Harper’s Index

Rank of 2004 among the most fiscally reckless years in U.S. history, according to the comptroller general: 1¹

Projected cost of disability payments to Iraq War veterans by 2050, based on rates for Gulf War veterans: $285,000,000,000²

Number of “veterans of the global war on terrorism” that the VA budget assumed for 2005: 23,553³

Estimated number today: 103,000⁴

Age that the Pentagon in July proposed to set as the maximum for all new military recruits: 42⁵

Number of sites in Iraq from which materials usable to make biological or chemical weapons are now “missing”: 118⁶

Length, in yards, of U.S. snipers’ longest confirmed kill in Iraq: 1,050⁷

Portion of all U.S. foreign aid that goes to helping the recipients buy U.S.-produced weapons, equipment, or services: 1/4⁸

Total U.S. spending on poppy eradication and other antidrug efforts in Afghanistan last year: $780,000,000⁹

Amount it would have cost to purchase the country’s entire 2004 poppy crop: $600,000,000¹⁰

Percentage change since 2001 in the estimated value of all bribes paid to Russia’s government officials: +800¹¹

Ratio last year of the estimated total bribes to the nation’s federal revenues: 5:2¹²

Estimated amount of African wealth held in foreign accounts, expressed as a percentage of African GDP: 172¹³

Minutes that NBC and CBS spent covering the Darfur genocide last year: 8¹⁴

Points a player earns for delivering a parcel of medicine, in the U.N. World Food Programme’s video game: 250¹⁵

Average estimated salary, in today’s dollars, of the dads on the ten top-rated TV shows of the 1950s: $77,000¹⁶

Average for the dads on today’s ten top-rated shows: $207,000¹⁷

Chance that a U.S. MBA obtained since 1980 was awarded to a woman: 1 in 3¹⁸

Chance that a corporate officer of a Fortune 500 company today is: 1 in 6¹⁹

Percentage of patients hearing voices who hear a male voice, according to a British study: 71²⁰

Percentage who hear an “upper-class” or “BBC” voice: 30²¹

Chances that a user of Pfizer’s new Parkinson’s disease drug will become a pathological gambler as a result: 3 in 200²²

Percentage by which the average amount of anesthetic required by redheads exceeds the average for everyone: 19²³

Chance that a medical study may be inaccurate or misleading, according to the AMA’s journal: 1 in 3²⁴

Months of vacation that President Bush has taken in five years: 11²⁵

Days after the London attacks that Bush said the U.S. was at war abroad “so we do not have to face them here at home”: 4²⁶

Number of terrorist acts that one song by the Houston-based rapper Arabic Assassin describes him committing: 4²⁷

Months he worked as a baggage screener at George Bush Intercontinental Airport before being fired in July: 6²⁸

Minimum number of centuries in prison served by U.S. convicts for crimes of which DNA evidence later exonerated them: 19²⁹

Number of U.S. states where bestiality is legal: 20³⁰

Amount that Oakland residents can now be fined if their dog has not been implanted with an ID microchip: $100³¹

Years after the Watts riots that the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation trademarked “Burn Baby Burn” for a hot sauce: 40³²

Portion of L.A. County’s black residents who would need to move in order for the city to be fully integrated: 3/4³³

Months that a Louisiana state judge was suspended for wearing an Afro wig and blackface to a Halloween party last year: 6³⁴

Kernels of candy corn manufactured for Halloween each year: 9,000,000,000³⁵

Number of different stories offered for sale at any one time on a Dutch dial-a-fairytale service: 4³⁶

Price to listen to a seven-minute story: $1.70³⁷

Number of toilet seats at the EU Parliament building in Brussels that a TV station had tested for cocaine: 46³⁸

Number that tested positive: 41³⁹

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