Harper’s Index

Number of Congress members who have signed a letter asking the U.N. to monitor this year’s U.S. presidential election : 12¹

Number of states whose legislatures have considered requesting changes in the No Child Left Behind Act : 31²

Number that have considered opting out of the Act’s requirements entirely : 6³

Number of resolutions regarding the Act that have actually passed : 2⁴

Number of prospective teachers in 19 states wrongly issued failing grades on a licensing exam since January 2003 : 4,100⁵

Minimum number of Americans who registered to vote at strip clubs since May : 4,000⁶

Percentage of college students majoring in the humanities who say politics are relevant to their lives : 72⁷

Percentage of students majoring in computer science who say this : 36⁸

Estimated total number of protesters at the June G-8 conference in Georgia : 310⁹

Estimated number of police per protester : 10¹⁰

Percentage of New York City residents it would take to fill every inch of pavement in midtown Manhattan : 6¹¹

Height in feet of a bronze September 11 memorial depicting a giant teardrop to be built in Jersey City, New Jersey : 98¹²

Funds allocated for Iraq’s water programs to be spent on U.S. embassy operating costs : $85,500,000¹³

Number of the 50 airstrikes targeting Iraq’s leadership during the invasion last year that hit their target : 0¹⁴

Minimum number of ex-senior government officials who have worked for a major U.S. defense contractor since 1997 : 176¹⁵

Chance that one of them was a member of Congress who became a registered lobbyist : 1 in 4¹⁶

Minimum number of Congress members Sun Myung Moon claims attended his March coronation as the “King of Peace” : 20¹⁷

Number of Congress members present at the June transfer of power from Coalition military forces to the Iraqi government : 0¹⁸

Number of Afghanistan’s 33 provinces with no NATO peacekeeping presence : 24¹⁹

Ratio of the typical salary of a paid gladiator in ancient Rome to the salary of a doctor or lawyer : 10:1²⁰

Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003 : 20²¹

Number who have pled guilty : 17²²

Number of these now in prison : 0²³

Percentage of non-jury trials in Russia that end in conviction : 99²⁴

Minimum number of the 542 members of India’s lower house who have been charged in criminal cases : 100²⁵

Number of months of his term in office that a Kentucky county’s top elected official has served from jail : 9²⁶

Percentage recidivism rate of youth released from prison who can read at the 11th and 2nd grade level, respectively : 36, 62²⁷

Number of words in the first sentence of Bill Clinton’s memoir and in that of George W. Bush’s, respectively : 49, 5²⁸

Percentage of pages in Hillary Clinton’s memoir that mention her husband, and vice versa, respectively : 45, 20²⁹

Weight in pounds of the only woman ever to win the Miss America pageant twice : 140³⁰

Percentage of Jordanian women who are literate : 85³¹

Minimum number of Jordanian women murdered by their families in “honor killings” last year : 15³²

Number of deaths due to international terrorism last year according to an April State Department report : 307³³

Number of such deaths cited in a “revised” report the Department released in June : 625³⁴

Months after reporting missing radioactive spent fuel rods last April that a Vermont nuclear plant found them in a safe place : 3³⁵

Months before anyone filed an amicus brief supporting a 2002 habeas corpus suit on behalf of the Guantánamo detainees : 10³⁶

Number of amicus briefs filed once the case was accepted by the Supreme Court last fall : 17³⁷

Chance that a U.S. man says that threatening “to shoot” detainees is sometimes an acceptable way to get information : 1 in 2³⁸

Secret access code to the computer controls of the U.S. nuclear-tipped missile arsenal between 1968 and 1976 : 00000000³⁹

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