6/04Minimum U.S. spending on missile defense each year since President Reagan’s 1983 “Star Wars” speech: $2,700,000,000
Number of the ten missile-defense components to be deployed this fall that have been field-tested as a system: 0
6/04Amount that next year’s Defense Department budget proposal requests for researching low-yield nuclear weapons: $9,000,000
Number of years that such research was illegal before Congress repealed the ban last November: 10
6/04Number of countries given weapons-grade uranium since the 1950s under the U.S. Atoms for Peace program: 51
6/04Minimum amount, per kilogram, that the U.S. charges “high income” countries to return spent nuclear fuel: $3,500
6/04Number of actors, musicians, and clowns in a U.N. troupe touring Liberia to convince citizens to disarm: 101
6/04Number of times that none-of-the-above won a Duma seat last winter in Ulyanovsk, Russia, Lenin’s birthplace: 2
6/04Chance that a Western European has a positive opinion of George W. Bush: 1 in 10
6/04Average price per gallon Americans would have paid for gasoline in March if U.S. gas taxes were as high as Europe’s: $2.31
6/04Amount by which total Social Security contributions since 1983 exceed total benefit payments since then: $999,059,000,000
6/04Year in which the Medicare hospital trust fund will be “completely exhausted,” according to the trustees: 2019
6/04Minimum number of U.S. surgical patients sewn up each year with sponges, clamps, or other tools left inside them: 1,500
6/04Number of Americans who died in 2002 from infections they contracted while hospitalized for other ailments: 90,000
6/04Number of accidents on Florida highways in 2002 caused by cars parked on the side of the road: 4,220
Ratio of the average number of television sets to the number of children: 7:2
6/04Estimated revenue lost by an Oregon county since it suspended granting heterosexuals marriage licenses last March: $2,000
6/04Average number of people who die every day in Bombay commuter-train accidents: 10
6/04Percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who lack regular access to food: 40
Percentage who are at risk of losing regular access to food if conditions there persist or deteriorate: 31
6/04Number of countries in which the average life expectancy was less than 40 in 2002: 6
6/04Rank of Venice and Kuwait City among cities where hotels generate the most revenue per room: 1,2
6/04Estimated value of a painting that the Saudi ambassador has given George W. Bush for his future presidential library: $1,000,000
Value of the solid-gold model of a Saudi fortress on display in his father’s presidential library: $1,000,000
6/04Minimum number of the brand names mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses that are still extant: 28
Number of the brand holders that are sponsoring Dublin’s centennial Bloomsday celebration this month: 2
6/04Number of Library of Congress book collections it would take to hold the data created worldwide in 2002: 36,764
6/04Chances that a sixth-grader at one Oklahoma City school was suspended for being disruptive during lunch last March 24: 4 in 5
6/04Chance that a British infantry recruit’s reading and writing skills are no better than the average 11-year-old’s: 1 in 2
6/04Decimal places to which Japanese scientists have estimated pi: 1,241,100,000,000
6/04Chances that God exists, according to a British physicist working as a risk analyst in Ohio: 2 in 3
6/04Weight in carats of the 2,500-mile-diameter diamond resulting from the crystallization of the star BPM 37093: 1 x 1034
6/04Street value of a rock of crack cocaine the size of the sun: $5.6 x 1034