Harper’s Index

Number of countries whose “unsustainable” debt the World Bank identified as “in need” of relief in 1996: 40¹

Number of these that have received debt relief since then: 2²

Ratio of U.N. back dues owed by the U.S. to total back dues owed by all other member countries combined: 2:1³

Funding that Congress allocated in this year's budget for military programs not requested by the Pentagon: $1,229,000,000⁴

Years in prison to which a former CIA agent was sentenced last fall for attempting to extort $1 million from the agency: 5⁵

Years after his scheduled release that he will begin receiving his CIA pension: 6⁶

Total number of Americans serving time in prison for lying to a grand jury: 115⁷

Estimated average amount Americans lose to securities fraud, per hour: $1,000,000⁸

Chance that an American adult does not have a checking account: 1 in 5⁹

Rank of the U.S. among the 17 leading industrial nations with the largest percentage of their populations in poverty: 1¹⁰

Maximum income that an Aspen, Colorado, resident may earn in order to be eligible for subsidized housing: $104,000¹¹

Donation received last July by a Los Angeles soup kitchen in order to provide shopping carts for the homeless: $10,000¹²

Price that New York City's Lower East Side Tenement Museum charges for an evening in a turn-of-the-century kitchen: $750¹³

Year in which Christmas celebrations, plum pudding, and mince pie were outlawed in England: 1647¹⁴

Weeks required to complete the Santa course offered by Britain's Weston College: 8¹⁵

Estimated number of Japanese who have taken a “gospel and rhythm” class this year at Harlem's Memorial Baptist Church: 300¹⁶

Number of Harvard fellowships endowed by members of Osama bin Laden's family since 1992: 2¹⁷

Chances that a U.S. film with male Arab or Muslim characters depicts them as greedy, violent, or dishonest: 19 in 20¹⁸

Number of days an Afghani man may be held in prison for trimming his beard: 10¹⁹

Number of liposuction machines that Iraq sought U.N. permission to import last June: 4²⁰

Maximum amount that the Canadian government has agreed to spend on a soldier's sex-change operation: $40,000²¹

Fee that an anonymous family has paid Texas A&M University to clone their pet collie mix, Missy: $2,300,000²²

Number of U.S. corporations that have signed up as Adopt-a-Minefield sponsors since the program began last December: 5²³

Number of years it took before Disney's planned community of Celebration, Florida, experienced its first violent crime: 2²⁴

Chance that a gay Massachusetts teenager reports being threatened or injured at school in the last year: 1 in 4²⁵

Chances that a prostitute exhibits the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: 2 in 3²⁶

Number of individual charges contained in the 8 ethics complaints brought against Newt Gingrich since 1994: 84²⁷

Number of hands Newt Gingrich shook last August 22 in an attempt to set a world's record for “political handshaking”: 3,609²⁸

Chance that a House member voted last June in favor of a constitutional amendment allowing school prayer: 1 in 2²⁹

Chance that a member attended Congress's opening daily prayer on any of the three days preceding the vote: 1 in 29³⁰

Estimated size of heaven, in cubic miles, according to the Reverend Billy Graham: 1,500³¹

Estimated number of miles by which the earth's ionosphere has dropped since 1958: 5³²

Percentage change since last year in the size of the ozone hole over Antarctica: +37³³

Square miles by which the size of the ozone hole exceeds the size of North America: 1,129,000³⁴

Amount the U.S. Energy Department plans to spend by 2000 to keep Russian nuclear scientists employed: $40,000,000³⁵

Percentage of Russians who say they have confidence that Boris Yeltsin can run the country: 2³⁶

Number of days this year during which Norway's Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik was “too depressed” to work: 24³⁷

Percentage of days that Bill Clinton has spent in the White House this year: 44³⁸

Rank of “office too hot” among white-collar employees' most common workplace complaints: 2³⁹

Rank of “office too cold”: 1⁴⁰

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