MEMORIALIZE EVERYTHING AND ENJOY A MEMORABLE WORLD

A bald eagle being force-fed through a feeding tube

My sister emailed me this article from the Daily Koz: One Hundred Names You Won't Hear This Memorial Day.

And here's some stats from this month's Harper's Index:

• Annual cost of all sixteen U.N. peacekeeping missions currently underway : $3,870,000,000
• Monthly cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq : $4,100,000,000
• Revenue from Iraqi oil sales that the CPA could not account for, according to a 2005 audit : $8,800,000,000
• Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on a single defector : 100
• Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents : 0
• Minimum number of newspapers in which Denmark posted ads this year seeking antiterrorist spies : 3
• Percentage of Iceland residents who took out an ad this winter apologizing for Icelandic support of the Iraq war : 1.5
• Number of books published last year in Iceland and the United States, respectively, per 100,000 residents : 212, 63
• Number of books registered at BookCrossing.com, so the books can be left in public places and found by others : 1,935,000
• Number of the books left behind that have been from the Left Behind series : 2,047
• Rank, on the Turkish bestseller list in March, of a thriller depicting a U.S. invasion of Turkey : 1
• Rank of Mein Kampf : 2
• Chance that a resident of the former East Germany wants the Berlin Wall back : 1 in 8
• Number of lines that Italy's largest cellular operator has set aside for government eavesdropping : 5,000
• Number of these that were in use in March : 5,000
• Chance that a Russian scientist says he or she would consider working for North Korea : 1 in 7
• Year by which every U.S. nuclear weapon will have reached the end of its original design life : 2014 (see page 56)
• Number of merit badges in Safety awarded to Boy Scouts since 2001 : 15,417
• Number in Shotgun Shooting : 65,249
• Percentage of the world's Anglican bishops that have condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church's ordination of a gay bishop : 34
• Number of U.S. Episcopal churches that are now affiliated with dioceses in Rwanda or Uganda : 38
• Number of federal benefits in the United States that are tied directly to marriage : 1,138
• Factor by which the average viral load in "socially inhibited" HIV+ men exceeds that in "outgoing" men, in a UCLA study : 8
• Average percentage by which the power of the male heart declines between the ages of 18 and 75 : 20
• Average percentage by which the female heart does : 0
• Ratio of women to men killed in last December's tsunami, in a survey of eight Indonesian villages : 3:1
• Number of times that major U.S. newspapers have used the term "feeding tube" since January : 647
• Number of times they had used the term in the previous five years : 483
• Years after Bob Marley's death that the BBC, in April, requested an interview with him : 24
• Average number of hours it takes to read a weekday Washington Post out loud : 28
• Projected year by which U.S. Treasury bonds will sink to junk status, on current fiscal policy : 2026 (see page 39)
• Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999 : $2,500
• Percentage of Americans who say that driving a fuel-efficient car is an act of patriotism : 66
• Percentage of NASCAR fans who say this : 67
• Portion of the world's motor vehicles that are in China : 1/17
• Portion of the world's annual traffic fatalities that are : 115
• Percentage change since 1994 in treatment for male infertility and erectile dysfunction in Shanghai : +l00
• Amount a Chinese online gamer made last year by selling a virtual sword he had borrowed from a friend : $850
• Months later that the friend retaliated by stabbing him to death with a real knife : 6