crunchpatty
Old Shoe
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Oct-18-2007 00:40
And they say statistics are meaningless :)
For those not familiar, Harper's Magazine publishes a list of funny, political statistics every month. As the proud blushing owner of a (lapsed but renewed) one-year subscription, I hereby pledge to post them every time I get a new one in the mail.
Sources for these references are available from the magazine. Check it out:
Number of different areas of US infrastructure graded by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2005: 15
Average grade and highest grade, respectively, that the group gave out: D, C+
Amount that poor roads cost Americans in repairs and other extra operating costs each year: $67 000 000 000
Estimated amount needed over the next twenty years to maintain US sewer systems: $390 000 000 000
Percentage change since 1990 in the average size of an American master bathroom: +50
Percentage change since 1980 in the average amount of solid waste generated by an American: +24
Number of square feet of US self-storage space built since 1998: 1 000 000 000
Number of US colleges that have closed since 1990: 228
Number of the 17 Islamic universities in sub-Saharan Africa that have been founded in the past 10 years: 10
Age at which most German children are slotted into high schools: 10
Chance that a child of immigrants to Germany is granted a spot at a college preparatory high school: 1 in 7
Chance for all German children: 1 in 3
Percentage change since 2004 in US immigration to Canada: +46
Percentage change since then in total retail sales in Crawford, Texas: -27
Percentage disapproval rating for George W. Bush in July: 66
Ratings for Harry Truman in 1952 and Richard Nixon in 1974, respectively, the only presidents ever to climb so high: 67, 66
Chance that a CEO who left one of the top 2500 global companies in 1995 was forced out: 1 in 8
Chance in 2006: 1 in 3
(more, ahead)
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