Salient

Pecking Order

By Salient | 3 Sep, 2007

Date when New Zealand had the strongest currency in the world: 24/07/07

Last year in which it was stronger: 1985

Month when the total value of euros in circulation worldwide surpassed that of U.S. dollars: June 2006

Amount in dollars Mayor Kerry Prendergast has spent on travelling so far during her most recent term: 39,860

Amount of this contributed by rate payers: 39,860

Amount in dollars spent in the same period by her Mayoral rivals Ray Ahipene-Mercer, Rob Goulden, Helene Richie, Jack Ruben and Bryan Pepperell respectively: 8, 834, 712, 0, 0, 604

Amount that Hillary Clinton had received by this autumn from former donors to George W. Bush: $633,674

Amount that Barack Obama had received from such donors: $446,524

Estimated total net worth of the seventeen presidential candidates who have appeared in the party debates: $599,054,500

Amount in dollars a Wellington man was fined for littering domestic rubbish in a green council bin after cleaning out his car while waiting for a kebab in Hataitai: 100

Chance that he was caught after a litter officer found his personal details shifting through the bin: 100

Portion of British trash that ends up in landfills : 4/5

Portion of German trash that does : 2/5

Amount a German company says it can save a cargo ship in annual fuel costs by outfitting it with a giant kite: $1,671,780

Energy, in megawatt hours, saved over 35 years by a bicycle rider who does not drive a car: 109

Portion of these savings that will be used up over the extra years the biker will live: 9/10

Ranking respectively of New Zealand energy companies; Genesis, Contact, Bay of Plenty Electricity, Mercury Energy, King Country Energy, Trust Power and Meridian as the largest contributors to climate change: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Number of recent computer models that a team of climate experts studied to assess Arctic warming: 15

Number of the models that showed the North Pole having ice-free summers by 2100: 7

Estimated portion of the world’s undiscovered petroleum that is buried under Arctic ice: 1/5

Amount the British military spent in 2002 researching whether psychics could find terrorist hideouts: $48,760

Chance that a psychic it tested could, blindfolded, identify some portion of the contents of a sealed envelope: 1 in 3

Chance that a psychic fell asleep during the test: 1 in 6

Cost, from a California company, for a headset that can control a video game with brain waves: $70

Number of different moods it can read, in order to select an appropriate MP3 playlist: 3

Amount that Lockheed Martin has spent so far on Polecat, a new unmanned stealth aircraft: $37,615,050

Date on which the only prototype crashed when the self-destruct mode was accidentally activated: 18/12/06

SOURCES: 1. Dominion Post July 24, 2007; 2. Bloomberg.com; 3, 9. Harpers Magazine; 4. Wellingtonian, 2007; 5. Salient research; 6. The Wellingtonian, 2007; 7, 8. Center for Responsive Politics (Washington); 10, 11. Dominion Post July 20/21, 2007; 12, 13. Environmental Services Association (London); 14. SkySails (Hamburg, Germany); 15, 16. Karl T. Ulrich, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia); 17.Dominion Post July 17, 2007; 18, 19. Mark Serreze, National Snow and Ice Data Center (Boulder, Colo.); 20. Wood Mackenzie (Houstonl/Fugro Robertson Limited (Llandudno, North Wales); 21, 22, 23. Ministry of Defence (London); 24,25. NeuroSky (San Jose, Calif.); 26, 27. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company (Fort Worth, Tex.).

E-mail Pecking Orders to editor@Salient.org.nz