Sometimes I can be serious.
Skip over this entry if you want to hear about fart jokes or sex.
I love the Harper's Index. A list of some fairly piquant statistics was published in the August 2007 issue. I bolded the ones that I though were of particular interest.
Number of Bush White House officials who are authorized to discuss pending criminal cases with the Justice Department: 711
Number of Clinton officials who were: 4
Number of Bush appointees who regulate industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 85
Percentage of federal inspectors general appointed by Bush and Clinton, respectively, who had prior audit experience: 36, 66
Percentage who held some political position prior to their appointment: 45, 22
Number of the five directors of a No Child Left Behind reading program who had financial ties to curricula they developed: 4
Average amount each of these directors has received from the publishers of reading materials sold to schools: $727,000
Number of states where middle school reading scores have improved since 2002, as measured by the states' tests: 33
Number of these states where reading scores showed any improvement on a thirty-eight-year-old national test: 8
Portion of states where the projected climate in 2100 will not be able to sustain their official tree or flower: 3/5
Percentage of British children aged seven to eleven who say they "worry about global warming": 34
Percentage who believe their own parents are to blame for the problem: 15
Chances that a European industrial plant emitted less CO2 last year than its new EU quota allowed: 19 in 20
Portion of Indian companies that maintain gas-run generators and stores of gasoline to use during power outages: 1/2
Estimated amount of oil, in barrels, used to make the bottled-water containers sold in the U.S. last year: 16,000,000
Ratio of the amount of water used to make the containers to the amount of bottled water consumed: 2/1
Average number of liters of bottled water delivered to U.S. troops in Iraq each day: 1,400,000
Number of U.N. staffers in New York who still have full-time jobs monitoring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction: 34
Date on which the U.S. first proposed a Security Council resolution to disband the monitoring team: 6/8/07 (that's June 8th for you Internationals!)
Percentage of Marines stationed in Iraq who say they agree that "all non-combatants should be treated as insurgents": 16
Percentage who say they "neither agree nor disagree": 19
Number of the 525 donors who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2004 who have yet to support a 2008 candidate: 34
Amount the political action committee of 2008 hopeful Fred Thompson has given to Republican causes since 2003: $83,650
Amount the PAC has paid since then in consulting fees to Thompson's sons: $196,260
Percentage of conservative voters who said in May that they favor amnesty for illegal immigrants: 55
Percentage who said they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who favored such a plan: 66
Number of forty-seven Mexican consulates in cities across America that have opened since 1980: 42
Amount the consulates spent last year to repatriate the bodies of Mexicans who died here: $3,800,000
Minimum number of U.S. colleges that now offer on-campus sites for the ashes of alumni: 9
Portion of Americans who believe there are circumstances in which a medical patient should be allowed to die: 7/10
Portion who say they would consider ending their own lives if ill with a terminal disease: 1/3
Chance that an inmate serving a life sentence in Italy signed a May letter asking to be sentenced to death: 1 in 4
Number of prisons in England that provied personal trainers to unfit inmates: 25
Minimum price for a Disney World "VIP" tour which includes a personal guide to negotiate lines at rides: $750
Number of different nationalities represented among the staff at the headquarters of Coca-Cola: 58
Number of words spoken by Clarence Thomas during Supreme Court oral arguments since February 2006: 132
Number by Samuel Alito, the Justice who spoke the second-fewest words: 14,404
Weight, in ounces, of all the information that passed through the Internet last year: 0.00004 (for you Internationals, I assure you that it is basically nothing.)
Cost per minute last spring for callers to the Vienna public library to have literary erotica read to them: 49 cents
Average number of minutes a caller listened: 4
I love the Harper's Index. A list of some fairly piquant statistics was published in the August 2007 issue. I bolded the ones that I though were of particular interest.
Number of Bush White House officials who are authorized to discuss pending criminal cases with the Justice Department: 711
Number of Clinton officials who were: 4
Number of Bush appointees who regulate industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 85
Percentage of federal inspectors general appointed by Bush and Clinton, respectively, who had prior audit experience: 36, 66
Percentage who held some political position prior to their appointment: 45, 22
Number of the five directors of a No Child Left Behind reading program who had financial ties to curricula they developed: 4
Average amount each of these directors has received from the publishers of reading materials sold to schools: $727,000
Number of states where middle school reading scores have improved since 2002, as measured by the states' tests: 33
Number of these states where reading scores showed any improvement on a thirty-eight-year-old national test: 8
Portion of states where the projected climate in 2100 will not be able to sustain their official tree or flower: 3/5
Percentage of British children aged seven to eleven who say they "worry about global warming": 34
Percentage who believe their own parents are to blame for the problem: 15
Chances that a European industrial plant emitted less CO2 last year than its new EU quota allowed: 19 in 20
Portion of Indian companies that maintain gas-run generators and stores of gasoline to use during power outages: 1/2
Estimated amount of oil, in barrels, used to make the bottled-water containers sold in the U.S. last year: 16,000,000
Ratio of the amount of water used to make the containers to the amount of bottled water consumed: 2/1
Average number of liters of bottled water delivered to U.S. troops in Iraq each day: 1,400,000
Number of U.N. staffers in New York who still have full-time jobs monitoring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction: 34
Date on which the U.S. first proposed a Security Council resolution to disband the monitoring team: 6/8/07 (that's June 8th for you Internationals!)
Percentage of Marines stationed in Iraq who say they agree that "all non-combatants should be treated as insurgents": 16
Percentage who say they "neither agree nor disagree": 19
Number of the 525 donors who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2004 who have yet to support a 2008 candidate: 34
Amount the political action committee of 2008 hopeful Fred Thompson has given to Republican causes since 2003: $83,650
Amount the PAC has paid since then in consulting fees to Thompson's sons: $196,260
Percentage of conservative voters who said in May that they favor amnesty for illegal immigrants: 55
Percentage who said they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who favored such a plan: 66
Number of forty-seven Mexican consulates in cities across America that have opened since 1980: 42
Amount the consulates spent last year to repatriate the bodies of Mexicans who died here: $3,800,000
Minimum number of U.S. colleges that now offer on-campus sites for the ashes of alumni: 9
Portion of Americans who believe there are circumstances in which a medical patient should be allowed to die: 7/10
Portion who say they would consider ending their own lives if ill with a terminal disease: 1/3
Chance that an inmate serving a life sentence in Italy signed a May letter asking to be sentenced to death: 1 in 4
Number of prisons in England that provied personal trainers to unfit inmates: 25
Minimum price for a Disney World "VIP" tour which includes a personal guide to negotiate lines at rides: $750
Number of different nationalities represented among the staff at the headquarters of Coca-Cola: 58
Number of words spoken by Clarence Thomas during Supreme Court oral arguments since February 2006: 132
Number by Samuel Alito, the Justice who spoke the second-fewest words: 14,404
Weight, in ounces, of all the information that passed through the Internet last year: 0.00004 (for you Internationals, I assure you that it is basically nothing.)
Cost per minute last spring for callers to the Vienna public library to have literary erotica read to them: 49 cents
Average number of minutes a caller listened: 4