Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning Harper's Index for May 2004

Chance that an American adult believes that "politics and government are too
complicated to understand" : 1 in 3

Chance that an American who was home-schooled feels this way : 1 in 25

Number of blank votes recorded by touchscreen machines in a January election
for Florida's House of Representatives : 137

Votes by which the race was won : 12

Number of Haiti's elections since 1994 called "bogus electoral exercises" by
the State Department's Roger Noriega : 3

Last year in which one of these elections took place under President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide : 1995

Percentage of Western Hemisphere countries besides Cuba whose leaders Noriega
believes have been "freely elected" : 100

Federal funds given last September to a group organizing the recall of
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez : $53,400

Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by the Bush
Administration's top officials since March 2002 : 237

Percentage of these that contradicted, made selective use of, or
mischaracterized existing government intelligence : 100

Days before last year's invasion of Iraq that Osama bin Laden called Saddam
Hussein a "socialist infidel" : 36

Days into the 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo that candidate George W. Bush
observed, "Victory means exit strategy" : 17

Months into the war in Iraq that all U.S. personnel there were equipped with
antiballistic body armor : 11 (see page 67)

Months into the war that Britain confirmed that all its troops were outfitted
with desert clothing : 9

Estimated percentage of French schoolgirls who wore an Islamic head scarf to
school last fall : 0.02

Number of Holsteins disqualified from the Ohio State Fair last August because
they were wearing a hair piece : 2

Number of suspensions a Dallas-area high school handed out last fall for
dress-code violations : 1,116

Acreage of a Christian nudist colony under development in Florida : 240

Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a "sexual anxieties"
diagnosis to avoid military service last winter : 150

Number of times that Everglades saw grass switches gender during a week of
flowering : 2

Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July
2000 that have since been dissolved : 3

Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five
years : 20

Median household income a pair of U.S. single mothers would have if they
married each other : $40,568

Median household income of a U.S. heterosexual couple with children : $59,461

Percentage of senior management positions in medium-size Russian companies
that are held by women : 42

Percentage of senior management positions at equivalent U.S. companies that
are : 20

Percentage of U.S. companies that threaten to close the work site when faced
with a unionization effort : 51

Factor by which the unemployment rate of African-American college graduates
exceeds that of white graduates : 1.9

Average percentage of African-American men age 16 to 64 in New York City who
were employed each month last year : 52

Minimum number of Tennesseans who have ordered new license plates bearing the
Confederate flag : 3,000

Minimum revenue the Sons of Confederate Veterans stands to collect through
such sales : $20,000

Amount the federal Individual Indian Trust cannot account for, per Native
American it serves : $26,000

Total overruns at Boston's "Big Dig" attributed to mistakes and mismanagement
by the Bechtel Corporation : $1,100,000,000

Percentage of the 13,129 varieties of dirt in the United States that are
endangered : 4

Amount that Tom DeLay's political action committee spent at the Washington,
D.C., Hooters last November : $117.19

Years in prison to which two ex-Pentagon officials were sentenced last year
for taking bribes of money and prostitutes : 24

Number of years a North Carolina man has been in prison for stealing a
television : 33

Days after Smith & Wesson Holding appointed a chairman last winter that he
resigned over old armed-robbery convictions : 38

Caliber of his first gun, a Smith & Wesson used for armed robbery : .38

Harper's Index for May 2004