DMI Blog

Andrea Batista Schlesinger

The 2007 Injustice Index

From DMI's 2007 Year In Review

Minimum number of hazardous children’s toys recalled by Mattel in August 2007: 9,500,000

Number of employees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2007: 420

Number of CPSC staff who currently inspect toys, according to the New York Times: 1

Number of CPSC staff eliminated by the Bush administration’s 2008 budget: 19

Average number of people watching the presidential primary debates: 2 million

Average number of people watching the first five weeks of American Idol’s 2007 season: 33.5 million
Number of members of the Nobel Committee that awarded the Peace Prize to Al Gore in 2007: 5

Number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted against Gore in Bush v. Gore to prevent a recount of ballots cast in Florida during the 2000 presidential election: 5

Number of states in the continental U.S. with areas that experienced at least moderate drought conditions in August: 36

Number of homes threatened by wildfires in California: 68,500

Average cost per day to Los Angeles County to house a female in the Los Angeles jail: $99.64

Cost of housing Paris Hilton in the Los Angeles jail for one day, including special staff for her needs: $1,109.78

Cost of one night in the Eiffel Suite at the Hilton Paris: $1,392

Number of families who may lose their homes due to foreclosures on their sub-prime mortgage loans: 2,200,000

Chance that a Hispanic or African-American borrower received a subprime loan compared to a white borrower with similar credit ratings: 3:1

Chance that the next president will be either the leading Hispanic or African-American candidate respectively according to the November 2007 odds on an online gaming website: 45:1, 5:1

Total amount of contributions raised by all 2008 presidential campaigns a full year before the election is held: $419,877,377

Number of times Rudy Giuliani has answered phone calls from his wife during speeches, conferences, and presentations, as estimated by the Wall Street Journal: 40

Length of time one New York man stood in line to get an iPhone: 6 hours

Length of the United Auto Worker’s strike against Chrysler: 6 hours

Longest television appearance by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on his television program Aló Presidente: 8 hours

Number of graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University serving in President Bush’s administration, according to Slate: 150

Likelihood that a Regent graduate will be employed in some form of government work: 1:6

Minimum no. of days of suspension including out-of-school, in-school, and Saturday detentions, received by three white students at Jena High School for hanging three nooses from the school’s “white tree,” under which only white students traditionally sat: 19

Number of years of prison 17-year-old Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6, initially faced after being convicted of beating up a white student after the noose incident: 15

Median income of non-Hispanic white households and African-American households, respectively: $52,400 and $32,000

Date on which the median price of the American dollar to the Canadian dollar was 1/1: September 20, 2007

Last date on which parity was reached: January 14, 1977

Percentage tax rate of income from “carried interest,” the compensation that fund mangers receive for managing investments: 15

Estimated percentage tax rate if carried interest were taxed as regular income: 35

Percentage of total political donations by hedge funds that were given to Democrats in 2006: 72

Number of uninsured children in the United States: 8.6 million

Approximate number of currently uninsured children who would be covered by the bill Congress passed to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): 4 million

Date on which SCHIP was vetoed by President Bush: October 3, 2007

Percentage of population identifying with Democrats and Republicans in 2002, respectively: 43, 43

Percentage of population identifying with Democrats and Republicans in 2007, respectively: 50, 36

Number of warrants issued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in anti-immigration raids in Nassau County, New York on September 24 and 26 during which 186 immigrants were arrested: 96

Number of warrants with wrong or outdated addresses, according to the Nassau County Police Commissioner: 90

Number of warrants that the special agent in charge of the raid said were needed to make arrests during the raid: 0

Number of agents used in the operation: 180

Number of agents who was wearing a cowboy hat: 1

Date on which President Bush said “I can barely speak English”: August 11, 2007

Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 6:30 AM, Dec 31, 2007 in Year in Review
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