12/89Cost to a Pole of a commercial flight on LOT Polish Airlines from Gdansk to Warsaw, in zlotys: 5,000
12/92Number of visitors each year to the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, in Minneapolis: 6,000
2/98Number of the 10 million people on Harrah’s Casinos’ database who have been issued Frequent Gambler Cards: 6,000
10/01Minimum number of garden gnomes relocated to the forest since 1996 by France’s Garden Gnome Liberation Front: 6,000
9/02Number of U.S. supermarkets where shoppers can pay using fingerprint readers: 4
Total number of fingerprints on file with supermarkets so far: 6,000
12/04Estimated number of Britons sent government warnings last fall of their increased chance of having mad cow disease: 6,000
12/90Price of a gold-plated refrigerator from the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo: $6,181
3/00Damages awarded this year to prisoners who “suffered reprisals” after the 1971 Attica prison uprising, per prisoner: $6,250
7/99Amount that Gary Bauer’s presidential campaign spent on coffee in the first quarter of this year: $6,297.39
10/02Value of the Dow Jones industrial average in 1996 when Alan Greenspan warned of investors’ “irrational exuberance”: 6,437
2/99Patent number awarded Abraham Lincoln in 1849 on a device for “buoying vessels over shoals”: 6,469
10/87Amount that Gary Hart’s list of 1984 campaign contributors brought at auction in August: $6,500
12/90Price of pectoral implants for a man, from Dr. Brian Novack of Beverly Hills, California: $6,500
7/93Estimated amount of damage caused by vandalism, arson, and bombings at abortion clinics each day last year: $6,500
10/02Number of Argentines who have applied to be on a new job-search game show since April: 6,500
1/04Estimated number of people currently imprisoned in Uzbekistan for their religious or political beliefs: 6,500
10/00Percentage change since 1986 in the annual number of U.S. patents awarded for a gene or gene fragment: +6,519
12/04Percentage of 30-year-old American men who were married, self-supporting fathers in 1960 and 2000, respectively: 65,31
10/89Estimated number of ash trees used to supply major league baseball teams with Louisville Sluggers this year: 6,600
11/97Price last paid at auction for Lee Harvey Oswald’s toe tag: $6,600
4/03Number of the 158 used hard drives purchased for an MIT study this year that contained recoverable data: 129
Minimum number of credit-card numbers the hard drives contained: 6,650
3/97Years of minimum-wage work required to earn what Disney gave Mike Ovitz last year as a separation package: 6,708
10/88Number of the 7,886 Soviet Jews granted Israeli visas this year who settled somewhere other than Israel: 6,739
6/06Estimated number of fake blogs created every day by websites to improve their rankings in search-engine results: 6,750
Percentage change between 2001 and 2007 in the number of instances per year: +76
12/90Number of meditators meditating at once it takes to affect world affairs, according to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: 7,000
12/89Prize offered by Japan’s telephone company to any computer hacker who can penetrate its security system: $7,000
7/95Estimated property damage caused in a New York suburb last spring by a man firing a slingshot from his Lincoln: $7,000
8/99Weight in pounds of a bronze elephant donated to the U.N. last year by Kenya, Namibia, and Nepal: 7,000
Number of days before its unveiling last winter that shrubs and potted trees were positioned to obscure its penis: 1
4/07Estimated number of Americans who die each year as a result of doctors’ sloppy handwriting: 7,000
8/04Words the New York Times devoted last May to examining its own faulty reporting on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: 3,082
Words the Times devoted last year to “correcting the record” after an investigation of reporter Jayson Blair: 7,102
2/08Number of members of The Atlasphere, an Objectivist dating site: 7,125
2/90Number of Harlequin romances Americans bought last year, per hour: 7,191
1/95Number of rubber ducks accidentally spilled in the North Pacific in 1992 by a U.S.-bound freighter: 7,250
9/94Amount the Department of Education will spend this year on a “high-security” phone system: $7,264
4/95Number of Veterans Administration employees whose salaries exceed $100,000 per year: 7,367
9/85Copies of The Catcher in the Rye checked out of public libraries in Chicago and never returned: 7,500
4/89Price of having a human body mummified by the Summum company of Salt Lake City: $7,700
3/02Number of copyright-violation notices sent to U.S. universities last year by a firm tracking students’ music downloads: 7,873
7/05Average number of Americans injured on amusement-park rides each year: 7,900
10/91Number of trial lawyers who have taken acting lessons from Applied Theater Techniques in Los Angeles: 8,000
5/94Maximum fine for publishing “unverified information” in Albania, according to a new law passed last fall: $8,000
5/95Number of Britons seeking medical care each year for injuries sustained while attempting to open cans of corned beef: 8,000
1/99Price that Manhattan’s new NBA boutique charges for a Waterford crystal vase engraved with an image of Larry Bird: $8,000
7/99Average number of murders a U.S. child sees on television by the end of elementary school: 8,000
8/04Maximum voltage New York City’s main post office will deliver to pigeons during the Republican convention: 8,000
4/04Number of votes cast in New Hampshire’s Republican primary this year for write-in Democratic candidates: 8,092
10/96Amount Disney spent last Halloween outfitting Tipper and Al Gore as Beauty and the Beast: $8,365
Percentage of this amount for which Disney was reimbursed by the Democratic National Committee: 100
Date on which the group was first posted to: 3/7/2008
7/88U.S. military spending during the Reagan administration, per second: $8,607
4/02Amount the Justice Department spent in November installing curtains to cover two seminude statues of Justice: $8,650
1/09Amount the Justice Department spent in 2001 installing curtains to cover two seminude statues of Justice: $8,650
9/08Number of North Carolina license plates issued last year that begin with the letters “WTF”: 8,999
1/86Cost per second of advertising time on The Cosby Show: $9,000
11/88Amount the Pentagon has spent this year on test samples of marijuana-laced, freeze-dried urine: $9,000
2/94Price, per flight, of co-piloting a Su-27 Russian fighter jet with a former Soviet test pilot, from MIGS etc. of Florida: $9,000
9/97Estimated number of changes made to James Joyce’s Ulysses for a “people’s edition” published last June: 9,000
6/99Amount New York’s Department of Corrections spent last year on estrogen for 61 inmates who want a sex change: $9,000
7/07Number of U.S. soldiers who have died in combat or non-combat situations while on duty since 2001: 9,185
Pounds of plutonium needed to make an atomic bomb: 15
9/01Number of U.S. college students who were denied federal financial aid last year because of a prior drug conviction: 9,605
6/91Number of U.S. businesses that failed during the six weeks that the United States was at war with Iraq: 9,905
6/02Number of ecstasy tablets seized at Miami’s airport in February from an 81-year-old woman in a wheelchair: 9,931
3/89Price of an eleven-day ski trip to Antarctica, from Adventure Network: $9,995
7/04Price of a bleepinator, a device for TV broadcasters that “surgically removes indecent words and phrases”: $9,995
3/84Astrologers in the United States: 10,000
8/87Amount the Iowa Democratic Party charges candidates for a list of the state’s registered Democrats: $10,000
6/88Average increase in an NBA team’s season attendance when a black player is replaced by a comparable white: 10,000
11/89Age after which Mick Jagger has said that he’d “rather die” than still be performing “Satisfaction”: 45
Estimated amount Mick Jagger, 46, earned each time he performed “Satisfaction” on tour this fall: $10,000
5/90Estimated decrease in U.S. births in the spring if the previous summer’s temperature is 5 degrees above normal: 10,000
5/90Number of ”real close personal friends” on President Bush’s computerized list of correspondents: 10,000
11/90Campaign contribution for which Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini says he “would literally go anyplace”: $10,000
1/91Number of people who attended the funeral in 1989 of Reveille IV, the collie that was the mascot of Texas A&M: 10,000
9/91Number of New York City garment workers who earn less than the minimum wage: 10,000
Amount for which a Florida hygiene teacher is suing Amtrak over a toilet that sprayed him with feces: $10,000
3/93Average life span of an NBA basketball, in bounces: 10,000
7/95Number of people who applied for thirty-six tasting positions at an Oakland ice cream company last winter: 10,000
10/95Number of mail-order catalogues distributed worldwide last year by the L.A. County Coroner’s gift shop: 10,000
5/96Estimated number of robins that mistake electric light for dawn each night in Great Britain: 10,000
8/96Amount Comedy Central paid in May for two acres of Whitewater Development property: $10,000
7/97Maximum fine for bringing one stick of chewing gum into Singapore: $10,000
9/97Number of trout and perch dumped into Russia’s Lake Ukshe last July for Boris Yeltsin’s fishing trip: 10,000
9/98Number of air-traffic controllers ordered to take a two-hour “refresher” course last spring: 10,000
11/98Number of wild turkeys in New Hampshire in 1968: 0
Number there today: 10,000
12/98Donation received last July by a Los Angeles soup kitchen in order to provide shopping carts for the homeless: $10,000
12/99Square miles of errant Antarctic icebergs being tracked by the National Ice Center in Washington, D.C.: 10,000
3/00Fine levied on a California man last fall for shooting an owl with a slingshot, then beating it: $10,000
4/00Maximum tonnage by which pollution reduced China’s potential annual wheat production between 1994 and 1996: 10,000
9/01Prize awarded an Indiana University senior in April in a national “messiest college apartment” contest: $10,000
11/01Estimated number of Colombians who live in “Bill Clinton ,” a homeless settlement near Cartagena: 10,000
9/02Tons of donated U.S. corn refused by Zimbabwe in May because it could not be certified genetically unmodified: 10,000
4/03Amount for which Dow Chemical is suing Indian protesters over a two-hour demonstration held in Bhopal last year: $10,000
7/03Percentage by which a British flag maker’s sales of U.S. flags in March exceeded those a year earlier: 25
4/04Number of MP3 players designed to be clipped inside an AK-47’s ammunition chamber sold worldwide last year: 10,000
12/04Number of body bags a New Orleans suburb secured for this year’s hurricane season: 10,000
12/06Minimum number of PlayStation 3s whose spare processing power will be used next year for biological research: 10,000
Factor by which the interconnected game systems will be faster than the world’s most powerful supercomputer: 5
7/07Donation Arnold Schwarzenegger was given by Donald Trump after appearing on The Apprentice in March: $10,000
Amount it could earn each year with a wind turbine on it: $10,000
10/08Estimated number of different chemical compounds that could be used as the basis of a more efficient battery: 10,000
11/98Average number of Americans who turn fifty each day: 10,065
3/99Number of virgins who have bought an insurance policy against immaculate conception next year: 10,113
8/06Years that Missouri has allowed gambling addicts to bar themselves for life from riverboat casinos: 10
Number who have signed up so far: 10,119
7/85Cost of first-class passage on a 14-day South Pacific cruise to see Halley’s comet with Carl Sagan: $10,220
7/89Number of FAA-certified pilots whose driver’s licenses have been revoked or suspended due to drunk driving: 10,300
9/90Price of Cybervac, a self-navigating robotic vacuum cleaner, from Cyberworks of Ontario, Canada: $10,500
12/93Price of a gold-and-diamond pendant sold in China this year to commemorate the centennial of Mao Zedong’s birth: $10,500
9/89Amount Los Angeles rapid transit spent last year on pocketless uniforms to discourage stealing by workers: $10,528
7/03Tons of toxic soil that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has removed from the site since 2001: 10,660
12/99Total number of nuclear weapons worldwide when the first nuclear test ban negotiations began in 1958: 10,713
Percentage by which the number had changed by the time the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963: +220
Percentage by which it has changed since then: -7
11/96Number of press releases Bob Dole issued during his congressional career: 10,931
1/85Number of Americans who have applied for a seat on the space shuttle: 11,000
11/87Number of computer, radar, and systems maintenance technicians employed by the FAA in 1978: 11,000
1/90Net foreign debt owed to U.S. government, businesses, and citizens in 1981, per American family: $2,500
Net foreign debt owed by U.S. government, businesses, and citizens in 1989, per American family: $11,000
5/90Total amount two New York lawyers were fined for having a fistfight during a deposition last year: $11,000
12/90Minimum amount each Soviet family emigrating to Israel this year received in Israeli government subsidies: $11,000
Estimated percentage of Soviet immigrants to Israel this year who are professionals: 55
8/94Estimated square feet of leaks in the concrete container housing the disabled Chernobyl reactor: 11,000
12/99Estimated number of the 222,200 “armor-piercing bomblets” dropped on Kosovo last spring that remain unexploded: 11,110
11/97Tons of flowers and other tokens deposited outside Princess Diana’s palace in the week following her death: 11,200
1/87Pages in the published transcripts of Congressional hearings on the 1986 defense budget: 11,246
8/94Value of the prosthetic breasts and bathing suits stolen from a Fort Lauderdale store last year: $11,250
9/90Amount the New York City Transit Authority has spent this year on psychological counseling for its executives: $11,500
5/95Average amount spent on the tires used by each car during the Indianapolis 500: $11,648
12/07Number of Christmas trees FedExed last year to U.S. troops: 11,854
Number of Palestinians who have been laid off by Israeli manufacturers this year: 8,500
3/94Calls made to the DOE hotline last December by Americans believing they had been used in radioactive drug tests: 12,000
3/03Amount the U.S. Air Force will pay a Texas woman this year for mistakenly hitting her home with a dummy bomb: $12,000
6/02Total amount of federal farm subsidies received by Kenneth Lay since 1996: $12,038
8/08Number of condoms shipped to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station in January, just before winter began: 12,132
4/90Number of times Noriega’s prisoner number was bet in the first Florida state lottery held after he was arrested: 12,139
9/94Estimated number of labor disputes in China last year, according to the Chinese government: 12,358
4/01Tons of antibiotics and antimicrobials given to healthy U.S. farm animals each year: 12,500
6/92Miles of ties given for Father’s Day in the United States each year: 12,600
12/01Total number of bids placed on Bidforsurgery.com since last year: 12,600
10/01Estimated number of mink released from a Spanish fur farm in July by unidentified activists: 13,000
2/85Average yearly increase in the number of women in the U.S. military during the first Reagan Administration: 6,615
8/87Vials of bleach that will be distributed to IV-drug users in San Francisco this year: 14,000
10/88Average cost of successfully treating a drug addict: $3,850
Estimated annual expense incurred by an untreated addict, in health, welfare, and law enforcement costs: $14,000
4/91Number of U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam before a Washington antiwar rally drew more than 75,000 people: 14,000
Number of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf before the January 26 rally that drew more than 75,000 people: 0
11/98Chance that a character depicted last year in a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon is trademarked: 1 in 2
Cubic feet of gas Macy’s devoted last year to Bumpé, a “capricious Laplandic cow” sponsored by a Swedish firm: 14,000
2/05Number of U.K. Guardian readers who signed up last fall to write pro-Kerry letters to voters in Clark County, Ohio: 14,000
Number of Ohio counties besides Clark that switched from backing Al Gore in 2000 to backing President Bush in 2004: 0
12/07Number of golf clubs a Phoenix tourism group is sending to troops overseas as part of its “Operation White Christmas”: 14,000
8/07Number of words spoken by Clarence Thomas during Supreme Court oral arguments since February 2006: 132
Number by Samuel Alito, the Justice who spoke the second-fewest words: 14,404
5/97Contributions to the DNC made by White House overnight guests, per square foot of the Lincoln bedroom: $14,442.50
4/88Number of times this year that the IRS has telephoned its own tax help line to check its quality: 14,600
4/01Pounds of paper used to produce 400 hard copies of New York City’s report on the Fresh Kills landfill’s closing: 14,800
6/03Amount the U.S. Air Force spent on a “nostalgic juke box” for a base in Saudi Arabia in the last two years: $14,835
Amount it spent on cowboy hats: $4,896