Tag Archives: data

How to lie with numbers: taxpayer spending on former US presidents

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*Source, AP. Figures rounded.

*Source: AP. Figures rounded.

There’s a story making the rounds of most major media outlets on how much US taxpayers shell out every year to maintain the four living former presidents (FPOTUSes?).

Bill Clinton billed John and Jane Doe $450,000 for his office space, George W. Bush, who spent the most overall topping $1.3 million, racked up $85,000 in phone calls.  Even Jimmy Carter (wasn’t he on duty during “Argo” or something?) had interns affixing $15,000 in postage stamps in 2012.

But the published numbers don’t tell much of a story – or at least a very accurate one. Continue reading →

President Obama’s 2013 inauguration speech as a word cloud

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Obama 2013 inauguration word cloud

Yeah, I know. Word clouds don’t tell the whole story, or even an accurate story. But I had a fun few minutes playing with Word it Out and President Obama’s inauguration speech.

The program lets you add up to 728 words and then cherry pick what words to include, weight them by count and choose how to order them. It automagically discards articles and punctuation, too, and lets you edit either list of included and excluded words.

I used about 350 and as incomplete as it is, you still get a flavor of the speech – from the words “gay” “fight” “diversity” at the far left edge to “principles” “values” “enduring peace” top center and “faction and “fascism” in the far right bottom corner.

You can check out the full transcript of his 2013 inauguration – which included mentions of Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall – here.

And for an amazing take on frequently used words in US presidential inauguration speeches, check out Santiago Ortiz’s stunning work.