Posted 4:07:00 p.m. by Masi

Harper's Index - October 2002

I really enjoy the Index, so I thought about sharing it with those who do not yet know about it.

Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount : $15,400

Maximum amount each of Enron's 4,500 laid-off employees would receive as part of a proposed settlement : $13,500

Average amount the company paid each of its 140 top executives last year : $5,300,000

Months that Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to release documents related to current U.S. energy policy : 16

Months since his release from prison that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has been looking for work : 24

Years that the National Security Agency's new head of research held the same position at Disney : 2

Number of Hollywood films released in the last two years for which Senator Orrin Hatch has co-written songs : 2

Number of teenagers enrolled last summer in Secure Corps, a "homeland security training" camp in Pennsylvania : 92

Grant given a Maryland professor last October to create an online archive of dot-com-era business plans : $300,500

Number of Japanese McDonald's that began offering broadband Internet access in May : 9

Size in acres of a billboard that a Chinese town is constructing next to its ancient giant Buddha : 10

Hours that the Empire State Building was lit "Snapple Yellow" in August : 8

Percentage of Americans who say vacationing leaves them tired : 54

Number of traffic tickets issued in July by British Columbia police officers posing as squeegee men : 90

Number of bookies arrested in India in March on charges they took bets on Hindu-Muslim riots : 101

Percentage of seats in Pakistan's parliamentary elections this month that will be reserved for women : 19

Number of Afghan refugees whose 2002 return the U.N. budgeted for in January : 800,000

Number who have returned home since then : 1,500,000

Percentage of Israeli settlers who say they would respect a government decision for them to leave the settlements : 68

Percentage who say they remain in the settlements for the quality of life : 75

Percentage of Americans who said in August that they had a clear idea of why the U.S. would consider attacking Iraq : 56

Amount of Iraq's oil revenue since 1996 spent on anything but humanitarian programs, Kuwaiti reparations, or U.N. costs : 0

Minimum annual U.S. spending on searching for missing soldiers : $100,000,000

Number of U.S. soldiers missing in action since 1945 : 88,135

Chance that one of the 264 barrios of Medellín, Colombia, is controlled by right-wing paramilitaries : 1 in 4

Estimated chance last year : 1 in 10

Number of Argentines who have applied to be on a new job-search game show since April : 6,500 (see page 20)

Percentage change in U.S. spending on border enforcement since 1995 : +200

Percentage change since then in the estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States : +57

Number of corrections professionals who attended a mock riot at a former West Virginia prison in May : 1,235

Minimum number of U.S. universities where Halloween celebrations last year included at least one student in blackface : 4

Rank of Richard Nixon masks among the top U.S. costumer's best-selling political masks over the last five years : 1

Number of the last six U.S. presidents who bested their opponents in the company's election-year Halloween mask sales : 6

Percentage of Americans who blame Bill Clinton's "moral failings" for the current business scandals : 51

Percentage who blame President Bush's "close ties to big corporations" : 46

Percentage of CEOs who blame CEOs for the scandals : 69

Value of the Dow Jones industrial average in 1996 when Alan Greenspan warned of investors' "irrational exuberance" : 6,437

Average number of U.S. print-media references to "our new reality" each week since September 11, 2001 : 1.4

Average number of words of MTV's The Osbournes censored per minute : 2.8