84,759 calls were received by Israel's bomb squad in 2003

That's 232 a day every day of the year.

Israel's bomb squad has 12 members.

Let's do some more math.

Let's say that 4 members each work one of three 8 hour shifts a day.

That means that the 4 active individuals handle a third of the day's calls, or 77 calls per 8 hour shift.

Let's say they divide them up: that means each of the 4 people on a shift is responsible for deciding how to handle 19 bomb threat calls during their 8 hour working day.

And we haven't even factored in vacations, illness, etc.

I'd say that the Israeli bomb squad is probably, by far, the world's best.

So it's no wonder that members of New York City's bomb squad go to Israel for weeks at a time to learn from the masters.

The numbers in the headline come from Judith Miller's fascinating article from this past Sunday's New York Times on Mordecai Dzikansky (above, in the center in a suit, with the badge and sunglasses), a NYPD detective who works in Israel with the Israeli Police Department as a liason officer.