Harper’s Index

Last year in which a quarterly rise in U.S. military spending was greater than the one last spring: 1951¹

Total U.S. military spending the Bush Administration projects it will have spent by the end of 2008: $3,200,000,000,000²

Total U.S. military spending between 1941 and 1948: $3,100,000,000,000 ³

Number of banks and suppliers that Gulf War veterans are suing for aiding Iraq’s purchases of weapons and chemicals: 44⁴

Percentage by which the Defense Department proposed cutting its budget this year by closing its Peacekeeping Institute: 0.001⁵

Ratio of the institute’s budget to the estimated price of Jennifer Lopez’s engagement ring: 3:4⁶

First year in which the definition of “turkey” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary went beyond fowl: 1949⁷

Grams by which the amount of fat in McDonald’s fattiest salad exceeds that in its fattiest burger: 3⁸

Percentage change since 2000 in the number of U.S. surgeries performed each year to treat morbid obesity: +178⁹

Number of Florida high school students who take physical-education courses online: 1,204¹⁰

Minimum number of facts and rules with which a computer must be programmed to have common sense: 200,000,000¹¹

Number of companies that control the U.S. voting-technology market: 3¹²

Percentage of votes cast in U.S. elections last year that were counted by the largest voting-technology firm: 52¹³

Campaign contributions that one voting-technology CEO raised to become a Bush “Pioneer” this year: $100,000¹⁴

Number of Democrats among the 10 largest political donors since 1991: 9¹⁵

Average percentage of the Jewish vote won by the Democratic presidential candidate in the 1980s: 59¹⁶

Average percentage since then: 79¹⁷

Square feet of Israeli roads under construction in the 1990s per Israeli: 57¹⁸

Square feet of roads under construction in the occupied territories in the 1990s per settler: 185¹⁹

Percentage of the White House’s proposed Afghanistan spending in 2004 devoted to reconstruction: 3²⁰

Cotton-subsidy reparations proposed by four African countries at the WTO’s Cancún meeting this fall: $250,000,000²¹

Amount by which federal subsidies to U.S. cotton farmers last crop-year exceeded 2001’s U.S. cotton sales: $300,000,000²²

Amount that energy companies’ market manipulation cost California consumers between 2000 and 2001 per capita: $260²³

Amount California has received per capita in energy-company settlements since then: $2.60²⁴

Years it took the U.S. Geological Survey to conclude that Arctic refuge drilling would substantially reduce caribou: 12²⁵

Days after announcing this conclusion last July that the Geological Survey issued a memo discounting it: 7²⁶

Years of study it took the EPA to conclude in August that it is not responsible for regulating CO2 emissions: 3²⁷

Last year in which visits to U.S. national parks increased: 1999²⁸

Number of people per mobile-phone line in the United States: 2²⁹

Number of people per sauna in Finland: 2.5³⁰

Number of tortoises that died of heat exhaustion at the Glasgow Zoo in one day last August: 7³¹

Age in years of a California bristlecone pine that is the oldest tree on earth: 4,733³²

Age in years of a Nevada bristlecone when the U.S. Forest Service let a graduate student cut it down in 1964: 4,950³³

Rank of the World Wildlife Fund among organizations most trusted by Europeans and Americans, respectively: 2, 8³⁴

Rank of Coca-Cola: 8, 2³⁵

Number of sequels to The Gods Must Be Crazy in which its star N!xau appeared before his death last July: 3³⁶

Amount that a Louisiana preacher paid white people to integrate his Sunday services last August, per person: $5³⁷

Price of admission to the World’s Fair of Money held last August in Baltimore: $0³⁸

Attendance at last year’s largest annual conference on “establishing the truth behind” JFK’s assassination: 165³⁹

Minimum number of such conferences held worldwide each year: 3⁴⁰

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