From: v140pxgt@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Carper's Index
Date: 18 Dec 92 06:20:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


	This was in a recent issue of The New Republic-I thought everybody 
might enjoy it.

			CARPER'S INDEX

Sales of Tupperware last year in Lima, Ohio: $890,000
Sales in Lima, Peru: $21.50
Percentage of Americans who think a bagel is a kind of dog: 3
Average amount of wood an American Woodchuck can chuck, in cubic feet: 11
Amount a Canadian woodchuck can chuck: 9
Percentage of articles in an average issue of Harper's that have previously
 appeared elsewhere: 65
In reader's Digest: 55
Number of lentils in a bag of dried lentils, on average: 4,832
Number of calls received by the White House after Bush's defeat: 233
After the Gettysburg Address: 0
Change, since the election, in percentage of illegal aliens who say they 
 suffer from headaches: -5
Number of topless doughnut shops now operating in Broward County, Florida: 1
Price of a glazed doughnut in Moscow, in rubles: 14,000
Percentage of rats that developed leukemia after hearing a tape of Pat 
 Buchanan's republican convention speech: 19
After being read "Pat the Bunny": 2
Percentage of residents of Tupelo, MS who do not have air conditioners but say
 they wish they did: 32
Percentage of residents of Tupelo, MS who have air conditioners but say they
 wish they didn't: 6
Date in November that is the birth of Jerry Lewis: 14
Chances that a dapple-leafed maple in the state of Washington will live past 
 the age of 8: 1 in 450
Increase, since 1973, in the number of Americans who cannot correctly identify
 the day, month, or year: +11
Percentage change in the number of Taiwanese businessmen with advanced degrees,
 1980-86: +3.4%
Percentage of readers who find that fact vaguely interesting: .07%
Number of letters in George Stephanopoulos's last name: 14
Chances that an ostrich has an eating disorder: 1 in 11
Number of gunsots fired in the film Terminator 2: 3,258
In The Rescuers: 11
On an average night in the Bronx's 11th Precinct: 98
Average number of hours of TV watched by an American fourth-grader, daily: 11
By a Saudi teenager: .005
Average life expectancy of an asbestos miner, in years: 57
Current age of Ronald Reagan: 81
Year the air quality index in Ventura County is expected to reach current levels
 in Nome, Alaska: 2036
Year President Nixon resigned: 1974
Average annual government expenditure on embossing invitations for State 
 Dept. Dinners: $400,000
Average annual governement expenditure on polio vaccines for minority children
 : $380,000
Percentage of statistics on this page that are numbingly obvious: 61
Percentage that are naggingly polemical: 39
Percentage of Americans who think that public television should be abolished: 90
Perventage who have sexual fantasies about David Gergen: 6
Number of people in Louisiana who voted for David Duke last year: 542,344
Percentage who read Harper's: 0
Number of times a year Susan Sontag says she cooks dinner at home: 2
What she cooks: pasta
Percentage increase in contempt of Harper's editors for most Americans, per day:
 +17%
Chances that you are still reading this: 1 in 850,000

Figures cited are completely made up, as of November 1992. Carper's Index is not
a registered trademark. Feel Free to reprint this in Harper's magazine next
month.

						Merry Christmas!
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