Harper’s Index

Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount: $15,400¹

Maximum amount each of Enron's 4,500 laid-off employees would receive as part of a proposed settlement: $13,500²

Average amount the company paid each of its 140 top executives last year: $5,300,000³

Months that Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to release documents related to current U.S. energy policy: 16⁴

Months since his release from prison that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has been looking for work: 24⁵

Years that the National Security Agency's new head of research held the same position at Disney: 2⁶

Number of Hollywood films released in the last two years for which Senator Orrin Hatch has co-written songs: 2⁷

Number of teenagers enrolled last summer in Secure Corps, a "homeland security training" camp in Pennsylvania: 92⁸

Grant given a Maryland professor last October to create an online archive of dot-com-era business plans: $300,500⁹

Number of Japanese McDonald's that began offering broadband Internet access in May: 9¹⁰

Size in acres of a billboard that a Chinese town is constructing next to its ancient giant Buddha: 10¹¹

Hours that the Empire State Building was lit "Snapple Yellow" in August: 8¹²

Percentage of Americans who say vacationing leaves them tired: 54¹³

Number of traffic tickets issued in July by British Columbia police officers posing as squeegee men: 90¹⁴

Number of bookies arrested in India in March on charges they took bets on Hindu-Muslim riots: 101¹⁵

Percentage of seats in Pakistan's parliamentary elections this month that will be reserved for women: 19¹⁶

Number of Afghan refugees whose 2002 return the U.N. budgeted for in January: 800,000¹⁷

Number who have returned home since then: 1,500,000¹⁸

Percentage of Israeli settlers who say they would respect a government decision for them to leave the settlements: 68¹⁹

Percentage who say they remain in the settlements for the quality of life: 75²⁰

Percentage of Americans who said in August that they had a clear idea of why the U.S. would consider attacking Iraq: 56²¹

Amount of Iraq's oil revenue since 1996 spent on anything but humanitarian programs, Kuwaiti reparations, or U.N. costs: 0²²

Minimum annual U.S. spending on searching for missing soldiers: $100,000,000²³

Number of U.S. soldiers missing in action since 1945: 88,135²⁴

Chance that one of the 264 barrios of Medellin, Colombia, is controlled by right-wing paramilitaries: 1 in 4²⁵

Estimated chance last year: 1 in 10²⁶

Number of Argentines who have applied to be on a new job-search game show since April: 6,500²⁷

Percentage change in U.S. spending on border enforcement since 1995: +200²⁸

Percentage change since then in the estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States: +57²⁹

Number of corrections professionals who attended a mock riot at a former West Virginia prison in May: 1,235³⁰

Minimum number of U.S. universities where Halloween celebrations last year included at least one student in blackface: 4³¹

Rank of Richard Nixon masks among the top U.S. costumer's best-selling political masks over the last five years: 1³²

Number of the last six U.S. presidents who bested their opponents in the company's election-year Halloween mask sales: 6³³

Percentage of Americans who blame Bill Clinton's "moral failings" for the current business scandals: 51³⁴

Percentage who blame President Bush's "close ties to big corporations": 46³⁵

Percentage of CEOs who blame CEOs for the scandals: 69³⁶

Value of the Dow Jones industrial average in 1996 when Alan Greenspan warned of investors' "irrational exuberance": 6,437³⁷

Average number of U.S. print-media references to "our new reality" each week since September 11, 2001: 1.4³⁸

Average number of words of MTV's The Osbournes censored per minute: 2.8³⁹

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