12/96Percentage change in the homicide rate in Canada since the 1976 abolition of the death penalty there: -27
7/86Percentage change in the buying power of the minimum wage since 1981: -26
1/91Average percentage change, since 1989, in the square footage of a corporate vice president’s office: -25
4/95Percentage change since last summer in the market value of a Nolan Ryan rookie baseball card: -25
3/98Percentage change in the size of Russia’s economy since the country began following the I.M.F.’s advice in 1992: -25
9/99Change since last fall in the number of network sitcoms whose main characters are members of the same family: -25
9/92Percentage by which new Teamster president Ron Carey adjusted his salary after taking the job last February: -22
9/95Average percentage change in the salary of an American who changed jobs during the last recession: -22
1/90Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of American families composed of a housewife, an employed husband, and 2 children: -21
4/91Change, between the ages of 9 and 14, in the percentage of American girls who say “I am happy the way I am”: -31
6/98Percentage change in the number of Texans favoring the death penalty since the execution of Karla Faye Tucker: -21
4/04Percentage change in Mexico’s inflation-adjusted minimum wage since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994: -21
3/94Percentage change, between 1992 and 1993, in the average birth weight of a baby born in Sarajevo: -19
1/96Change since 1989 in the percentage of black men between 16 and 24 who say they are inclined to join the military: -19
5/97Percentage change in Wyoming auto fatalities since the state raised the highway speed limit to 75 mph in 1995: -16
2/88Percentage change, in the first month of the 1987 season, in the three networks’ combined prime-time rating: -11
1/90Percentage change, since 1981, in per capita U.S. consumption of white bread: -10
8/00Percentage change in the gonorrhea rate among teens and young adults when the beer tax is raised by 20 cents: -9
5/92Percentage change, since 1988, in the number of Southerners voting in a Republican presidential primary: -7
Percentage change in the number of Southerners voting in a Democratic presidential primary: -20
1/86Percentage change in Britain’s manufacturing output since 1979: -6
11/92Decrease, since 1980, in the average number of hours an American spends in a shopping mall each month: -5
7/93Percentage change in federal spending on natural resources and the environment in the President’s 1994 budget: -5
1/02Change since 2000 in the percentage of Latin Americans who say they prefer democracy to other forms of government: -12
1/00Percentage change in enrollment in U.S. college-level French and German courses since 1995: -4.5
2/02Percentage change in a state’s consumption of alcohol for every one percent its unemployment rises: -3
12/03Percentage change since last year in the number of U.S. millionaires: -3
3/04Average percentage change in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth per decade between 1960 and 1990: -3
6/00Percentage change since 1992 in the average household income of the lowest-paid fifth of Silicon Valley workers: -2.7
2/94Change in the number of monthly political deaths in the Occupied Territories since the peace accord was signed last fall: -1
6/90Change, since 1988, in the fuel efficiency of new automobiles sold in the United States, in miles per gallon: -0.5
2/02Estimated percentage change in the fuel efficiency of an S.U.V. if it flies a small American flag from its antenna: -0.5
Points by which the percentage of Americans of African descent has changed since then: -2.8
2/92Percentage change, since then, in the rate banks charge consumers on credit card debt: -0.3
11/84Number of times Ronald Reagan has seen his 17-month-old granddaughter: 0
4/85Number of weeks, since April 1981, that Danielle Steele has not had a book on a national best-seller list: 0
12/85Number of White House requests for arms sales to a foreign country that Congress has rejected: 0
3/97Portion of the $2 million in arms-demolition aid the country was promised by the U.S. last year that has been delivered: 0
2/87Copies of Duarte: My Story, the recent autobiography of El Salvador’s president, published in Spanish: 0
6/87Number of colleges that invited Vanna White to give their commencement address this spring: 0
10/87Number of Betty Rubble tablets in a bottle of Flintstone Chewable Vitamins: 0
4/88Number of times the word “Christian” appears in Pat Robertson’s campaign brochure: 0
6/88Number of presidential elections since 1964 in which the Democratic candidate won a majority of the white vote: 0
11/88Number of government programs the Republican party platform proposes to eliminate: 0
4/90Number of years since the balanced-budget bill became law in 1985 that its deficit-reduction targets have been met: 0
9/90Number of times Ronald Reagan has publicly mentioned the savings and loan crisis: 0
4/91Number of courses on the Vietnam War required for graduation from West Point: 0
5/91Number of the solar panels installed on the White House roof by President Carter that are still there: 0
9/91Number of Southerners in positions of leadership in the Democratic House caucus: 0
11/91Number of times CBS interrupted Miss Teen USA on the first night of the Soviet coup with bulletins on the crisis: 0
1/92Average annual percentage change in the U.S. standard of living since George Bush took office: -0.3
Number of the previous eight presidencies during which the standard of living fell: 0
8/92Number of the 32 sitting federal appellate judges appointed by President Bush who are black: 0
9/92Number of times the word “union” appears in the text of the Democratic platform: 0
9/92Number of the 10 TV shows watched most often by blacks that are among the 10 watched most often by whites: 0
5/93Amount President Clinton has proposed cutting from the budget of the CIA: 0
8/93Number of Democratic House members whose percentage of the vote in November was lower than Bill Clinton’s: 0
5/94Number of Dan Rostenkowski’s 1993 campaign contributions of more than $200 that came from Illinois residents: 0
11/94Number of the 16 countries with universal health care in which private insurers cover a majority of citizens: 0
2/95Number of special-interest tax breaks the new House Ways and Means Committee chairman says he plans to eliminate: 0
4/95Number of the 4 states with the highest illegitimacy rate that are also among the top 4 in welfare recipients per capita: 0
6/95Number of bills passed by Congress that Bill Clinton has vetoed: 0
6/95Number of U.S. presidents in this century who left office without having issued a single veto: 0
11/95Number of strikes bowled at Rob & Carol’s Frozen-Turkey Bowl, held last November in Modesto, California: 0
12/95Number of stories about Hillary Clinton’s attendance of the U.N.’s women’s conference that appeared on Chinese TV: 0
6/96Number of last year’s newsweekly magazine covers featuring women who are not princesses, murderers, or models: 0
7/96Number of class-action suits that the federally funded Legal Services Corporation will be allowed to represent next year: 0
10/96Percentage of Dan Rostenkowski’s congressional pension benefits he will forfeit during his stay in prison this year: 0
10/96Number of the five Senate Republican leaders who have run for president in Bob Dole’s lifetime who have won: 0
12/96Number of the 550 computer-science faculty members at the nation’s 25 highest-ranked universities who are black: 0
3/97Number of questions Justice Clarence Thomas asked last January during oral arguments of the Paula Jones case: 0
3/97Number of wars ever fought between countries that both had at least one McDonald’s franchise: 0
3/97Number of EPA studies ever conducted on how commercially used toxic chemicals react in combination: 0
3/97Number of foreign lobbyists convicted since 1963 of failing to comply with U.S. financial-disclosure laws: 0
5/97Number of “active” dissidents in China at the end of last year, according to the State Department: 0
9/97Number of the 327 eligible voters who voted in the Rock Creek, Kansas, school board election last April: 0
12/97Number of the four bombs aboard an Air Force jet lost in the Colorado Rockies last spring that have been found: 0
12/97Number of options besides negotiation with them that Colombian president Ernesto Samper says he has left: 0
1/98Number of questions asked of Inspector General Valerie Lau during her 1994 Senate confirmation hearing: 0
1/98Number of Super Bowl winners whose home stadium was domed: 0
3/98Pairs of jeans that Frank Sinatra has ever owned in his life: 0
6/98Number of people besides Al Gore who called the Washington Post last March to point out an “upside-down” Earth photo: 0
9/98Number of months since January that have not broken a record for average global heat: 0
11/98Number of pages of the Watergate special prosecutor’s report that have been released to the public: 0
11/98Number of candidates besides Kim Jong Il nominated this year for each of the 687 seats in North Korea’s legislature: 0
11/98Number of Sudanese factories besides the one the U.S. bombed last August that had U.N. approval to export drugs to Iraq: 0
1/99Change since 1916 in the percentage of U.S. scientists who say they believe in a god: 0
2/99Number of “real ideological differences” within the Democratic Party, according to Senator Robert Torricelli: 0
5/99Number of times that a white man has been executed for killing a black man in Texas since 1860: 0
9/99Number of U.S. presidents besides Bill Clinton who have made an official visit to an Indian reservation since 1937: 0
10/99Number of years since 1997’s Balanced Budget Act set discretionary spending caps that spending has not exceeded them: 0
10/99Number of the 10 billion plastic Coke bottles distributed in the U.S. each year that are made from recycled material: 0
12/99Number of countries besides Australia that have ever formally recognized Indonesia’s sovereignty over East Timor: 0
4/00Number of the eight Zapatista demands to which the Mexican government agreed in 1996 that have yet to be met: 0
5/00Chance that a U.N. member country other than the U.S. or Israel did not vote for a 1999 ban on “an arms race in space ”: 0
6/00Number of times that U.S. president Zachary Taylor had ever voted in a presidential election before taking office in 1849: 0
7/00Number of U.S. counties in which a full-time minimum-wage earner can afford a one-bedroom apartment: 0
9/00Number of incumbent Republican governors who have won the presidency since 1898: 0
9/00Number of incumbent vice presidents elected to the presidency between 1836 and 1988: 0
11/00Number of Americans, aside from Wen Ho Lee, who have ever been prosecuted under the 1948 Atomic Energy Act: 0
Number of Los Alamos documents Lee was accused of downloading that were classified at the time he did so: 0
11/00Number of former Soviet republics whose per capita GDP was higher in 1997 than in 1990: 0
11/00Number of words for boredom in the Mohegan language, according to an ad for the Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino: 0
12/00Number of the one hundred countries with the world’s highest birthrates that have approved the abortion pill RU-486: 0
1/01Number of studies showing that the death penalty is a deterrent, according to Attorney General Janet Reno: 0
1/01Number of laws or provisions that require U.S. oil companies to produce more heating oil in response to a shortage: 0
3/01Amount of Montana’s total net farm income in 1999 that did not come from government assistance: 0
10/01Number of “weapons of mass destruction” allowed in space, according to a 1967 treaty ratified by the United States: 0
Number of abstentions to reaffirming the treaty last year besides those of the United States, Israel, and Micronesia: 0
12/01Number of minutes of network news coverage devoted to Colombia in the month following September 11: 0
3/02Number of journalists and U.S. soldiers, respectively, killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan last year: 7, 1
Number of these journalists who were American: 0
4/02Percentage by which genetically modified seeds increase a farm’s economic yield, according to a study of 300 Iowa farms: 0
5/02Number of Amtrak’s 41 routes other than the Boston-Washington, D.C., Metroliner that turn a profit: 0
Percentage change in Metroliner ridership since Amtrak added a new high-speed train to the route two years ago: -9
6/02Number of times Israel has formally recognized the right of a Palestinian state to exist anywhere: 0
8/02Number of nations besides Somalia and the United States that have yet to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child: 0
9/02Number of NATO member nations besides the United States with a civilian oath of loyalty: 0
9/02Number of bills vetoed by George W. Bush during his first 18 months in office: 0
Number of other U.S. presidents who have done this since 1850 besides Bill Clinton and Millard T. Fillmore: 0
10/02Amount of Iraq’s oil revenue since 1996 spent on anything but humanitarian programs, Kuwaiti reparations, or U.N. costs: 0
12/02Number of times George W. Bush has said Osama bin Laden’s name in public since July 8: 0
6/03Number of motor vehicles owned by Tom Magliozzi, co-host of NPR’s Car Talk: 0
7/03Number of NATO countries besides the United States and Canada that use no form of proportional representation: 0
8/03Number of U.S. commercial sites besides Disneyland and Disney World that have been granted no-fly-zone protection: 0
9/03Amount of evidence, according to the New York Times in June, that Bush “did not believe” his own statements on Iraq: 0
9/03Number of officials who ever suggested that Iraq had nuclear weapons, according to Donald Rumsfeld in June: 0
9/03Number of times Democrat Howard Dean mentioned Iraq in announcing his candidacy for president this year: 0
2/04Percentage points by which George W. Bush’s rating changed last year: 0
3/04Number of times Osama bin Laden used the term “Al Qaeda” publicly before September 11, 2001: 0
4/04Number of articles in major U.S. newspapers that have called any White House statement on Iraq a lie: 0
4/04Number of the five tax-cut questions asked the president on Meet the Press last winter that concerned the cuts’ inequity: 0
9/04Number of the 50 airstrikes targeting Iraq’s leadership during the invasion last year that hit their target: 0
9/04Number of Congress members present at the June transfer of power from Coalition military forces to the Iraqi government: 0
9/04Secret access code to the computer controls of the U.S. nuclear-tipped missile arsenal between 1968 and 1976: 00000000
2/05Estimated change since 1999 in the number of civil-rights complaints reported to the Justice Department: 0
Percentage change since then in the number of civil-rights criminal charges brought by the department: -47
9/05Numeral whose underlying concept has been partially understood by a Massachusetts parrot, according to scientists: 0
3/06Number of suicide bombings known to have been carried out by Iranians: 0
5/07Total donations that Barack Obama has received from tobacco companies since 2000: $0
12/07Percentage of Americans this year who say they are Democrat-leaning and Republican-leaning, respectively: 50, 36
Number of years since this poll began in 1990 in which the gap favoring either party was so large: 0
3/08Projected number of enclosed shopping malls that will be built in the United States this year: 0
5/08Number of U.S. presidential elections so far in which the two major-party nominees were both sitting Senators: 0
9/08Number of full-time correspondents that U.S. TV networks have posted in Afghanistan: 0
1/09Date on which the GAO sued Dick Cheney to force the release of documents related to current U.S. energy policy: 2/22/02
1/09Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0
3/09Number of months since record keeping began in 1947 that U.S. consumer prices declined as steeply as in November 2008: 0
10/00Ratio of destructiveness to the ozone layer of a molecule of carbon dioxide to that of a molecule of SF5CF3: 1:18,000
6/02Chance of contracting a “fairly common” form of colon cancer reported on in the New York Times April 4: 1 in 8,000
Chance of a child contracting the “rare disease” neuroblastoma, as cited by another Times article the same day: 1 in 7,000
2/89Chances that a space shuttle will collide with orbital debris during a seven-day mission: 1 in 3,500
7/00Chances that a drug offense by a black U.S. juvenile with no prior jail time will result in imprisonment: 48 in 100,000
Chance that a drug offense by a white juvenile with no prior jail time will do so: 1 in 100,000
1/01Ratio of the record distance for human space flight to the maximum distance depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey: 1:1,642
4/00Ratio of April showers to plants producing May flowers at the Springfield, Illinois, Park District last year: 1:1,571
12/02Percentage by which the speed of light has decreased in the last 20 billion years, according to Australian scientists: 0.0007
12/93Value of the one-million dinar note issued by the Yugoslav National Bank last summer, in dollars: $0.0013
Chance that a U.S. police officer did: 1 in 4,613
2/99Percentage of his wealth that Bill Gates has pledged to donate this year for children’s vaccines in poor countries: 0.0016
1/01Ratio of New York City residents who died of West Nile virus in 1999 to those who died of pneumonia or influenza: 1:619
8/01Chance that a member of the European Parliament voted in January to support E.U. participation in Plan Colombia: 1 in 508
4/98Portion of IRS audits that are conducted on large corporations: 1/500
3/07Month when the total value of euros in circulation worldwide surpassed that of U.S. dollars: 6/2006
12/89Percentage of the insecticide used in the United States each year that actually reaches a targeted insect: .003
12/94Ratio of the price of an ounce of gold to that of an ounce of Zofran, a new anti-nausea drug: 1:292