Showing posts tagged harper's Index

Even More from the Index

  • Date on which the Iraqi government announced its efforts to “eliminate the ‘emo’ phenomenon” in Baghdad: 8/31/2012
  • Minimum number of Iraqi teenagers killed for having an “emo style” since then: 42
  • Percentage change in the past 25 years in the net worth of Americans 65 and older: +42%
  • Of Americans 35 and younger: -68%
  • Number of articles about Mad Men on the Washington Post’s website in the month before the show’s 2012 season premiere: 45
  • Number about the political violence in Mali during the same time: 3
  • Value of loose change left at TSA checkpoints in 2010: $409,085.56
  • Percentage of doctors who will make an obesity diagnosis if a patient’s weight is equal to or greater than their own: 93%
  • Percentage of black Americans who believe in God: 80%
  • Of Jewish Americans: 27

More From the Index

  • Estimated amount of money Hezbollah laundered through U.S. used-car dealers between 2007 and 2011: $329,552,000
  • Date on which Saudi Arabia last executed a woman for sorcery: 12/12/11
  • Chances that a U.K. diaper-changing table carries trace amounts of cocaine, according to a 2011 Guardian Media study: 9 in 10
  • Percentage of bypass-machine doctors who admitted to talking on cell phones during heart surgery in a 2010 survey: 55%
  • Percentage of Americans who believe that the population of the U.S. exceeds one billion: 28%
  • Who believe that Mitt Romney’s first name is “Mittens”: 2%

Came home to a pile of Harper’s, courtesy of Delta SkyMiles®. It’ll never replace The New Yorker as my One True Love — that is to say, I won’t be buried with my favorite issue — but it’s second to few, and you gotta love the Index and Findings.

Some highlights from the past few Indices:

  • Percentage of Americans who believed in anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming in 2001: 75%
  • Today: 44%
  • Number of college graduates currently working as astronomers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, or web developers: 216,000
  • As waiters or bartenders: 216,000
  • Factor by which a religious website is more likely than a pornographic site to infect a computer with malware: 3
  • Estimated portion of sexually explicit text messages that are sent to the wrong number: 1/10