Harper's Index for December 2006

Posted on Sunday, January 7, 2007.


Amount a 2006 defense bill authorized for a daylong “celebration” of “success” in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20,000,000

Date on which the authorization was extended to 2007: 9/30/06

Number of life-size photo cutouts of troops that Maine’s Army National Guard has given to relatives: 200

Chances that a Guantánamo detainee was turned over to Coalition forces by an Afghan or Pakistani citizen: 9 in 10

Average reward that leaflets airdropped over their countries promised for every “terrorist” turned in: $5,000

Amount a cable TV reporter paid a former Army interrogator to waterboard him in July: $800

Minutes into the waterboarding that a producer decided he had to stop it: 24

Number of incidences of torture on prime-time network TV shows from 2002 to 2005: 624

Number on shows the previous seven years: 110

Number of people the U.S. counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer personally killed last season on the TV show 24: 38

Percentage change from 2004 to 2005 in the number of criminal violations by U.S. military recruiters: +106

Number of private firms that have been hired since 2002 to recruit soldiers for the Army: 7

Average amount the firms are paid per recruit: $5,700

Number of Americans and Britons who now work in the IT industry in India: 30,000

Monthly cost for a U.S. student to receive unlimited online tutoring from a Bangalore-based “e-tutor”: $100

Minimum number of PlayStation 3s whose spare processing power will be used next year for biological research: 10,000

Factor by which the interconnected game systems will be faster than the world’s most powerful supercomputer: 5

Factor by which the number of “perfect games” bowled last year exceeds the number in 1985: 7

Percentage of N.F.L. fourth downs on which teams are better off “going for it,” according to a Berkeley study: 40

Percentage of fourth downs on which N.F.L. teams do go for it: 13

Score by which Russia defeated Kazakhstan in the 2006 Homeless World Cup final in September: 1‒0

Ratio of the number of people worldwide who are overweight to the number who are undernourished: 5:3

Chances that a patient who undergoes weight-loss surgery will develop complications within six months: 2 in 5

Percentage of Britons who say they would give up sex to live to 100: 40

Portion of Britain’s fertility clinics that have an insufficient supply of sperm: 7/10

Percentage of women who have an orgasm during sex with a man, according to an Australian study: 69

Percentage who do during sex with another woman: 76

Percentage by which a man’s chances of being gay increase for every older brother he has: 33

Number of Texas high schools that offered Bible courses as electives last year: 25

Number of these courses that broke the law by being primarily devotional and sectarian, according to a September study: 22

Number of times President Bush has declared an event or outcome not to be “acceptable” so far this year: 42

Number of times he said this the previous three years combined: 33

Percentage of Americans in October who said that Congress should impeach President Bush: 51

Number of non-citizens charged with vote fraud in U.S. elections since 2002: 21

Cost, in one Mexican town, of a six-hour tour “full of obstacles and persecution” across a mock U.S.-Mexico border: $14

Estimated percentage of the town’s population that has illegally crossed the real border: 90

Cost of an eight-day tour of Israel’s “struggle for survival and security in the Middle East”: $1,895

Minimum number of checkpoints Mary and Joseph would face today on their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem: 10

Number of worldwide incidents last Christmas of “Santarchy,” which involves roving mobs of unruly Santas: 29

Number of fruitcakes that drunken Santas catapulted into the air at the event in Portland, Oregon: 6