Here is a selection from the most current Harper’s Index, my favorite shapshot of stats. I got hooked on it years ago and I rarely miss it. It’s put out by Harper’s Magazine, an American journal of literature, politics, culture, and the arts (since 1850). In the online version, there are links to sources.

Number of Holsteins disqualified from the Ohio State Fair last August because they were wearing a hair piece : 2
[Ohio Department of Agriculture (Reynoldsburg) ]

Number of suspensions a Dallas-area high school handed out last fall for dress-code violations : 1,116
[Duncanville Independent School District (Tex.) ]

Acreage of a Christian nudist colony under development in Florida : 240
[Continuing Care, Inc. (Venice, Fla.) ]

Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a "sexual anxieties" diagnosis to avoid military service last winter : 150
[Sophie Arie, Guardian (London) ]

Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved : 3
[Vermont Department of Health (Burlington) ]

Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years : 20
[National Center for Health Statistics (Hyattsville, Md.) ]

Percentage of senior management positions in medium-size Russian companies that are held by women : 42
[Grant Thornton International (London) ]

Minimum number of Tennesseans who have ordered new license plates bearing the Confederate flag : 3,000
[Tennessee Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (Brentwood) ]

Minimum revenue the Sons of Confederate Veterans stands to collect through such sales : $20,000
[Tennessee Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (Brentwood) ]

Amount the federal Individual Indian Trust cannot account for, per Native American it serves : $26,000
[Native American Rights Fund (Boulder, Colo.) ]

Total overruns at Boston’s "Big Dig" attributed to mistakes and mismanagement by the Bechtel Corporation : $1,100,000,000
[Boston Globe ]

Years in prison to which two ex-Pentagon officials were sentenced last year for taking bribes of money and prostitutes : 24
[U.S. Department of Justice (Alexandria, Va.) ]

Number of blank votes recorded by touchscreen machines in a January election for Florida’s House of Representatives : 137
[Florida Department of State (Tallahassee) ]

Votes by which the race was won : 12
[Florida Department of State (Tallahassee) ]

Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by the Bush Administration’s top officials since March 2002 : 237
[Committee on Government Reform (Washington, D.C.) ]

Percentage of these that contradicted, made selective use of, or mischaracterized existing government intelligence : 100
[Committee on Government Reform (Washington, D.C.) ]

Days before last year’s invasion of Iraq that Osama bin Laden called Saddam Hussein a "socialist infidel" : 36
[Al Jazeera (Doha, Qatar)/BBC Monitoring Service (Caversham Park, U.K.) ]

The Online Harper’s has a searchable index by category, including by person. I like the George W page.

They also have a weekly review that rivals my other favorite read, News of the Weird. An example:

"Investigators revealed that a retired banker living in Switzerland spent 10 years helping Saddam Hussein hide millions of dollars via a Bahamas bank account under the name of Satan."