year archive.
Archive > 2008 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct

OCTOBER 2008

BLEAK HOUSES
Digging Through the Ruins of the Mortgage Crisis
By Paul Reyes

NEWS FROM NOWHERE
Iceland's Polite Dystopia
By Rebecca Solnit

MICROSTORIES
Fiction by John Edgar Wideman

Also: Bernard Avishai on Obama's Jews

Subscribe to the Weekly Review:


We will not sell your email address.