Harper’s Index

Change since last year in federal spending to implement the No Child Left Behind Act: -$1,200,000,000¹

Percentage refund that Laura Bush's office sought in June for a $15.95 children's book that it bought for a TV reading: 100 ²

Percentage of the first month of British sales of the new Harry Potter book accounted for by "adult" editions: 11 ³

Average age at which an American believes that adulthood begins: 26 ⁴

Ratio of Strom Thurmond's age at his death in June to the average U.S. life expectancy in the year he was born: 2:1 ⁵

Age at which Katharine Hepburn made her acting debut, as the beast in a charity production of Beauty and the Beast: 11 ⁶

Number of females on the American Film Institute's list of the fifty greatest movie villains, aliens included: 15 ⁷

Number on its list of the fifty greatest movie heroes, Lassie included: 7 ⁸

Percentage of Indian college students who cite Gandhi and Hitler, respectively, as models for leaders of India: 23, 17 ⁹

Percentage of Palestinians who said in May that Osama bin Laden would "do the right thing" regarding world affairs: 71 ¹⁰

Percentage who said that George Bush would: 1 ¹¹

Amount of evidence, according to the New York Times in June, that Bush "did not believe" his own statements on Iraq: 0 ¹²

Number of officials who ever suggested that Iraq had nuclear weapons, according to Donald Rumsfeld in June: 0 ¹³

Number of times Democrat Howard Dean mentioned Iraq in announcing his candidacy for president this year: 0 ¹⁴

Year in which Dick Cheney said that his policy as CEO of Halliburton was that "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq": 2000 ¹⁵

Price of the oil-field supplies sold to Iraq by two Halliburton subsidiaries during Cheney's tenure: $73,000,000 ¹⁶

Amount Pat Robertson has invested in Liberian gold mining: $8,000,000 ¹⁷

Number of times he cited the country's leaders as wronged Christians on his TV show while President Bush was in Africa: 3 ¹⁸

Ratio of the number of Ethiopians at risk from famine today to those who died in 1984's record famine: 13:1 ¹⁹

Amount Thailand has promised to pay survivors of anyone who dies of SARS contracted there: $100,000 ²⁰

Rank of measles among diseases that kill the most children worldwide each year and can be prevented by vaccine: 1 ²¹

Cost of vaccinating the 745,000 children who died from the disease in 2001: $558,750 ²²

Estimated number of soccer balls the U.S. government sent Iraq this summer to help "bring life back to normal": 60,000 ²³

Percentage of Basra's liquor stores that have closed since March: 100 ²⁴

Amount New Zealand's Fire Service spent this year on a TV campaign against cooking while drunk: $201,300 ²⁵

Estimated acres of forest Henry David Thoreau burned down in 1844 trying to cook fish he had caught for dinner: 300 ²⁶

Number of paragraphs devoted to global warming in the EPA's 600-page "Draft Report on the Environment" of 2003: 1 ²⁷

Number of paragraphs removed by the White House before publication: 5 ²⁸

Maximum number of miles that Ford's most fuel-efficient 2003 car can drive on a gallon of gas: 36 ²⁹

Maximum number its 1912 Model T could: 35 ³⁰

Months after the first manned flight that Wilbur Wright identified "war" as a potential use for airplanes: 22 ³¹

Price a San Diego physicist paid at auction in June for mechanisms used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima: $167,000 ³²

Percentage of Americans in June who favored U.S. military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons: 56 ³³

Percentage in July who disapproved of the United States waging preemptive attacks on any country: 58 ³⁴

Percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq this year that were not precision-guided: 32 ³⁵

Ratio of U.S. soldiers killed in the 1991 Gulf War to those killed in Iraq this year: 1:1 ³⁶

Chance that an American believes that "suicide is an acceptable solution in certain circumstances": 1 in 4 ³⁷

Number of the three drugs used for U.S. executions that are banned for animal euthanasia: 1 ³⁸

Number of Canadian prison inmates who overdosed in March on fellow prisoners' methadone-laced vomit: 2 ³⁹

Number of inmates charged with drug trafficking for providing the vomit: 3 ⁴⁰

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