Once a month of so, I turn to Harper’s Index to liven up the blog with factoids without which you could not possibly live. Herewith a selection for this month:
Portion of the hundred best-paid U.S. CEOs who earn more annually than their companies pay in federal taxes : 1/3
Percentage of Americans and Chinese, respectively, who believe their government is “on the side of average citizens” : 12, 80
Who believe their government is “on the side of corporations” : 73, 17
Percentage of people living in the developing world who have a favorable view of the oil and gas industries : 69
Of people living in the developed world who do : 47
Percentage of electricity consumed in the United States that is generated from renewable sources : 13
Of electricity consumed in Germany : 24
Amount of a tax on each ounce of soda sold in Berkeley, California, passed last year by ballot initiative : $0.01
Amount the beverage industry spent lobbying against the tax for every vote cast against the initiative : $238
Number of homeless people in Tokyo for every 10,000 residents : 1
In New York City : 67
Average annual salary predicted by white Americans for a worker who is described as “black” : $29,420
Who is described as “African-American” : $37,040
Number of days an Iranian woman spent in prison last year for attending a men’s volleyball game : 157
Number of people killed by gang and drug violence in Utah since 2010 : 39
By Utah police : 46
Estimated number of U.S. citizens targeted for surveillance by the U.S. Postal Service in the past year : 49,000
Percentage of Americans who do not feel secure sharing private information over social media : 81
Amount for which the owner of happybirthday.com is attempting to sell the domain name : $2,000,000
Amount for which he sold sex.com in 2010 : $13,000,000
Date on which Apple’s market capitalization first exceeded that of the Russian stock market : 8/28/2014
Amount a Russian man was fined last October for delivering a pizza by drone : $1,092
Number of seconds after leaving its carrier plane that Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceship disintegrated in October : 15
Number of explosives the U.S. Navy plans to detonate in the Pacific between now and 2018 : 260,000
Estimated number of times the explosions will disturb marine mammals : 9,600,000
Number of reported cases in the past decade of an Antarctic fur seal having sex with a king penguin : 4
Then eating it : 1
Chance that an American getting married in 1960 had been married before : 1 in 8
That an American getting married today has been : 1 in 4
Estimated number of U.S. preschoolers who spend part of every night at a day-care facility : 410,640
Amount a Canadian woman owes a Hawaii hospital after giving birth there while on vacation last year : $850,000
Number of women who received tubectomies last November as part of a mass sterilization drive in Bilaspur, India : 137
Number of these women who subsequently died : 16
Number of the procedures performed by a single doctor over a ninety-minute period : 83
Percentage increase in the annual number of polio cases in Pakistan since 2005 : 857
Chances that a Protestant in Brazil claims to have witnessed a divine healing : 7 in 10
Date on which Bob Marley’s estate announced the launch of Marley Natural, a “global cannabis brand” : 11/18/2014