11/88Chances that Dan Quayle will become president within the next eight years if George Bush is elected: 1 in 4

Harper’s research

11/88Estimated number of times George Bush recited the Pledge of Allegiance in the month following his nomination: 25

Bush/Quayle ‘88 (Washington)

    Number of times he recited it while a student at Greenwich Country Day School: 0

William A. Riley (Rindge, N. H.)/Kenneth McDonell (Riverside, Conn.)

11/88Number of special-interest tax breaks in the Republican party platform that would benefit the oil industry: 6

Republican Platform

11/88Number of government programs the Republican party platform proposes to eliminate: 0

Republican Platform

11/88Total federal spending in 1987, expressed as a percentage of the GNP: 23

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

    Total federal spending in 1980, expressed as a percentage of the GNP: 22

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

11/88Number of the 10 states with cuts in personal income taxes between 1986 and 1987 that had Democratic governors: 8

National Conference of State Legislatures (Denver)

11/88Number of American state governments that maintain offices in Tokyo: 39

U.S. Embassy (Tokyo)

11/88Number of the world’s 25 largest banks that are Japanese: 17

American Banker (N.Y.C.)

    Number that are American: 0

American Banker (N.Y.C.)

11/88Rank of “freedom” among the words that the Japanese associate most strongly with the United States: 1

Yomiuri Shimbun (N.Y.C.)

11/88Percentage of Americans who say they have “a great deal of confidence” in the executive branch of government: 16

Louis Harris & Associates (N.Y.C.)

11/88Percentage of Americans who believe that the Soviet Union is a member of NATO: 16

National Geographic Society-Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

11/88Estimated number of unexploded land and trip mines in Afghanistan: 4,000,000

Mary Williams Walsh, Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong)

11/88Members of Congress who have sent condolence letters to the families of the victims of the Iranian airliner crash: 6

Iranian Condolence Project (N.Y.C.)

11/88Number of child-care bills introduced during the 1979-80 session of Congress: 71

House Committee on Education and Labor

    Number introduced during the current session: 167

House Committee on Education and Labor

11/88Percentage of teenagers who say the world is “getting worse”: 45

American Home Economics Association (Washington)

11/88Percentage of Iowans who say that the death of Sid Vicious affected them personally: 5

Des Moines Register

11/88Amount the Pentagon has spent this year on test samples of marijuana-laced, freeze-dried urine: $9,000

National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, Md.)

11/88Value of the narcotics that the U.S. Border Patrol’s 3,200 agents detected this year, per agent: $123,758

U.S. Border Patrol (Washington)

    Value of the narcotics that the Patrol’s 24 drug-sniffing dogs detected this year, per dog: $4,696,574

U.S. Border Patrol (Washington)

11/88Price of a 45-minute private yoga lesson for a dog at Japan Trimming School in Tokyo: $34

Wall Street Journal (Tokyo)

11/88Average portion of paid vacation time that a Japanese worker takes: 1/2

Japanese Ministry of Labor (Tokyo)

11/88Ratio of engineers to lawyers graduated each year in Japan: 10:1

Martin K. Starr, Columbia Graduate School of Business (N.Y.C.)

    In the United States: 1:10

Martin K. Starr, Columbia Graduate School of Business (N.Y.C.)

11/88Ratio of administrators to students in Chicago’s public schools: 1:143

Chicago United, Inc. (Chicago)

    In Chicago’s parochial schools: 1:6,250

Chicago United, Inc. (Chicago)

11/88Percentage of Americans who say that God still performs miracles: 82

Times Mirror-Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

11/88Parking fees that Universal Studios collected from picketers of The Last Temptation of Christ: $4,500

Universal Studios Tour (Universal City, Calif.)

11/88Total amount paid in residuals to the 10,000 members of the Writers Guild last year: $57,037,100

Writers Guild of America (West Hollywood, Calif.)

    Amount the Walt Disney Company paid its chairman in salary, bonuses, and stock options last year: $37,700,000

Business Week (N.Y.C.)

11/88Ratio of television sets produced to babies born each year in the United States: 3:1

U.S. Dept. of Commerce

11/88Average number of alcoholic beverages an 8- to 12-year-old American child can name: 5.2

Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington)

    Average number of U.S. presidents a child can name: 4.8

Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington)

11/88Percentage increase in video rentals of Hoosiers on the weekend following Dan Quayle’s acceptance speech: 39

Erol’s Inc. (Springfield, Va.),

11/88Average number of golf games Dan Quayle played each week last year: 3

Margaret Carlson, Time (N.Y.C.)

11/88Tons of jelly beans the White House has purchased from the Goelitz Candy Company since 1981: 12

Herman Goelitz Candy Company (Fairfield, Calif.)