...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, October 13, 2003
      ( 2:09 PM )
 
It's all in the Percentages

I was reading October's Harper's today during lunch. A few items on the Index jumped out at me (unfortunately, October's index isn't available on line yet):

Percentage of Americans that believe George W. Bush was legitimately elected president: 54

Percentage who believed this in March 2001: 56

Percentage of Americans who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of this year's tax cut: 88

Average amount these Americans will save: $4

Number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last two years: 354

Number who died in Vietnam in 1963 and 1964: 324

Number of states that require energy companies to derive a percentage of their output form alternative sources: 13

Number of U.S. senators last year who voted against creating a similar federal requirement to take effect in 2020: 70

Number of Democratic legislators absent for this year's 213-210 vote restricting workers' overtime-pay eligibility: 7

Number of Virginia Republican Party officials fined this year for eavesdropping on Democratic Party conference calls: 3

Years after the Watergate break-in that deputy campaign director Jeb Magruder admitted hearing President Nixon order it: 30

Year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs: 1983

But on the positive side:

Estimated market value of the usable body parts of an adult human: $46,000,000.

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