Harper’s Index

Chance that a Republican president has not won the popular vote : 1 in 6¹

Chance that a Democratic president has not : 0²

Number of New York voters who are also registered in Florida : 46,000³

Deadline for completion of the first federally mandated national list of registered voters : 2006⁴

Number of states in which voters can cast ballots in advance by mail or in person without providing a reason : 30⁵

Number of states with such a policy in 1996 : 11⁶

Ratio of hours of live U.S.-convention coverage per U.S. network this year to hours of live coverage on Al Jazeera : 1:2⁷

Number of dead bodies pictured in the New York Times during the first week of September : 16.5⁸

Number of countries they represented : 5⁹

Chances that one of them died in Iraq : 2 in 3¹⁰

Number of U.S. soldiers returned from Iraq in the last year who have been diagnosed with mental-health problems : 5,375¹¹

Ratio of suicides worldwide in 2001 to war deaths : 7:2¹²

Ratio of Americans killed by lightning since January 2002 to those killed by terrorism : 3:2¹³

Factor by which the annual number of Sahara dust storms has increased in the last 50 years : 10¹⁴

Minimum number of customers trampled to death in September at the opening of a Saudi Arabian Ikea : 2¹⁵

Percentage of Britons over the age of 50 who have hurt themselves attempting to open product packaging : 71¹⁶

Estimated number of Afghans who died in last year’s pistachio harvest : 50¹⁷

Number of restaurants in Guizhou, China, closed in April for adding opium to their dishes : 215¹⁸

Number of U.S. McDonald’s franchises whose drive-through order taking has been outsourced to another state : 2¹⁹

Average number of seconds by which orders placed at these franchises are processed more quickly than at others : 30²⁰

Price paid on eBay last November for two bottles of turkey-and-gravy soda : $63²¹

Distance in feet traveled by the winning pumpkin at Delaware’s Punkin Chunkin Competition last year : 4,434.28²²

Length in feet of the barrel of “The Second Amendment” pumpkin cannon from which it was shot : 150²³

Maximum number of rounds a semi-automatic rifle may hold to be considered legal in New Jersey : 15²⁴

Maximum number allowed by the recently lifted federal ban on assault rifles : 10²⁵

Minimum number of Californians serving a life sentence for cheating on a driving exam : 1²⁶

Percentage of judges nominated by George W. Bush since 2000 who have been confirmed by the Senate : 89²⁷

Last year in which there was as low a federal judicial vacancy rate as in 2004 : 1984²⁸

Percentage by which John Ashcroft cut the number of judgeships on the federal Board of Immigration Appeals in 2002 : 50²⁹

Percentage change from 2000 to 2003 in the number of immigration appeals sent to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court : +355³⁰

Estimated chance that a classified document is “over-classified,” according to a Pentagon official this year : 1 in 2³¹

Years since U.S. law began defining aborted fetuses with “pulsation of the umbilical cord” as legal persons : 2.5 (see page 44)³²

Rank of antidepressants and anti-ulcer drugs among the best-selling prescription drugs worldwide last year : 3,2³³

Rank of cholesterol-lowering drugs : 1³⁴

Percentage change between 2002 and 2003 in the number of U.S. buttock-augmentation surgeries : +533³⁵

Weight in pounds of a “millionaire” seeking “Cinderella” in a New York magazine personal ad last summer : 444³⁶

Days after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that Dick Cheney married, securing a draft deferment : 22³⁷

Price charged on Amazon.com this year for Lynne Cheney’s out-of-print lesbian historical novel, Sisters : $1,000³⁸

Number of U.S. newspaper editorials and op-eds published this year that included the phrase “pot calling the kettle black” : 16³⁹

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