MISCELLANEOUS - LOOKING GLASS NEWS
View without photos
View with photos


Harper's Index for May 2005
from Harper's Magazine
Entered into the database on Wednesday, June 08th, 2005 @ 20:43:29 MST


 

Untitled Document

Posted on Thursday, June 2, 2005.

Annual cost of all sixteen U.N. peacekeeping missions currently underway : $3,870,000,000[United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (N.Y.C.)]

Monthly cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq : $4,100,000,000[U.S. Department of Defense]

Revenue from Iraqi oil sales that the CPA could not account for, according to a 2005 audit : $8,800,000,000[Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Arlington, Va.)]

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on a single defector : 100[Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington)]

Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents : 0[Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington)]

Minimum number of newspapers in which Denmark posted ads this year seeking antiterrorist spies : 3[Danish Defense Intelligence Service (Copenhagen)]

Percentage of Iceland residents who took out an ad this winter apologizing for Icelandic support of the Iraq war : 1.5[The Movement for Active Democracy in Iceland (Reykjavik)/Statistics Iceland (Reykjavik)]

Number of books published last year in Iceland and the United States, respectively, per 100,000 residents : 212, 63[Icelandic Publishers Association (Reykjavik)/R. R. Bowker LLC (New Providence, N.J.)]

Number of books registered at BookCrossing.com, so the books can be left in public places and found by others : 1,935,000[BookCrossing.com (Lake Winnebago, Mo.)]

Number of the books left behind that have been from the Left Behind series : 2,047[BookCrossing.com (Lake Winnebago, Mo.)]

Rank, on the Turkish bestseller list in March, of a thriller depicting a U.S. invasion of Turkey : 1[D&R (Istanbul)]

Rank of Mein Kampf : 2[D&R (Istanbul)]

Chance that a resident of the former East Germany wants the Berlin Wall back : 1 in 8[Forsa (Berlin)]

Number of lines that Italy's largest cellular operator has set aside for government eavesdropping : 5,000[Telecom Italia Mobile (Rome)]

Number of these that were in use in March : 5,000[Telecom Italia Mobile (Rome)]

Chance that a Russian scientist says he or she would consider working for North Korea : 1 in 7[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, Calif.)]

Year by which every U.S. nuclear weapon will have reached the end of its original design life : 2014[Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Energy]

Number of merit badges in Safety awarded to Boy Scouts since 2001 : 15,417[Boy Scouts of America (Irving, Tex.)]

Number in Shotgun Shooting : 65,249[Boy Scouts of America (Irving, Tex.)]

Percentage of the world's Anglican bishops that have condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church's ordination of a gay bishop : 34[Anglican Communion Network (Pittsburgh)]

Number of U.S. Episcopal churches that are now affiliated with dioceses in Rwanda or Uganda : 38[Anglican Mission in America (Pawleys Island, S.C.)/Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles]

Number of federal benefits in the United States that are tied directly to marriage : 1,138[U.S. General Accounting Office]

Factor by which the average viral load in “socially inhibited” HIV+ men exceeds that in “outgoing” men, in a UCLA study : 8[Steve Cole, UCLA School of Medicine (Los Angeles)]

Average percentage by which the power of the male heart declines between the ages of 18 and 75 : 20[David Goldspink, Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences (Liverpool, U.K.)]

Average percentage by which the female heart does : 0[David Goldspink, Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences (Liverpool, U.K.)]

Ratio of women to men killed in last December's tsunami, in a survey of eight Indonesian villages : 3:1[Oxfam International (Oxford, U.K.)]

Number of times that major U.S. newspapers have used the term “feeding tube” since January : 647[Harper's research]

Number of times they had used the term in the previous five years : 483[Harper's research]

Years after Bob Marley's death that the BBC, in April, requested an interview with him : 24[Bob Marley Foundation (Kingston, Jamaica)]

Average number of hours it takes to read a weekday Washington Post out loud : 28[The Metropolitan Washington Ear, Inc. (Silver Springs, Md.)]

Projected year by which U.S. Treasury bonds will sink to junk status, on current fiscal policy : 2026 (see page 39)[Standard & Poor's (N.Y.C.)]

Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999 : $2,500[Enterprise Rent-A-Car (St. Louis)]

Percentage of Americans who say that driving a fuel-efficient car is an act of patriotism : 66[Civil Society Institute (Newton Centre, Mass.)]

Percentage of NASCAR fans who say this : 67[Civil Society Institute (Newton Centre, Mass.)]

Portion of the world's motor vehicles that are in China : 1/17[World Business Council for Sustainable Development (Geneva)]

Portion of the world's annual traffic fatalities that are : 1/5[World Health Organization (Geneva)]

Percentage change since 1994 in treatment for male infertility and erectile dysfunction in Shanghai : +100[Shanghai Institute of Andrology]

Amount a Chinese online gamer made last year by selling a virtual sword he had borrowed from a friend : $850[Shanghai Zhen Xing Law Firm]

Months later that the friend retaliated by stabbing him to death with a real knife : 6[Shanghai Zhen Xing Law Firm]

This is Harper's Index for May 2005, a Harper's Index, published Thursday, June 2, 2005. It is part of Harper's Index for 2005, which is part of The Harper's Index, which is part of Harpers.org