Numbers Please

The cartoon is by Mr. Fish from Harper's Magazine. I was intrigued by numbers at the Roosevelt Mall tonight. Like: The increasing prevalence of interracial couples (I saw at least 6, the resultant babies are one sure fire way to stop racism). The unbelievably low prices at Steve and Barry's gigantic, but empty store (nothing over $6.98-now what does that tell you about the state of the economy and how much of that do you think the Nepalese workers get that make the garments sold there) The no wait time at a fine restaurant like Macaroni Grill and the 1 hour wait for some schlock like the Cheesecake Factory and Chili's. Other interesting stats: The average number of pantry flies I kill each day, 20; average number of Stewart's or Boylan Creme Sodas consumed by Steff each day, 5; average time spent on my laptop each day,10 hours
Here's some numbers from Harper's Magazine Index:
Number of times that Mary, Jesus' mother, is referenced by name in the Bible and the Koran, respectively: 19, 34[Hartford Institute for Religion Research (Hartford, Conn.)]
Percentage change last year in the number of CDs sold at Starbucks: +307[Starbucks Coffee Company (Seattle)]
Minimum number of shopping carts that went missing from L.A.–area stores last year: 6,220,000[California Shopping Cart Retrieval Corp. (Burbank)/Hernandez Cart Service Inc. (Venice, Calif.)]
Percentage of South Korean youth who say their country should back North Korea in the event of war with the U.S.: 48[The Korea Times/Hankook Ilbo (Seoul)]
Percentage of white-collar Chinese workers who have personal blogs: 52[CBP Career Consultants Co. (Shanghai)]
Weeks in advance that Al Qaeda operatives must request vacation time, according to seized documents: 10[Combating Terrorism Center (West Point, N.Y.)]
Estimated number of fake blogs created every day by websites to improve their rankings in search-engine results: 6,750[Technorati (San Francisco)]