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Harper’s Index

Chance that an American adult believes that "politics and government are too complicated to understand" : 1 in 3¹

Chance that an American who was home-schooled feels this way : 1 in 25²

Number of blank votes recorded by touchscreen machines in a January election for Florida's House of Representatives : 137³

Votes by which the race was won : 12⁴

Number of Haiti's elections since 1994 called "bogus electoral exercises" by the State Department's Roger Noriega : 3⁵

Last year in which one of these elections took place under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide : 1995⁶

Percentage of Western Hemisphere countries besides Cuba whose leaders Noriega believes have been "freely elected" : 100⁷

Federal funds given last September to a group organizing the recall of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez : $53,400⁸

Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by the Bush Administration's top officials since March 2002 : 237⁹

Percentage of these that contradicted, made selective use of, or mischaracterized existing government intelligence : 100¹⁰

Days before last year's invasion of Iraq that Osama bin Laden called Saddam Hussein a "socialist infidel" : 36¹¹

Days into the 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo that candidate George W. Bush observed, "Victory means exit strategy" : 17¹²

Months into the war in Iraq that all U.S. personnel there were equipped with antiballistic body armor : 11 (see page 67)¹³

Months into the war that Britain confirmed that all its troops were outfitted with desert clothing : 9¹⁴

Estimated percentage of French schoolgirls who wore an Islamic head scarf to school last fall : 0.02¹⁵

Number of Holsteins disqualified from the Ohio State Fair last August because they were wearing a hair piece : 2¹⁶

Number of suspensions a Dallas-area high school handed out last fall for dress-code violations : 1,116¹⁷

Acreage of a Christian nudist colony under development in Florida : 240¹⁸

Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a "sexual anxieties" diagnosis to avoid military service last winter : 150¹⁹

Number of times that Everglades saw grass switches gender during a week of flowering : 2²⁰

Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved : 3²¹

Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years : 20²²

Median household income a pair of U.S. single mothers would have if they married each other : $40,568²³

Median household income of a U.S. heterosexual couple with children : $59,461²⁴

Percentage of senior management positions in medium-size Russian companies that are held by women : 42²⁵

Percentage of senior management positions at equivalent U.S. companies that are : 20²⁶

Percentage of U.S. companies that threaten to close the work site when faced with a unionization effort : 51²⁷

Factor by which the unemployment rate of African-American college graduates exceeds that of white graduates : 1.9²⁸

Average percentage of African-American men age 16 to 64 in New York City who were employed each month last year : 52²⁹

Minimum number of Tennesseans who have ordered new license plates bearing the Confederate flag : 3,000³⁰

Minimum revenue the Sons of Confederate Veterans stands to collect through such sales : $20,000³¹

Amount the federal Individual Indian Trust cannot account for, per Native American it serves : $26,000³²

Total overruns at Boston's "Big Dig" attributed to mistakes and mismanagement by the Bechtel Corporation : $1,100,000,000³³

Percentage of the 13,129 varieties of dirt in the United States that are endangered : 4³⁴

Amount that Tom DeLay's political action committee spent at the Washington, D.C., Hooters last November : $117.19³⁵

Years in prison to which two ex-Pentagon officials were sentenced last year for taking bribes of money and prostitutes : 24³⁶

Number of years a North Carolina man has been in prison for stealing a television : 33³⁷

Days after Smith & Wesson Holding appointed a chairman last winter that he resigned over old armed-robbery convictions : 38³⁸

Caliber of his first gun, a Smith & Wesson used for armed robbery : .38³⁹

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SEE ALSO: Great Britain; Business; Cattle; Christianity; Crime; Cuba; Democracy; Education; Fashion; Firearms; Florida; France; Bush, George W. (George Walker); Haiti; Homosexuality; Iraq; Islam; Italy; Justice; Kosovo; Labor; Marriage; Nature; North Carolina; bin Laden, Osama; Parenting; U.S. Department of Defense; Race; Russia; Hussein, Saddam; Sex; Sexual Assault; Tennessee; Texas; Venezuela; Vermont

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