7/88Percentage of all ice cream consumed by Muscovites that is vanilla: 95
8/88Price of an Al-Asr Prayer Watch, which indicates the direction of Mecca and five daily Muslim prayer times: $95
9/94Percentage of the World Bank’s employees who work in Washington, D.C.: 95
1/98Percentage change since 1982 in the average amount of time an American is delayed by traffic congestion: +95
4/98Amount that the Paula Jones Legal Fund has spent since 1994 on “pet care” for a dog named Mitzie: $95
5/00Percentage of all aquatic life in a Danube tributary killed last winter when a mine’s tailings dam overflowed: 95
9/01Number of U.S. schools that use E-rater, a software program that reads and grades student essays: 95
2/02Percentage of all U.S. prescription-drug mass-media advertising in 2000 that was accounted for by 50 drugs: 95
11/02Percentage of Argentineans who say they have “no” or “little” confidence in their nation’s political parties: 95
3/08Percentage of U.S. doctors who say they have a responsibility to report another doctor’s malpractice: 95
Percentage of these doctors who have witnessed malpractice in the past three years and failed to report it: 46
2/88Percentage of first-class mail that is delivered on time, according to the U.S. Postal Service: 96
12/95Percentage change since 1990 in hours of counseling required by L.A. police employees and their families: +96
3/85Percentage of all coronary-artery bypasses in the United States that are performed on whites: 97
5/01Percentage of Americans who believe that “following your own conscience” is a mark of a strong character: 97
Percentage who believe that “obeying those in positions of authority” is: 92
9/92Number of people detained in South Africa this year for participating in “suspicious public gatherings”: 97
4/07Percentage of American adults held in either prisons or mental institutions in 1953 and today, respectively: 0.67, 0.68
Percentage of these adults in 1953 who were in mental institutions: 75
2/08Minimum number of U.S. Boy Scout or Cub Scout troops that are sponsored by Islamic organizations: 97
4/84Percentage of Americans too young to remember the Bicentennial: 25
Life before television: 69
4/86Number of spacecraft launched by the United States in 1985: 17
12/90Percentage of all hostages held by Iraq who are from Third World countries: 98
12/92Value of the securities traded between Americans and foreigners last year, expressed as a percentage of the U.S. GNP: 98
7/95Number of years Jeanne Louise Calment, France’s oldest woman, smoked cigarettes before she quit in 1993: 98
5/02Estimated percentage of matter in the universe determined this year to be invisible: 98
12/03Percentage of Baghdad’s citizens asked to participate in a Gallup poll last September who agreed to do so: 98
Average percentage of Americans asked to participate in Gallup polls who do: 40
12/03Average price paid per metric ton last September at the first U.S. auction of carbon-emission allowances: 98¢
9/04Height in feet of a bronze September 11 memorial depicting a giant teardrop to be built in Jersey City, New Jersey: 98
9/07Projected cost to Medicare in 2030 of treating dementia, expressed as a percentage of the program’s total budget today: 98
1/09Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 98
12/91Percentage of annual U.S. economic aid to Israel that is used to pay debts to the United States: 99
8/94Percentage of Richard Nixon’s White House tapes that have not yet been made public: 99
1/00Percentage of the 14,000 Bulgar survivors of the 1014 battle at Kleidion who were blinded by the victorious Byzantines: 99
9/02Percentage of students in Cleveland’s six-year-old school voucher program who attend religious schools: 99
6/03Percentage “improvement” that Minnesota senator Norm Coleman claims to be over the late Paul Wellstone: 99
8/06Price, from a North Carolina company, for a charcoal-filled seat cushion that absorbs the odor of flatulence: $21.95
Percentage of the odor that the cushion absorbs, according to an outside study: 20
2/91Percentage of Americans who say, “I can’t tell a joke to save my life”: 99.2
Percentage brought to trial who are convicted: 99.9
10/84Percentage increase in the number of cop shows in prime time since last season: 100
12/84Percentage increase, from the mid-1970s to today, in the number of résumés received each year by the CIA: 100
7/85Percentage increase since 1980 in political contributions by the top 20 defense contractors: 100
6/86Number of pornographic videocassettes released each week: 100
8/86Amount Nancy Reagan’s hairdresser charges for a haircut: $100
4/87Estimated number of referees at children’s sporting events who are attacked each year by parents: 100
5/87Percentage change, since 1965, in the number of Americans who have gone bird watching in the last year: +100
6/89Daily wage a French company paid U.S. volunteers in 1988 to pick sprayed crops to test pesticides’ effects: $100
2/90Percentage change, since 1974, in the amount of commercial air traffic in the United States: +100
Percentage change, since 1974, in the number of commercial airports in the United States: 0
2/90Estimated number of valentines mailed to Elvis Presley at Graceland last year: 100
4/90Average amount an American who lives in a state that has a lottery spends each year on tickets: $100
5/90Maximum amount Ted Turner fines his employees for using the word foreign instead of international on company time: $100
7/90Amount of trash left in New York City’s Central Park by people attending Earth Day festivities, in tons: 100
2/91Percentage increase, since 1989, in the number of alcohol-related hospitalizations of Boston College students: 100
2/91Number of false noses used by Gerard Depardieu during the filming of Cyrano de Bergerac: 100
3/91Cash prize awarded by a St. Petersburg, Florida, bar to the winner of its weekly Fake the Big O Contest: $100
12/91Percentage change, since last year, in sales of junk bonds in the United States: +100
4/92Percentage of Japanese graduating high-school seniors who have taken at least six years of English-language classes: 100
5/92Number of days last year that Denmark’s largest newspaper ran no political coverage to protest bad government: 100
5/92Number of “Desert Storm” and “Desert Shield” commercial trademarks filed with the U.S. Patent Office last year: 100
12/92Percentage change, since 1990, in the number of women between the ages of 40 and 44 using birth control pills: +100
5/93Percentage of U.S. spies in East Germany since 1948 who proved to be double agents, according to the CIA: 100
8/93Percentage change, since 1989, in the average number of presidential approval polls released each month: +100
8/93Enrollment at Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, in New York City: 100
10/93Percentage change, since 1983, in the number of Harvard freshmen identifying themselves as “Native American”: +100
2/94Percentage change, since 1990, in the frequency with which the word “penis” has appeared in the New York Times: +100
6/94Percentage of all natural-gas and oil fields licensed by Vietnam last year that are in waters claimed by China: 100
7/94Percentage of the thirty-six wars currently being fought that are civil wars: 100
Percentage that are being monitored by U.N. peacekeepers: 41
Number of these conflicts that began more than a decade ago: 21
7/94Percentage change, between 1992 and 1993, in the amount of time network news programs devoted to crime coverage: +100
10/94Maximum amount of radiation per American the government allows nuclear facilities to release each year, in millirems: 100
Chances that a person exposed to such radiation will get cancer, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 1 in 286
1/95First prize awarded the creator of Savory Spam Cheesecake at the L.A. County Fair’s Spam Recipe Contest last year: $100
2/95Percentage change, since 1950, in the annual number of goods and services purchased by a U.S. household: +100
6/95Percentage change since last year in Washington, D.C., sales of the Bug Sweeper, a telephone-surveillance detector: +100
8/95Number of U.S. Army tanks the Army Corps of Engineers plans to “deploy” off Alabama’s coast this year to create a reef: 100
5/96Average percentage by which white Americans overestimate the Latino, Asian-, and African-American populations: 100
Average percentage by which members of these groups overestimate their own populations: 100
5/96Percentage of European rabbits in southern Australia killed last fall by the inadvertent release of a virus: 95
6/96Annual donation to the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco that will reserve a place in one of their nun’s daily prayers: $100
7/96Percentage of the promises President Clinton “meant to keep” that he has kept, according to George Stephanopoulos: 100
7/96Chances that a Normal, Illinois, Mitsubishi worker who the E.E.O.C. believes was sexually harassed has filed suit: 1 in 7
Percentage of the plaintiffs whose gynecological and psychological medical records Mitsubishi has since requested: 100
8/96Number of U.S. military service medals that cannot be purchased without an authorized signature: 1
8/96Amount of cash inmates compete to grab from between a bull’s horns each year at the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo: $100
9/96Percentage of white NFL head coaches whose teams have made the playoffs in the last seven seasons: 46
2/97Percentage of the light switches in Bob Packwood’s private Senate quarters that were on dimmers: 100
5/97Percentage change since 1980 in the number of college freshmen who say they feel “overwhelmed”: +100
7/97Percentage change since 1995 in the number of Chinese Embassy staffers assigned to U.S. congressional relations: +100
7/97Percentage change since 1960 in the number of Americans living in the 4 states most prone to natural disasters: +100
6/98Estimated number of calls made to Californian Al Nino since last year by people asking, “Why are you doing this?”: 100
7/98Minimum amount per 3-month period a former New York welfare recipient may earn and be considered “employed”: $100
9/98Percentage of all girls’ school facilities in Afghanistan’s Taliban territories shut down since 1996: 100
1/99Percentage of the fall 1998 issue of Britain’s The Ecologist magazine devoted to an investigation of Monsanto: 95
Percentage of the issue’s entire press run immediately pulped by the printer, for fear of breaking British libel laws: 100
2/99Estimated number of U.S. Christians who moved to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives last year to await the millennium: 100
4/99Percentage of Iceland’s gene pool to which Decode Genetics plans to acquire exclusive commercial rights this year: 100
9/99Percentage of its AIDS drugs that a 1997 agreement requires South Africa to buy from U.S. companies: 100
10/99Number of Vietnam-era helicopters that the U.S. donated to Mexico for drug control between 1996 and 1997: 73
Percentage of them that the U.S. agreed to take back last summer after Mexico found them defective: 100
11/99Percentage of the tiles included in Scrabble games produced in the U.S. this year that will be made in China: 100
2/00Percentage of Chechnya’s air force destroyed last September when Russia bombed a single plane: 100
3/00Percentage of committee members advising the U.S. on WTO forest-issues negotiations who are lumber executives: 100
3/00Percentage change since 1997 in the number of Britons waiting to get on the National Health Service’s waiting list: +100
3/00Percentage of major U.S. recording labels that use the parental warning stickers advocated by Tipper Gore in 1985: 100
Years after Frank Zappa called Gore’s campaign “extortion” that his daughter recorded a single featuring her on drums: 14
7/00Percentage by which the estimated number of genes on the human genome has increased since 1995: 100
5/01Projected percentage by which the amount of electricity produced by U.S. wind turbines will change this year: +100
12/01Estimated number of mock commando raids on U.S. nuclear-weapons facilities that have been staged since 1995: 100
Minimum number that succeeded in breaching security: 50
2/02Percentage of Newsweek’s September health issue that was sponsored by a pharmaceutical lobbying group: 100
3/02Percentage of the 145 lawyers in the offices of Houston’s U.S. Attorney who were recused from the Enron case in January: 100
5/02Percentage of U.S. pilots spraying defoliants over Colombia who are contract workers hired through a private firm: 100
6/02Estimated percentage of the inhabitants of the contiguous United States who have been exposed to nuclear fallout: 100
7/02Daily fine introduced last month for the outdoor use of upholstered furniture in Normal, Illinois: $100
7/02Percentage of male fish in two English rivers that scientists say have been “effectively feminised” by estrogen in the water: 100
9/02Minimum number of Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets that the company plans to open in France by 2006: 100
11/02Percentage by which the new campaign-finance-reform law will raise the cap on hard-money contributions: +100
3/03Percentage change since 1964 in the number of different marshmallow shapes to be found in Lucky Charms cereal: +100
3/03Percentage change since 1990 in the annual number of large-scale outbreaks of U.S. school-cafeteria food poisoning: +100
8/03Estimated percentage change since 2002 in applications requested for a “homeland security” camp in Pennsylvania: +100
8/03Number of candy-bar wrappers that Cadbury’s new anti-obesity campaign offers to exchange for a basketball: 90
Minimum hours of basketball required for an 85-pound child to burn off the calories from that many candy bars: 100
8/03Percentage by which the amount of drugs stolen by Guatemalan police last year exceeded the amount officially seized: 100
9/03Percentage refund that Laura Bush’s office sought in June for a $15.95 children’s book that it bought for a TV reading: 100
9/03Percentage of Basra’s liquor stores that have closed since March: 100
10/03Percentage of Botswanans requiring highly active anti-retroviral therapy for whom it is available on request: 100
4/04Maximum fine in Baltimore for dancing or not standing during the singing of the national anthem: $100
7/04Estimated number of guns that the U.S.-led force in Haiti has confiscated since Aristide’s departure last February: 100
7/04Percentage of his salary Minnesota senator Mark Dayton spends on bus trips for seniors buying drugs in Canada: 100
8/04Credit a Barcelona nightclub offers with the purchase of its “VIP VeriChip” implant, in euros: 100
9/04Minimum number of the 542 members of India’s lower house who have been charged in criminal cases: 100
12/04Percentage salary cut that Delta’s CEO announced this fall that he would take through the end of the year: 100
6/05Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on a single defector: 100
Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0
6/05Percentage change since 1994 in treatment for male infertility and erectile dysfunction in Shanghai: +100
7/05Number of Saudi men who were imprisoned and flogged for “ behaving like women ” at a party in March: 100
10/05Amount that Oakland residents can now be fined if their dog has not been implanted with an ID microchip: $100
12/05Days after Katrina hit that the first strip club was reopened in New Orleans: 20
Percentage of their income from “dollar dances” that its strippers are donating to relief efforts: 100
12/05Percentage change since 1970 in the amount of the earth’s land stricken by severe drought: +100
2/06Factor by which the total amount that U.S. pension plans have invested in hedge funds today exceeds that in 1990: 100
5/06Number of billboards with the names and faces of convicted sex offenders that Mississippi will put up this spring: 100
7/06Length, in hours, of a book appearance that author Lawrence Lessig made in January inside an online fantasy world: 2
Minimum number of different characters who showed up: 100
9/06Percentage change since 1991 in the average fee charged by smugglers of illegal Chinese immigrants into the U.S.: +100
9/06Factor by which the combined genetic content of bacteria in a human digestive tract exceeds that of the human genome: 100
10/06Percentage of funds used to get Pennsylvania’s Green Party Senate candidate on the ballot that came from right-wingers: 100
12/06Monthly cost for a U.S. student to receive unlimited online tutoring from a Bangalore-based “e-tutor”: $100
7/07Percentage of West Virginia public schools that will use the video game Dance Dance Revolution in P.E. classes next year: 100
1/09Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector: 100
Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0
7/94Number of American fish species that are endangered, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: 101
10/02Number of bookies arrested in India in March on charges they took bets on Hindu-Muslim riots: 101
6/04Number of actors, musicians, and clowns in a U.N. troupe touring Liberia to convince citizens to disarm: 101
8/93Number of New York Times articles in May containing the words “Clinton” and “focus”: 102
8/93Percentage change, since February, in average daily attendance at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas: +102
12/99Number of U.S. nuclear reactors that have reported safety violations since 1996: 102
5/08Minimum number of U.S. therapists who offer “eco-psychology” treatment for those anxious about the environment: 102
8/89Pages of ads in Vanity Fair this year bought by advertisers who have been written about in the magazine: 103
10/94Gallons of milk produced in the United States last year, expressed as a percentage of annual consumption: 103
Number that passed: 0
1/07Average number of times that President Bush has used the pronoun “I” in each of his State of the Union addresses: 36
Average number of times that President Clinton did in his addresses: 103
2/07Average number of times an adult worldwide has sex each year, according to self-reporting in polls: 103
Today: 104
5/91Death rate, since last August, for American military personnel stationed in the Persian Gulf, per 100,000: 69
Death rate for men between the ages of 20 and 30 living in the United States since last August, per 100,000: 104
Minimum number of them who had already confessed or otherwise incriminated themselves: 15
5/06Percentage change last year in the number of stolen cattle recovered in Texas and Oklahoma: +104
1/07Minimum number of New Jersey public officials who have been indicted since 2002: 104