In 3 ounces of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream: 7.5
5/84Percentage change in U.S. video game sales, 1982-83: -10
In adult board game sales: +12
3/87Rank of the outdoors and trains among the unconventional places in which Canadians say they’ve had sex: 1,2
11/87Number of people who listen to the Watergate tapes at the National Archives in an average week: 12
11/88Tons of jelly beans the White House has purchased from the Goelitz Candy Company since 1981: 12
7/89Rank of July, among all months last year, in the amount of prime-time television watched by Americans: 12
8/89Rank of the works of the Disney Company and V. I. Lenin, among those most widely translated: 1,2
9/89Number of last year’s network TV pilots that were about police officers: 5
Number of this year’s that are: 12
11/89Number of months Israeli authorities can detain a West Bank Palestinian without formal charges or trial: 12
10/90Rank of the environment and Bush, among the leading topics of jokes on late-night network talk shows last year: 1,2
1/91University of Colorado employees traveling to the Orange Bowl this month to handle mascot Ralphie the Buffalo: 12
3/91Percentage of Americans who say they would like to have dinner with George Bush: 7
4/91Average number of months an American teenage girl is sexually active before using birth control: 12
9/91Average number of weeks it took the poultry industry to produce a full-grown chicken in 1940: 12
Average number of weeks it takes today: 6
2/92Number of times Bill Clinton used the term “middle class” in the speech announcing his candidacy for president: 12
4/92Number of weeks “Croatia’s Gotta Be Free” has been in the top ten on Croatia’s largest radio station: 12
6/92Number of U.S. companies with $1 billion or more in assets that filed for bankruptcy last year: 12
6/92Number of animals that Africanized killer bees have killed since crossing the U.S. border in 1990: 12
4/93Number of rolls of cherry-flavored Lifesavers Frank Sinatra’s contract requires be provided backstage at each show: 12
7/93Ratio of the number of drug offenders sent to state prisons in 1990 to the number sent in 1980: 12:1
9/93Maximum number of handguns a Virginian may purchase per year under the state’s new gun-control law: 12
10/93Number of the 60 gardeners employed by the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas who are responsible for artificial plants: 12
10/93Rank of Mother Teresa and Elizabeth Taylor, among the women most admired by U.S. Latinos: 1,2
Rank of Bill Clinton and the Pope, among the men most admired: 1,2
12/93Number of times President Clinton used the word “security” in his health-care speech before Congress in September: 12
Number of times he used the word “security” in his speech before the United Nations a week later: 7
12/93Number of articles in which Hillary Clinton has been compared to Eleanor Roosevelt: 12
2/94Weeks after his arrest for shoplifting last year that a former secretary of the army was hired as a Pentagon consultant: 12
2/94Issues of Mad the magazine will give Prince Charles this year for winning its Alfred E. Neuman Look-Alike Contest: 12
10/94Rank of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, among the best-selling president masks last Halloween: 1,2
11/94Number of months of government-paid leave allowed Swedish parents under a new law passed in June: 12
1/96Months of “corrective labor” to which. a Russian journalist may be sentenced for ridiculing President Yeltsin: 12
2/96Rank of Bob Dole and Steve Forbes among presidential candidates investors say make them feel “most bullish”: 1,2
4/96Number of times Bob Dole said “Bob Dole” during a speech to the Iowa Pork Producers Association in January: 12
8/96Number of Ben & Jerry’s Peace Pops sold each week through Pentagon vending machines: 12
2/97Percentage of Americans who believe that Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife: 12
5/97Number of temporary tattoos sported by Pat Boone while promoting his new album, In a Metal Mood: 12
6/97Number of years the head of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America served as CEO of a pharmaceutical firm: 12
10/97Months two British neighbors spent hooting at owls at night before realizing they were hooting at each other: 12
1/98Estimated number of times that the late former congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce dropped acid: 12
5/98Number of years Britain’s Prince Charles has farmed organically: 12
1/99Hours after ABC’s technical union declared a strike last fall that Al Gore canceled an ABC interview: 12
1/99Hours after Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic agreed to last fall’s Kosovo peace plan that he closed two newspapers: 12
1/99Number of Boston library workers who required counseling last summer after a flood soaked 50,000 cartons of books: 12
4/99Number of the Pentagon’s 9 Stealth bombers that have ever been deployed in combat: 0
5/99Rank of retired and housewife, among the most common “occupations” of donors to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund: 1,2
9/99Average number of different drug prescriptions filled each year by an American over the age of 74: 12
1/00Projected rank of heart disease and severe depression among the leading causes of death and disability in 2020: 1,2
3/00Rank of Adam Sandler and Bill Gates among the most popular role models with male college freshmen: 1,2
3/00Number of Playboy centerfold models since 1959 whose bios claimed their favorite book was by Ayn Rand: 12
5/00Factor by which a shipment of Ukrainian mushrooms seized by French customs last year exceeded legal radiation limits: 12
9/00Number of national and independent armies fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: 12
6/01Performance of the Panama Canal Authority last year, on a scale of one to ten, according to its advisory board’s chair: 12
7/01Rank of cancer and suicide, respectively, among the top causes of death of Japanese bureaucrats last year: 1,2
10/01Number of staff members fired from New York’s nonprofit WBAI-FM since December and banned from its premises: 12
Number of surveillance cameras installed at WBAI’s studios in May to monitor remaining employees: 8
2/02Minimum percentage of votes in each New York City election since 1988 not counted due to mechanical or human error: 3
Number of May Day demonstrators the city prosecuted last June for “masquerading in public”: 12
7/02Number of times Attorney General John Ashcroft has overruled a local prosecutor’s decision not to seek the death penalty: 12
Average number of times former attorney general Janet Reno did this in as many months: 7
7/02Number of Florida State University students arrested in March for protesting while not in a designated “free-speech area”: 12
8/02Number of northern Nigerian states in which being divorced and pregnant is enough evidence for an adultery conviction: 12
9/02Rank of the United States and Britain among countries viewed most favorably by Muslims aged 15 to 25: 1,2
11/02Rank of the United States and Britain among nations whose residents are most likely to be obese: 1,2
12/02Rank of Israel and Turkey among nations in violation of the largest number of U.N. Security Council resolutions: 1,2
1/03Number of U.S. presidents since 1860 whose party controlled both houses of Congress by the third year of their first term: 12
Number of these presidents whose party already controlled both houses: 10
Number whose bid for reelection failed: 1
2/03Rank of the size of Russia’s and Turkey’s standing armies, respectively, among Europe’s largest: 1,2
3/03Months after Ohio’s Flesh Public Library installed Internet filters in 2000 that the filters blocked its own website: 12
4/03Rank of Kim Jong Il and the Saudi royal family among the world’s worst dictators, according to Parade magazine: 1,2
11/03Years it took the U.S. Geological Survey to conclude that Arctic refuge drilling would substantially reduce caribou: 12
1/04Rank of oil exports and money sent home by U.S. immigrants, respectively, among Mexico’s largest sources of income: 1,2
1/04Rank of rhinoplasty and liposuction among the most common plastic surgeries performed on men in the U.S.: 1,2
Rank of rhinoplasty and penile enlargement among those most commonly performed on men in the U.K.: 2, 1
2/04Percentage margin by which a Milosevic-supported candidate won Serbia’s presidential election last November: 12
Percentage by which that election’s turnout fell short of the threshold Serbia requires for lawful elections: 11
3/04Estimated percentage of British food-poisoning infections caused by bottled water: 12
6/04Rank of Venice and Kuwait City among cities where hotels generate the most revenue per room: 1,2
9/04Number of Congress members who have signed a letter asking the U.N. to monitor this year’s U.S. presidential election: 12
2/06Average percentage by which U.S. senators’ investments outperform the stock market each year: 12
9/06Rank of AIDS and pregnancy, respectively, among the top causes of death worldwide for girls aged 10 to 19: 1,2
9/06Age at which consensual sex should be legal, according to the platform of a new political party of Dutch pedophiles: 12
10/06Rank of the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, respectively, among Lebanon’s top employers: 1,2
3/07Rank of Iran and the United States, respectively, among nations with the most living kidney donors per capita: 1,2
6/07Number of the sixteen states of the South where more than 25 percent of adults are clinically obese: 12
Number of all other states where this is true: 5
8/08Percentage change by 2012 in the after-tax income of the top 0.1 percent of U.S. earners, under Barack Obama’s tax plan: –5
Percentage change under John McCain’s tax plan: +12
9/08Surcharge that Holly Springs, Georgia, has added to speeding tickets to pay for its officers’ gasoline: $12
10/08Number of U.S. gas stations where the group Pray at the Pump has gathered to ask God to lower the price: 12
2/09Percentage by which chewing gum reduces anxiety during conditions of mild to moderate stress: 12
3/91Percentage of American workers who are looking for a job, have given up looking, or can find only part-time work: 12.7
12/05Average number of credit cards per U.S. household: 12.7
8/97Price of a charcoal-lined, U.S. military-surplus body bag from the Sportsman’s Guide catalogue: $12.88
11/85Percentage of trees in New Hampshire whose leaves turned red this fall: 13
Percentage whose leaves turned red 35 years ago: 9
U.S. tests: 13
8/91Percentage of the electricity consumed in the United States that is used for air-conditioning: 13
10/91Number of states that have passed laws to protect Little League coaches from civil lawsuits: 13
9/86Number of major corporations that contributed more to Senator Packwood in 1985 than they paid in taxes: 13
10/87Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of senior government officials who are political appointees: +13
1/88Percentage of water beds that are in California: 13
3/88Percentage of black voters who consider George Bush the “craziest” candidate: 13
1/91Hours after the 1991 tax increase was passed that President Bush promised to “hold the line on taxes” from now on: 13
7/91Number of gambling casinos an Austrian company has opened in Czechoslovakia since January 1990: 13
8/91Weeks after President Nixon referred to Rehnquist as “Renschler” and a “clown” that he appointed him to the Court: 13
11/91Percentage increase in the U.S. GNP during the first three years of the Carter Administration: 13
11/91Percentage of Americans who say they are “addicted” to television: 13
5/92Percentage of women who cite a suspected fetal-health problem among the reasons for their abortion: 13
8/92Number of countries that have issued at least one Elvis Presley postage stamp: 13
1/93Number of years in office Saddam Hussein will celebrate this summer: 13
3/93Average number of years a Clinton cabinet member has worked in Washington: 13
5/95Number of times the word “Newtonian” has appeared in the New York Times this year: 13
Number of times it referred to Isaac Newton: 3
9/98Days a Denver school principal was put on leave last May for allowing students a sip of wine on a trip to Paris: 13
4/99Percentage of Chile’s spending on its privatized pension system that goes toward administration: 13
Percentage of spending last year on the U.S. Social Security system that did: 1
4/99Factor by which U.S. stock market growth must exceed GDP growth for Social Security stock investment to work: 5
8/99Days after President Roosevelt’s death in April 1945 that Vice President Truman was told the atomic bomb existed: 13
2/01Weeks that a Massachusetts school prohibited a boy from cross-dressing last fall before a judge overturned the ban: 13
5/01Length, in millimeters, of an I.D. microchip that Singapore now implants in the necks of all imported dogs: 13
11/01Number of years that Osama bin Laden’s half-brother owned the Houston Gulf Airport before his death in 1988: 6
Number of years since then that the airport has been owned by his estate: 13
11/02Number of Latin American nations where the percentage of people calling themselves “leftist” has increased since 1996: 2
Number of Latin American nations where the percentage of people calling themselves “rightist” has increased: 13
3/03Rank shared by Jesus Christ and Bill Clinton among “the greatest Americans of all time,” according to Americans: 13
9/03Ratio of the number of Ethiopians at risk from famine today to those who died in 1984’s record famine: 13:1
10/03Number of states that require energy companies to derive a percentage of their output from alternative sources: 13
7/04Number of times after prison-abuse photos aired in April that the President boasted of freeing Iraq of torture chambers: 13
3/05Average number of years by which a 2004 study found the cells of chronically stressed women to have prematurely aged: 13
9/05Number of years that the world’s tallest hotel has stood uncompleted in North Korea: 13
6/07Percentage of CEOs of S&P 500 companies whose homes are at least 10,000 square feet or sit on more than ten acres: 13
Average percentage by which growth in their companies’ stock prices lagged behind that of CEOs with smaller homes: 7
7/08Average percentage by which a bar-smoking ban in a U.S. county increases the rate of drunk-driving fatalities: 13
10/08Number of Middle Eastern nations that have announced plans to pursue nuclear power since January 2007: 13
1/05Average number of suicides per 100,000 residents in states carried by President Bush in November: 13.5
Average number of suicides in states carried by John Kerry: 9.9
12/05Percentage of middle-class Americans who spent more than a third of their income on home ownership in 1975: 2.8
Percentage in 2001: 13.5
11/02Percentage of the $3.1 billion owed by securities-law violators between 1995 and 2001 that the SEC has recouped: 13.6
4/86Percentage of Fortune 500 chief executive officers who say they “lose sleep over the competition”: 13.7
8/84Number of countries thought to possess chemical weapons: 14-16
7/86Percentage increase in cases of tuberculosis in New York City in 1985: 14
1/87Percentage of the fish and shellfish harvested in the United States in 1975 that came from farms: 3
4/87Number of information operators on duty weeknights at 2 A.M. in Mississippi: 2
2/90Average number of days a divorced middle-aged American woman spends sick in bed each year: 14
8/90Number of El Salvador’s 15 highest-ranking officers whose troops have committed “brutal human rights abuses”: 14
Number of these officers who have received U.S. training: 12
2/92Number of times David Duke used the word “welfare” in the speech announcing his candidacy for president: 14
6/92Number of San Quentin death-row inmates who are suing the state of California for the right to procreate: 14
10/92Number of years after Columbus’s first Atlantic crossing that a map including the Americas was printed: 14
11/92Number of the 28 major armed conflicts taking place worldwide in which religious differences are involved: 14
6/93Average percentage change last year in a U.S. movie’s box-office gross between the first and second weeks of release: -32
11/93Number of camera crews at the National Archives’ unveiling of new documents about the Kennedy assassination in August: 14
7/94Number of Norman Rockwell paintings owned by Steven Spielberg: 14
2/95Number of times the word “tsunami” appeared in the New York Times in the month following last fall’s elections: 14
12/95Ratio of Republican to Democratic presidential vetoes overridden by Congress since 1960: 14:1
1/96Number of Western European countries whose deficit represents a higher portion of GDP than the U.S. deficit does: 14
6/97Number of Latin American countries in which a rapist is exonerated if the victim accepts his marriage proposal: 14
9/97Number of the 14 black students that the school admitted this year who have decided not to attend: 14
4/98Number of biological materials with military potential sent to Iraq by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s: 14
4/98Months after Bill Clinton’s inauguration that heterosexual fellatio was legalized in Washington, D.C.: 4
Number of states in which the practice is still illegal: 14
11/98Number of ornamental figures based on German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Germany’s Garden Gnome Museum: 14
1/99Extra days of legal duck hunting this month in three Southern states as a result of Senator Trent Lott’s lobbying: 14
6/99Number of men ticketed for indecent exposure in Opelousas, Louisiana, last year for wearing low-riding pants: 14
2/01Average number of brand-name items requested per shopping trip by a U.S. child between the ages of four and twelve: 14