2/09Year that the U.S. stock market first regained its 1929 pre-crash peak: 1954
2/09Profit that the federal government made in 1983 on stock obtained in its 1979 bailout of Chrysler: $311,000,000
2/09Projected percentage change in the number of U.S. new-auto dealerships this year: –8
2/09Percentage of Americans who say they would not buy a car from an automaker in bankruptcy: 94
2/09Amount that GM’s car-loan business lost during the first nine months of 2008: $2,700,000,000
2/09Annual percentage interest rate that Venezuela charged Argentina for a $1 billion loan last August: 15
2/09Percentage of Russians who say one goal of U.S. foreign policy is “the complete destruction of Russia”: 43
Chances that a nation with known stockpiles of cluster bombs did: 2 in 5
2/09Number of Iraqi stray dogs that Operation Baghdad Pups has helped emigrate to the United States since 2003: 66
Number currently on the waiting list: 50
2/09Minimum number of Americans since January 2008 who have purchased stem-cell therapy for their dogs: 1,196
2/09Percentage by which chewing gum reduces anxiety during conditions of mild to moderate stress: 12
2/09Percentage of U.S. school districts that have banned bake sales due to anti-obesity regulations: 29
2/09Number of applications submitted last fall for a $10,000 collegiate “blogging scholarship”: 1,902
Number that turned out to be spam: 557
2/09Minimum number of Amish households in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that use electricity generated by solar power: 2,000
2/09Price for one D.C. hotel’s “Eco-Inaugural” package, which includes use of a Lexus hybrid and a driver for four days: $40,000
Date on which the group was first posted to: 3/7/2008
2/09Days after the Columbine shootings in 1999 that Eric Holder called for “regulations in how people interact on the Internet”: 5
2/09Number of the four Republican-primary “rivals” in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet who left by the end of his first term: 3
Months into his first term that Lincoln told a friend his cabinet was “on the brink of destruction”: 21
2/09Rank of Barack Obama’s election among the “biggest day[s] ever in the history of marketing,” according to an Ad Age columnist: 1
2/09Rank of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy among “music’s most anticipated album[s] ever,” according to its ad campaign: 1
2/09Rank the album held on the Billboard charts in the first and second weeks of its release, respectively: 3, 18
2/09Percentage of Bhutanese who are currently happy, according to the country’s new pilot survey: 68
2/09Pounds of ice, sculpted into the word economy, that artists used last fall to create a “literal meltdown” in Manhattan: 1,500
2/09Estimated total value in December 2007 of the family fortune of Thomas Friedman’s wife: $3,500,000,000
Percentage change in the value of that fortune since then: –97
2/09Percentage of unfaithful female multimillionaires who say they plan to spend less on their paramours this year: 15
2/09Standard hourly rate at Manhattan’s Liberty Inn, whose slogan is “Your Rendezvous for Romance”: $30