Harper’s Index

Percentage of Americans who said in November that the Valerie Plame leak scandal was of “great importance”: 51¹

Percentage who said, two months before President Nixon resigned, that Watergate was “very serious”: 49²

Percentage who said it was “just politics”: 42³

Years since a White House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130⁴

Years after resigning that the official, Orville Babcock, drowned while trying to build a lighthouse: 9⁵

Percentage approval rating of Bill Clinton the day after impeachment and George W. Bush in November, respectively: 73, 37⁶

Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin: 37⁷

Number of times Saddam Hussein should be executed each day, according to Iraq’s new president: 20⁸

Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225⁹

Number of prisoners serving such sentences in all other countries worldwide: 12¹⁰

Average number of mass protests in China each day: 200¹¹

Number of manufacturing jobs that China has lost since 1996: 21,000,000¹²

Percentage change last year in foreign direct investment in China: ‒2.1¹³

Portion of its currency reserves that Venezuela says it transferred from U.S. banks to Swiss banks last fall: 2/3¹⁴

Percentage of all music on Venezuelan radio that must be homegrown, according to a new law: 50¹⁵

Percentage of the homegrown music that must also be “traditional”: 50¹⁶

Change since 1996 in the percentage of all Latin Americans who say democracy is the best form of governance: ‒8¹⁷

Change in Venezuela: +14¹⁸

Last year in which the price of heating oil was as high as it is expected to be this winter: 1982¹⁹

Number of years the United States could meet its energy needs by burning all its trees: 1²⁰

Chance that a Briton has bought a book “solely to look intelligent”: 1 in 3²¹

Estimated number of Americans who make fake Indian arrowheads: 5,000²²

Number of arrowheads they produce each year: 1,500,000²³

Number of product placements on U.S. network TV shows in prime time last year: 101,212²⁴

Chance that one of the 23,688 human genes has now been patented in the United States: 1 in 5²⁵

Total service charges collected by U.S. banks in 2004: $32,000,000,000²⁶

Factor by which this exceeds the total from 1994: 2²⁷

Number of weather futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the first nine months of last year: 612,000²⁸

Number in all of 2004: 120,000²⁹

Number of small businesses that applied for U.S. disaster loans after last fall’s hurricanes: 244,602³⁰

Percentage that had been approved as of mid-November: 3³¹

Tons of hurricane-related waste still waiting to be hauled away in Louisiana: 22,000,000³²

Tons of waste produced by New York City each year: 8,500,000³³

Number of plague-infected mice that a New Jersey biomedical research center says cannot be accounted for: 3³⁴

Chance that an airliner has dangerous levels of disease-causing pathogens in its drinking water: 1 in 7³⁵

Percentage by which circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection, according to a study in South Africa: 60³⁶

Percentage of free condoms distributed in India that are used for purposes other than sex: 75³⁷

Average height gain, in inches, of adolescents who use human growth hormone over five and a half years: 2³⁸

Cost per inch that represents: $41,000³⁹

Age of the girl who made the first bear kill in Maryland’s hunting season last fall: 8⁴⁰

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