1/06Percentage of Americans who said in November that the Valerie Plame leak scandal was of “great importance”: 51

CBS News (N.Y.C.)

    Percentage who said, two months before President Nixon resigned, that Watergate was “very serious”: 49

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

    Percentage who said it was “just politics”: 42

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

1/06Years since a White House House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130

American Council of Learned Societies (N.Y.C.)

    Years after resigning that the official, Orville Babcock, drowned while trying to build a lighthouse: 9

American Council of Learned Societies (N.Y.C.)

1/06Percentage approval rating of Bill Clinton the day after impeachment and George W. Bush in November, respectively: 73, 37

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

1/06Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin: 37

VCIOM (Moscow)

1/06Number of times Saddam Hussein should be executed each day, according to Iraq’s new president: 20

Al Jazeera (Doha, Qatar)

1/06Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225

Human Rights Watch (N.Y.C.)

1/06Number of prisoners serving such sentences in all other countries worldwide: 12

Human Rights Watch (N.Y.C.)

1/06Average number of mass protests in China each day: 200

Ta Kung Pao, 7/6/05

1/06Number of manufacturing jobs that China has lost since 1996: 21,000,000

Judith Banister, Javelin Investments (Beijing)

1/06Percentage change last year in foreign direct investment in China: ‒2.1

Foreign Direct Investment Administration (Beijing)

1/06Portion of its currency reserves that Venezuela says it transferred from U.S. banks to Swiss banks last fall: 2/3

Raul Gallegos, Dow Jones Newswires (Caracas)

1/06Percentage of all music on Venezuelan radio that must be homegrown, according to a new law: 50

Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Washington)

    Percentage of the homegrown music that must also be “traditional”: 50

Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Washington)

1/06Change since 1996 in the percentage of all Latin Americans who say democracy is the best form of governance: ‒8

Latinobarómetro (Santiago, Chile)

    Change in Venezuela: +14

Latinobarómetro (Santiago, Chile)

1/06Last year in which the price of heating oil was as high as it is expected to be this winter: 1982

U.S. Energy Information Administration

1/06Number of years the United States could meet its energy needs by burning all its trees: 1

Harper’s research

1/06Chance that a Briton has bought a book “solely to look intelligent”: 1 in 3

Expedia, Inc. (London)

1/06Estimated number of Americans who make fake Indian arrowheads: 5,000

John Whittaker, Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa)

    Number of arrowheads they produce each year: 1,500,000

John Whittaker, Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa)

1/06Number of product placements on U.S. network TV shows in prime time last year: 101,212

Nielsen Media Research (N.Y.C.)

1/06Chance that one of the 23,688 human genes has now been patented in the United States: 1 in 5

Fiona Murray, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge)

1/06Total service charges collected by U.S. banks in 2004: $32,000,000,000

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)

    Factor by which this exceeds the total from 1994: 2

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)

1/06Number of weather futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the first nine months of last year: 612,000

Chicago Mercantile Exchange

    Number in all of 2004: 120,000

Chicago Mercantile Exchange

1/06Number of small businesses that applied for U.S. disaster loans after last fall’s hurricanes: 244,602

U.S. Small Business Administration

    Percentage that had been approved as of mid-November: 3

U.S. Small Business Administration

1/06Tons of hurricane-related waste still waiting to be hauled away in Louisiana: 22,000,000

Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (Baton Rouge)

1/06Tons of waste produced by New York City each year: 8,500,000

New York City Department of Sanitation

1/06Number of plague-infected mice that a New Jersey biomedical research center says cannot be accounted for: 3

The Public Health Research Institute (Newark, N.J.)

1/06Chance that an airliner has dangerous levels of disease-causing pathogens in its drinking water: 1 in 7

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

1/06Percentage by which circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection, according to a study in South Africa: 60

Bertran Auvert, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)

1/06Percentage of free condoms distributed in India that are used for purposes other than sex: 75

Rama Kant, King George Medical University (Lucknow, India)

1/06Average height gain, in inches, of adolescents who use human growth hormone over five and a half years: 2

Eli Lilly and Company (Indianapolis)

    Cost per inch that represents: $41,000

Eli Lilly and Company (Indianapolis)

1/06Age of the girl who made the first bear kill in Maryland’s hunting season last fall: 8

Mt. Nebo Wildlife Management Area (Md.)