12/84Percentage of Americans who, in 1981, thought their chances of surviving a nuclear war were fifty-fifty: 32
10/85Percentage increase in capital spending by businesses during the first Reagan Administration: 23.4
During the Carter Administration: 32
4/87Percentage of American car buyers who say they enjoy haggling with the dealer over price: 32
6/87Percentage change, since 1986, in the number of Americans who say the U.S. is apt to spread disinformation: +32
12/87Number of U.S. cities and towns named Santa Claus: 3
2/89Percentage of Gilligan’s Island episodes that were about getting off the island: 32
2/93Percentage of incarcerated burglars who say they looked at their victims’ family photo albums: 32
11/93Estimated number of comic strips in which Lucy has snatched a football from Charlie Brown, mid-kick: 32
5/94Percentage of American adults who believe that if they used a personal computer they would damage it: 32
6/94Percentage of registered Republicans who favor ending the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba: 32
8/94Number of writers who contributed to the screenplay of The Flintstones: 32
4/01Number of accidents involving U.S. nuclear arms between 1950 and 1980, according to the Pentagon: 32
11/01Number of Italian police instructors who were trained for July’s Genoa summit by L.A. sheriff’s department officers: 32
11/04Rank of antidepressants and anti-ulcer drugs among the best-selling prescription drugs worldwide last year: 3,2
12/05Number of U.S. soldiers who have posted photographs of dead Iraqis or Afghans on Nowthatsfuckedup.com: 32
Cost of the access to the site’s pornography that each soldier was given in exchange: $20
11/06Percentage by which the number of U.S. house fires on Thanksgiving Day exceeds the daily average: 32
6/07Percentage change since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty line: +32
10/08Percentage change since 2003 in the amount of money invested in U.S. faith-based mutual funds: +32
Average annualized percentage return since then in the Christian and Muslim funds, respectively: +7, +11
11/08Percentage of Americans in 2006 who were “not at all” confident that President Bush had won reelection “fair and square”: 32
In the United States: 32.3
Percentage of President Eisenhower’s time that was spent this way: 33
11/85Percentage of South Korea’s gross national product accounted for by export earnings: 33
8/07Number of states where middle school reading scores have improved since 2002, as measured by the states’ tests: 33
Number of these states where reading scores showed any improvement on a thirty-eight-year-old national test: 8
4/86Percentage of Republicans in 1955 who were white Southerners: 10
3/87Percentage of prostitutes in India who say their husband or a relative forced them into the profession: 33
6/89Percentage of all oil released into the world’s oceans last year that was the result of “routine operations”: 33
10/89Ratio of per capita Nicaraguan war casualties since 1979 to per capita American war casualties in Vietnam: 33:1
12/89Number of filing cabinets full of jokes in Bob Hope’s fireproof vaults: 33
6/94Ratio of the number of job inquiries received last year by the Peace Corps to the number of positions available: 33:1
7/96Number of the 33 McDonald’s in Washington, D.C., that the city has equipped with community policing stations: 33
9/01Number of Austrian skinheads who have attended college classes this year as an alternative to criminal prosecution: 33
8/02Projected percentage by which melting Arctic ice will shorten shipping routes between Europe and East Asia by 2020: 33
12/02Pounds of weapons-grade uranium reported to have been seized in September from a taxi in Turkey: 33
Ounces of black sand that the container-labeled “primarily youranuom”-actually contained: 0.2
10/03Percentage change in the number of Colombians killed or disappeared since the U.S. implemented Plan Colombia: +33
5/04Number of years a North Carolina man has been in prison for stealing a television: 33
11/06Minimum decibel level, on average, at which African Americans in a recent study could hear a high-pitched sound: 21
1/07Factor by which Hillary Clinton’s spending on her 2006 reelection exceeded that of any other Democratic candidate: 2.5
Maximum percentage support that her opponent, John Spencer, ever got in polls: 33
Number under the U.S.‒Canada border: 1
Percentage of West Germans who say this: 6
9/87Number of the 142 nominations to the Supreme Court since 1789 that were not confirmed: 34
Number of the six Supreme Court nominations made by John Tyler that were not confirmed: 5
Number of the four made by Millard Fillmore: 3
9/87Pairs of elastic sock garters George Bush received as gifts in 1986: 34
1/88Average number of days Mario Cuomo traveled outside New York State each year from 1984 to 1986: 16
2/88Rate of separation among Swedish couples who married after first living together (in percent): 34
9/89Percentage of new U.S. public school teachers who say they plan to quit the profession within 5 years: 34
8/90Percentage of rural Chinese couples who say they usually spend less than a minute on foreplay: 34
1/92Average number of cheerleading-related injuries reported each day in the United States: 34
11/92Percentage change, since 1987, in licenses for bow and arrow hunting issued in the United States: +34
5/94Number of films designated as compulsory viewing for Beijing school children by the Chinese government last fall: 34
9/98Average number of public school students expelled each school day last year for gun possession: 34
11/98Number of political parties represented by the 5,065 candidates running for the German legislature last September: 34
6/03Number of sites nationwide where farmers grew “pharmaceutical crops” last year: 34
2/04Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer’s absence: $34
10/04Years after leaving his post during the Vietnam War that a Connecticut man was arrested for desertion in July: 34
5/05Percentage of owners of private businesses in China who are members of the Communist Party: 34
6/05Percentage of the world’s Anglican bishops that have condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church’s ordination of a gay bishop: 34
8/06Percentage by which white women who often spend time in the sun are less at risk of breast cancer than those who do not: 34
5/07Number of suits filed against Rudy Giuliani between 1994 and 2001 by the New York Civil Liberties Union: 34
8/07Percentage of British children aged seven to eleven who say they “worry about global warming”: 34
8/07Number of U.N. staffers in New York who still have full-time jobs monitoring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction: 34
Date on which the U.S. first proposed a Security Council resolution to disband the monitoring team: 6/8/07
6/08Percentage of American men with a net worth of at least $20 million who admit to having paid for sex: 34
12/94Price of a 12-gram canister of frankincense and a 7-gram canister of myrrh, from a Maryland company: $34.95
12/84Percentage of college men who say they might commit rape if there were no chance of being caught: 35
6/86Percentage change in Chrysler’s profit in 1985: -31.3
In Lee Iacocca’s salary and benefits: +35
9/88Number of Salvadorans killed by death squads in 1987: 24
9/88Percentage of Americans who say that El Salvador’s government is a pro-Soviet regime: 35
2/89Price of a one-year subscription to Incurable Romantix, a computerized love-letter service: $35
4/89Portion of U.S. government revenue in 1989 that will come from Social Security taxes: 1/4
Percentage increase in the 1989 U.S. budget deficit if Social Security funds are not counted as revenue: 35
12/89Percentage of American men who say they deal with depression by trying to figure out their problems: 23
Percentage who say they deal with depression by watching television: 35
6/90Number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Territories in the first 3 months of this year: 30
Number killed as “collaborators” by other Palestinians: 35
2/92Percentage increase in appropriations for the Strategic Defense Initiative voted by Congress last November: 35
7/93Hourly wage the Resolution Trust Corporation paid contract workers last year to photocopy documents: $35
4/94Number of movie deals proposed to Nancy Kerrigan in the week after she was assaulted in January: 35
8/95Percentage of Americans who don’t know that Hiroshima was the site of the first atomic-bomb attack: 35
Percentage who believe the attack was ordered by Richard Nixon: 1
1/96Percentage of Americans who favor placing ads on the dollar bill to help cut the deficit or lower taxes: 35
5/96Number of shades of white offered in the new Ralph Lauren paint collection: 35
1/97Percentage change since 1989 in the number of children living in poverty who have at least one working parent: +35
3/01Minimum number of mentally retarded Americans who have been executed by the justice system since 1976: 35
8/02Percentage change last year in the total profits of Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies: +35
Percentage change in the total profits of all Fortune 500 companies: -54
1/03Minutes that a Massachusetts surgeon left a patient with an open incision in July while he went to deposit a check: 35
2/03Number of years the New York Police Department’s new Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence worked for the CIA: 35
12/04Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion: 35
4/05Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35
Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35
12/05Price in South Africa next year of a latex vaginal insert that latches onto a rapist’s penis and requires surgical removal: 35¢
6/06Percentage change in U.S. discretionary spending during the first five years of George W. Bush’s presidency: +35
Percentage change during Lyndon Johnson’s and Bill Clinton’s first five years, respectively: +25, ‒8
1/07Percentage of their total cost that five audited Iraqi reconstruction projects spent on overhead costs: 35
Average number of months after workers and equipment were ordered to Iraq that substantial work on the projects began: 6
10/07Percentage change in the average amount of food a person will consume when eating with one other person: +35
Percentage change with four or seven others, respectively: +75, +96
12/07Percentage of contributions from members of the U.S. military for 2002 campaigns that went to Democrats: 23
Percentage for 2008 campaigns so far: 35
1/09Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35
Percentage of those burglaries that are committed by a relative or acquaintance of the victim: 36
8/85Percentage of female executives who say that wearing perfume helps a woman’s career: 36
3/86Percentage of all bills Congress passed in 1985 that established commemorative days, weeks, or months: 36
5/87Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest one percent of Americans in 1972: 28
3/88Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 30
Percentage of North America that is: 36
1/89Percentage of book reviewers who say it is ethical to review a book without having finished it: 36
11/90Percentage of hunting injuries in Georgia that are the result of hunters falling out of trees: 36
8/93Percentage change, since 1990, in contributions to congressional campaigns made by health-care industry PACs: +36
1/94Percentage of Russians who believe their country will become more democratic in the next few years: 36
10/96Maximum months of maternity leave Croatia’s new “family values” plan allows an employed, pregnant mother of two: 36
2/97Number of years the mother in the Family Circus cartoon had the same hairstyle before changing it last year: 36
9/97Number of languages taught in U.S. colleges and universities that were not taught there 10 years ago: 36
Number of languages taught 10 years ago that are not taught today: 15
1/98Number of hours a Moscow hotel flew a Microsoft flag within view of Red Square last fall when Bill Gates visited: 36
Number of lunches Gates ate in Moscow that were not from McDonald’s: 0
9/98Percentage of full-time U.S. undergraduates who are over the age of 22: 36
2/99Percentage change since 1997 in the number of South Korean suicides: +36
12/01Percentage change between 1998 and 1999 in the number of women construction workers: +36
9/03Maximum number of miles that Ford’s most fuel-efficient 2003 car can drive on a gallon of gas: 36
2/04Percentage by which health-care spending by an obese American exceeds that by an American of normal weight: 36
Percentage by which health-care spending by a daily smoker exceeds that by a nonsmoker: 21
5/04Days before last year’s invasion of Iraq that Osama bin Laden called Saddam Hussein a “socialist infidel”: 36
8/04Approval rating of Lyndon Johnson in March 1968, the month he announced he would not run for reelection: 36
5/05Percentage of U.S. high-school students who believe news stories should require “government approval” before publication: 36
6/07Percentage of British Muslims aged 16 to 24 who advocate death for Muslims who convert to another faith: 36
Percentage who say they “admire organizations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West”: 13
9/86Percentage of jobs created in the United States between 1978 and 1984 that pay less than $9,200 annually: 37
10/86Percentage of men who say their biggest sports thrill would be to get the winning hit in the World Series: 32
12/87Average amount of time a child spends in Santa Claus’s lap at Macy’s (in seconds): 37
3/89Number of the Pentagon’s U.S. suppliers that were bought by foreign-owned companies in the first half of 1988: 37
2/90Percentage of Catholic members of the House who voted last fall to federally fund abortions for rape victims: 37
4/91Percentage increase, since 1988, in the number of American college students who have their own credit card: 37
7/92Percentage of Canadians who expect their country to become a part of the United States in the next 50 years: 37
10/92Percentage of Americans in their 20s who say that corruption is an “important factor in getting ahead”: 37
9/93Number of Shemp Howard’s canceled checks sold this year by Odyssey Group of Corona, California, for $695 apiece: 37
11/94Percentage of Americans who think U.S. military forces should be used to “reinstate democratically elected leaders”: 37
3/95Percentage of Americans who favor returning to “President Reagan’s economic policies of the 1980s”: 37
5/95Number of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays quoted on the Senate floor last year by Robert Byrd: 37
12/95Percentage of Americans convicted on federal drug charges in 1991 who turned informant to reduce their sentence: 19
Percentage of those convicted last year who did so: 37
2/96Percentage of Americans who say that Ronald Reagan was the president who “best personified cool ranch tortilla chips”: 25
Percentage who say that Abraham Lincoln was the president who “best personified pretzel logs”: 37
2/97Number of Shakespeare’s 37 plays that West Virginia senator Robert Byrd has quoted on the Senate floor: 37
7/97Lines of Walt Whitman poetry entered as evidence last year in New York’s dispute with New Jersey over Ellis Island: 37
12/99Percentage of federal nuclear-safety inspectors that the Senate proposed laying off last year: 37
7/00Minimum number of new bacteria species discovered to exist in the human mouth last year: 37
9/02Percentage of U.S. college students who say they would try to evade the draft if one were called today: 37
3/03Minimum number of California concerts canceled since August because of new U.S. visa policies: 37
Number of the 22 Cuban nominees invited to last year’s Latin Grammy Awards unable to attend because of such policies: 22
8/03Percentage of pedestrian fatalities on U.S. roadways last year in which the driver was drunk: 18
Percentage in which the pedestrian was: 37
2/04Rank of the U.S. health-care system among the most efficient in the world, according to the World Health Organization: 37
8/05Percentage of newlywed couples who report having had a physically violent fight in the year before marriage: 37
2/08Percentage of likely Republican voters last October who knew that Rudolph Giuliani was pro-choice: 37
1/09Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term: 37
2/87Price of a bouquet of wilted, dead, or beheaded flowers at Drop Dead Flowers in New York City: $37.50
12/86Percentage of Americans today who say that being single is “not a fully acceptable lifestyle”: 38
12/94Price of 3,4 ounces of Guilt, a new cologne from The Territory Ahead, a Santa Barbara company: $38