May 20, 2008 20:49
Percentage of Americans in 1983 who thought it was "possible to start out poor in this country...and become rich": 57
Percentage who think this today: 80
Percentage of U.S. income in 1983 and today, respectively, that went to the top 1 percent of earners: 9, 16
Average income of a black American today, expressed as a percentage of the average income of a white American: 74
Average income of an American child of Mexican immigrants, expressed in the same terms: 71
Chance that an article in the top U.S. newsweeklies last year was about a Latino or Latinos: 1 in 100
Chance that an article about a Latino or Latinos was about immigration: 2 in 3
Chance that a federal prisoner in the U.S, is a noncitizen: 1 in 5
Number of Chinese illegals who have been caught by the U.S. but China has so far refused to take back: 39,000
Number of troops that China has contributed to current U.N. peacekeeping missions: 1,408
Number from the other permanent members of the U.N security council combined: 822
Minimum number of different U.S. government agencies that mine the personal data of citizens: 42
Minimum number of states that have received telemarketing calls on their federally-issued emergency hot lines: 8
Minimum amount that an Arkansas mayor has discounted a prostitute's city water bill since 2004 in exchange for sex: $790
Rank of AIDS and pregnancy, respectively, among the top causes of death worldwide for girls aged 10 to 19: 1,2
Number of convictions that have been handed down so far under India's 1996 law to ban sex-determination tests: 1
Estimated number of female fetuses that have been selectively aborted there since then: 4,500,000
Change, in hertz, in the average pitch of Australian women's voices since 1945: -23
Factor by which the combined genetic content of bacteria in a human digestive tract exceed that of the human genome: 100
Percentage of pharmaceutical trials in 1997 that were performed in the developing world: 3
Percentage today: 18
Chances that a college paper today is plagiarized at least in part: 3 in 10
Estimated number of Americans who get degrees each year from nonaccreditied "diploma mills": 100,000
Number of Pentagon employees who had such degrees on their resumes, in a recent Congressional study: 257
Chances that a recent graduate fro a U.S. four-year college has attended more than one institution: 3 in 5
Minimum number of books in Harvard's libraries that are bound in human flesh: 2
Year by which humans will "be having sex with robots," according to the head of the European Robotics Research Network: 2011
Months that an Idaho man has checked out his library's copy of "The Joy of Gay Sex," to prevent others from seeing it: 7
Number of additional copies that the library has received unsolicited since this was first reported: 7
Minimum number of different vertebrate species that have homosexual sex: 300
Typical length, in minutes, of all-male dolphin orgies: 20
Chance that a British veterinarian says he or she has treated a drunk dog: 1 in 4