Harper’s Index

Amount earmarked by the House last December to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa : $50,000,000¹

Percentage by which Dick Gephardt's $460,000 overexpenditure exceeded the limits for Iowa's nomination caucus in 1988 : 60²

Ratio of 2004 Bush campaign donations from Merrill Lynch employees to those from Bechtel employees : 60:1³

Percentage margin by which a Milosevic-supported candidate won Serbia's presidential election last November : 12⁴

Percentage by which that election's turnout fell short of the threshold Serbia requires for lawful elections : 11⁵

Rank of Rwanda among countries with the largest proportion of women in their lower legislative house : 1⁶

Rank of the death rate for women in childbirth in Afghanistan's Badakhshan region among the highest ever recorded : 1⁷

Number of girls under age six in India for every boy : 0.93⁸

Percentage of Japanese and Italian men, respectively, who rate their kisses a 9 or a 10 : 14, 72⁹

Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer's absence : $34¹⁰

Price a British company charges for its Purring Kitty software, which converts a mobile phone into a "discreet massager" : $2.65¹¹

Percentage of Chinese exports to the U.S. accounted for by merchandise sold at Wal-Mart : 10¹²

Number of factory jobs that China has lost since 1995 : 25,000,000¹³

Estimated percentage of the 2.9 million U.S. jobs lost since March 2001 that have not reappeared abroad : 83¹⁴

Percentage of Mexicans who had a "bad" or "very bad" opinion of the United States in 2000 and 2003, respectively : 22, 58¹⁵

Rank of Costa Rica and the United States among countries whose citizens live longest : 18, 19¹⁶

Rank of the U.S. health-care system among the most efficient in the world, according to the World Health Organization : 37¹⁷

Estimated value of Senate majority leader Bill Frist's household's stake in HCA, his family's hospital chain : $26,000,000¹⁸

Months before Bush signed the Medicare bill in December that the New York Times last mentioned Frist's holdings : 4¹⁹

Amount Bill Gates has pledged to fight malaria through 2008, expressed as a percentage of USAID spending since 1998 : 86²⁰

Percentage change between 2001 and 2002 in Saudi Arabia's PR spending in the United States : +1,700²¹

Ratio of the number of bias crimes against Jews to those against Muslims reported in the U.S. in 2002 : 6:1²²

Ratio of suicide bomb attacks carried out by Palestinians to those carried out by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers since 1987 : 3:4²³

Pounds of gear carried by a U.S. Special Operations soldier in Iraq : 135²⁴

Percentage of this accounted for by disposable batteries : 26²⁵

Calories of fuel energy used by U.S. farms in 1940 per calorie of food produced : 0.4²⁶

Calories of fuel energy used in 1974 per calorie of food produced : 1 ²⁷

Number of times a Hummer H2 could be driven around the world on the excess calories Americans consume each year : 244²⁸

Percentage increase since 1999 in U.S. households in which there was hunger due to poverty during the year : 22²⁹

Percentage by which health-care spending by an obese American exceeds that by an American of normal weight : 36³⁰

Percentage by which health-care spending by a daily smoker exceeds that by a nonsmoker : 21³¹

Number of a Texas toddler's burned fingers amputated in 1992 after she was left in a car with her mother's lit cigarette : 9.5³²

Settlement Philip Morris paid the girl's family last May : $2,000,000³³

Percentage of lawsuits decided last year under the Americans with Disabilities Act that were won by employers : 94.5³⁴

Number of disabled Californians whose home aid Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to eliminate : 65,000³⁵

Average number of years before reaching the White House that a twentieth-century U.S. president won his first elected post : 14³⁶

Percentage points by which Ronald Reagan's approval rating changed in 1983 : +17³⁷

Percentage points by which George W. Bush's rating changed last year : 0³⁸

Percentage of the vote in last November's New Haven, Connecticut, mayoral race won by the Guilty Party candidate : 15³⁹

Roll of the dice with which a Utah mayor won reelection after a tied vote last November : 4, 1⁴⁰

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