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Harper's Index for December 2006

Posted on Sunday, January 7, 2007.

SourcesAmount a 2006 defense bill authorized for a daylong �celebration� of �success� in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20,000,000[U.S. Department of Defense (Arlington, Va.)]

Date on which the authorization was extended to 2007: 9/30/06[U.S. Department of Defense (Arlington, Va.)]

Number of life-size photo cutouts of troops that Maine�s Army National Guard has given to relatives: 200[Maine Army National Guard (Augusta)]

Chances that a Guant�namo detainee was turned over to Coalition forces by an Afghan or Pakistani citizen: 9 in 10[Mark Denbeaux, Seton Hall University Law School (Newark, N.J.)]

Average reward that leaflets airdropped over their countries promised for every �terrorist� turned in: $5,000[Mark Denbeaux, Seton Hall University Law School (Newark, N.J.)]

Amount a cable TV reporter paid a former Army interrogator to waterboard him in July: $800[Current TV (San Francisco)]

Minutes into the waterboarding that a producer decided he had to stop it: 24[Current TV (San Francisco)]

Number of incidences of torture on prime-time network TV shows from 2002 to 2005: 624[Parents Television Council (Los Angeles)]

Number on shows the previous seven years: 110[Parents Television Council (Los Angeles)]

Number of people the U.S. counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer personally killed last season on the TV show 24: 38[Bauercount.com (Grand Rapids, Mich.)]

Percentage change from 2004 to 2005 in the number of criminal violations by U.S. military recruiters: +106[U.S. Government Accountability Office]

Number of private firms that have been hired since 2002 to recruit soldiers for the Army: 7[U.S. Army Recruiting Command (Fort Knox, Ky.)]

Average amount the firms are paid per recruit: $5,700[U.S. Army Recruiting Command (Fort Knox, Ky.)]

Number of Americans and Britons who now work in the IT industry in India: 30,000[National Association of Software and Service Companies (New Delhi)]

Monthly cost for a U.S. student to receive unlimited online tutoring from a Bangalore-based �e-tutor�: $100[TutorVista (Bangalore, India)]

Minimum number of PlayStation 3s whose spare processing power will be used next year for biological research: 10,000[Vijay Pande, Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)]

Factor by which the interconnected game systems will be faster than the world�s most powerful supercomputer: 5[Vijay Pande, Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)]

Factor by which the number of �perfect games� bowled last year exceeds the number in 1985: 7[U.S. Bowling Congress (Greendale, Wis.)]

Percentage of N.F.L. fourth downs on which teams are better off �going for it,� according to a Berkeley study: 40[David Romer, University of California, Berkeley]

Percentage of fourth downs on which N.F.L. teams do go for it: 13[David Romer, University of California, Berkeley]

Score by which Russia defeated Kazakhstan in the 2006 Homeless World Cup final in September: 1‒0[Homeless World Cup (Edinburgh)]

Ratio of the number of people worldwide who are overweight to the number who are undernourished: 5:3[World Health Organization (Geneva)/Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome)]

Chances that a patient who undergoes weight-loss surgery will develop complications within six months: 2 in 5[Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Rockville, Md.)]

Percentage of Britons who say they would give up sex to live to 100: 40[Ipsos MORI (London)]

Portion of Britain�s fertility clinics that have an insufficient supply of sperm: 7/10[BBC News (London)]

Percentage of women who have an orgasm during sex with a man, according to an Australian study: 69[Juliet Richters, University of New South Wales (Sydney)]

Percentage who do during sex with another woman: 76[Juliet Richters, University of New South Wales (Sydney)]

Percentage by which a man�s chances of being gay increase for every older brother he has: 33[Ray Blanchard, University of Toronto]

Number of Texas high schools that offered Bible courses as electives last year: 25[Mark Chancey, Southern Methodist University (Dallas)]

Number of these courses that broke the law by being primarily devotional and sectarian, according to a September study: 22[Mark Chancey, Southern Methodist University (Dallas)]

Number of times President Bush has declared an event or outcome not to be �acceptable� so far this year: 42[Harper�s research]

Number of times he said this the previous three years combined: 33[Harper�s research]

Percentage of Americans in October who said that Congress should impeach President Bush: 51[Newsweek (N.Y.C.)]

Number of non-citizens charged with vote fraud in U.S. elections since 2002: 21[U.S. Department of Justice]

Cost, in one Mexican town, of a six-hour tour �full of obstacles and persecution� across a mock U.S.-Mexico border: $14[Parque Eco-Alberto (Ixmiquilpan, Mexico)]

Estimated percentage of the town�s population that has illegally crossed the real border: 90[Parque Eco-Alberto (Ixmiquilpan, Mexico)]

Cost of an eight-day tour of Israel�s �struggle for survival and security in the Middle East�: $1,895[Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center (Petach Tikva, Israel)]

Minimum number of checkpoints Mary and Joseph would face today on their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem: 10[ Harper�s research]

Number of worldwide incidents last Christmas of �Santarchy,� which involves roving mobs of unruly Santas: 29[Santarchy.com (San Francisco)]

Number of fruitcakes that drunken Santas catapulted into the air at the event in Portland, Oregon: 6[Portland Cacophony Society (Portland, Oreg.)]