Harper’s Index

Percentage of Americans who say they support air strikes against Iran “if diplomacy fails”: 51¹

Percentage of Iraqis who say they approve of insurgent attacks on U.S.-led forces: 47²

Percentage who approve of attacks on Iraqi security forces: 7³

Minimum number of times that U.S. forces have kidnapped the wives of suspected Iraqi insurgents: 2⁴

Number of U.S. veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003: 263,257⁵

Estimated ratio this year of the U.S. defense budget to that of the rest of the world combined: 1:1 (see page 45)⁶

Percentage of Americans who say they trust the military, the presidency, and Congress, respectively: 74, 44, 22⁷

Rank of the National Security Agency among top U.S. employers of mathematicians: 1⁸

Chance that an American believes his or her phone has been tapped by the federal government: 1 in 5⁹

Cost of a U.S. pilot project in a New Jersey school to use an eye scanner to identify all adults who enter: $369,000¹⁰

Number of adults each student can have approved in the system: 4¹¹

Price for which companies can purchase the personal data of all Minnesota drivers’-license holders from the state: $1,500¹²

Estimated number that have bought the data so far: 800¹³

Rank of Wal-Mart and Target, respectively, among the top online retailers of 2005: 3, 4¹⁴

Amount by which Americans’ total spending last year exceeded their earnings: $41,600,000,000¹⁵

Last year in which spending outstripped earnings: 1933¹⁶

Estimated labor cost of complying with the U.S. tax code each year, expressed as a percentage of U.S. tax receipts: 22¹⁷

Percentage of Estonians who file their tax returns online: 75¹⁸

Pounds of radioactive produce grown near Chernobyl that were confiscated in Moscow markets last year: 1,820¹⁹

Number of consecutive decades that the amount of sunlight in China has declined: 5²⁰

Estimated number of North Korean‒produced counterfeit $100 “supernotes” discovered worldwide since 1989: 500,000²¹

Number of tunnels that have been discovered under the U.S.‒Mexico border since 2001: 34²²

Number under the U.S.‒Canada border: 1²³

Percentage of Canadians who say that immigrants are a “good influence” on their nation: 77²⁴

Percentage of Americans and Germans, respectively, who say this: 49, 35²⁵

Chance that a Western European believes 2006 will be better than 2005: 1 in 3²⁶

Chance that an African believes this: 1 in 2²⁷

Portion of the grants in President Bush’s $415 billion AIDS initiative that has gone to religious groups: 1/4²⁸

Ratio, in the United States, of antiabortion “pregnancy centers” to abortion clinics: 6:1²⁹

Number of glasses of wine or sherry that seventeen homeless alcoholics were allowed daily, in a Canadian study: 15³⁰

Number of the participants who reduced their alcohol intake, quit the study, or died, respectively: 11, 3, 3³¹

Number of dogs that a California clinic trained to diagnose cancer by sniffing patients’ breath: 5³²

Percentage of lung- and breast-cancer cases that they accurately detect, respectively: 99, 88³³

Percentage of breast-cancer cases that are detectable by mammogram: 85³⁴

Chance that a passenger on a flight of two and a half hours or longer will have a cold within a week: 1 in 5³⁵

Percentage of U.S. couples who regularly sleep in separate beds: 23³⁶

Percentage of U.S. adults in 1985 who said they found overweight people less attractive than others: 55³⁷

Percentage who said this last year: 24³⁸

Estimated number of Marshmallow Peeps that will be consumed around Easter this month: 800,000,000³⁹

Estimated number of pigs who died to make them: 125,000⁴⁰

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