Harper’s Index

Number of the U.N.'s 21 human-rights agreements that have been ratified by the United States: 4¹

Number of the U.N.'s 31 global environmental agreements that have been: 10²

Federal funds budgeted this year for cleanup of the Defense Department's hazardous waste: $7,460,000,000³

Minimum number of hours of blackouts predicted for California this summer: 260⁴

Estimated year in which El Paso, Texas, will exhaust its current sources of water: 2030⁵

Year in which Iceland plans to have ceased all use of fossil fuels: 2030⁶

Number of 21 cruise ships tested by Alaska last summer whose wastewater met federal sewage-treatment standards: 1⁷

Number of U.S. marine sanctuaries where fishing is illegal: 0⁸

Percentage of U.S. coastal waters where this is true: 0.005⁹

Percentage of U.S. land where hunting is illegal: 3.5¹⁰

Estimated number of court decisions citing federal negligence in endangered-species protection that remain unheeded: 270¹¹

Percentage of these decisions that President Bush has proposed to allow the government to ignore indefinitely: 100¹²

Number of new worker-protection rules whose enactment Bush ordered postponed on his first day in office: 9¹³

Ratio of the starting salary of an Oklahoma prison guard to the federal poverty level for a family of four: 10:11¹⁴

Chances that a Mississippi African American opposes removing the state flag's Confederate emblem: 3 in 10¹⁵

Duration in decades of an Alabama study that allowed hundreds of syphilitic African Americans to go untreated: 4¹⁶

Number of decades between the end of the study and the Alabama legislature's expression of "regret" over it in May: 3¹⁷

Percentage of Americans who believe that Timothy McVeigh was acting as part of an as-yet-unidentified "larger group": 40¹⁸

Age at which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enlisted in an underground Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine: 14¹⁹

Months after his election in February that Sharon criticized Palestinians for "sending children to the front": 2²⁰

Percentage of Palestinians working in Israel last summer who lost their job after Israel's blockade began in October: 70²¹

Percentage of the working residents of Del Rio, Texas, who are directly employed in the war on drugs: 20²²

Estimated percentage of Colombia's cocaine exports controlled by right-wing paramilitary leaders: 40²³

Number of right-wing Colombian groups on the United States' designated foreign terrorist list: 0²⁴

Number of left-wing Colombian groups on the list: 2²⁵

Chance that a member of the European Parliament voted in January to support E.U. participation in Plan Colombia: 1 in 508²⁶

Number of domestic U.S. military target-practice sites that are closer to populated areas than the one on Vieques: 6²⁷

Ratio of the cancer rate on Puerto Rico's main island to that on Vieques: 5:6²⁸

Chance that a baby born in Belarus will contract thyroid cancer in his or her lifetime: 1 in 4²⁹

Chances that a teenage boy in Botswana will die of AIDS, given current infection rates: 9 in 10³⁰

Percentage change since 1998 in the amount Americans spend each year on prescription drugs: +40³¹

Estimated number of Americans who died last year from adverse reactions to such drugs: 218,000³²

Rank of being "free of pain" among seriously ill Americans' top priorities regarding care at the end of their life: 1³³

Rank of being "at peace with God": 2³⁴

Amount the inventor of the yellow "smiley face" had received for it by the time of his death in April: $45³⁵

Estimated amount Tiger Woods's caddie made last year: $1,000,000³⁶

Price of "Invisible Jim," an empty doll-shaped package, from a U.S. toy manufacturer: $3³⁷

Price of a pair of stonewashed, sanded, hand-torn jeans from an Italian designer: $2,222³⁸

Price paid at auction in May for a sculpture of Pope John Paul II being struck by a meteorite: $800,000³⁹

Response: December 2001, page 7

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