hurricanes by the numbers

Earlier this month, the Census Bureau released Hurricane Data and Emergency Preparedness, an electronic resource showing the impact of last year's storms. This source includes estimates of the population of the affected areas, and compares the data to the 2005 American Community Survey.

check out my stat abs!

The Census Bureau has taken my beloved favorite, the Statistical Abstract of the United States into the 21st Century!

The home page for this source, subtitled The National Data Book, has gotten a facelift to include more web-friendly navigation (note the side menu of categories) and even excel files to download. These improvements are only applied to the most recent edition (2006), which means you might could create a real pretty pie chart displaying Household Pet Ownership in 2001, but you couldn't create a chart to assess trends in pet ownership over a decade or so unless you wanted to plug in the numbers yourself.

Of cousre, the best use of this amazing source is by browsing the print... the most recent edition lives on the Ready Reference shelf (sandwiched in between the Reference and Circulation desks) and on the fourth floor of Gelman under the call number HA205 .A51.

because a duck may be somebody's mother

Brand spankin' new today! Google announces that they've launched a new U.S. Government Search!

But really, how new is it?

Not so new, really. Some of you might be familiar with Google/Unclesam, which the company hasn't really done a whole lot to promote. It searches across federal and state government websites, along with agencies and other "selected" pages. This seems to be the same M.O. for this new fangled search, so I tested it. I generically searched for "immigration bill" and you know what happened? I got the same exact results from both engines.

So what's the deal? Is Google just recycling an underused engine, or do they really mean to do something different? And also, what's the difference between this and FirstGov's Clustered search powered by Vivisimo?

And more importantly, it just begs for me to point out that it's not really so much about the search engine, but about what data government agencies are making available on their websites. These entities are notoriously stingy with what they make available electronically. It's what I call "the love you make is equal to the love you take" theory of information dissemination. If the agencies actually want us to find stuff, first, they gotta get it out there!

100 Years of Consumer Spending

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released 100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston, a report with some fantastic data about life in America (full disclosure: I'm thanked in the acknowlegements!). This time, the writers of the report took a longitudinal approach to incorporate significant events in time and effects on demographics and the economy.

2005 Report on Religious Freedom

The House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations relased this report in April, which is a country-by-country tally of religious freedom. Appendicies include an overview of U.S. refugee policy, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Department of Homeland Security's stance on the International Religious Freedom Act.

for the journalist in all of us

Loyal Govdocs@Gelman reader Heidi Glenn alerted us to the Senate Periodical Press Gallery. Designed for reporters who cover the Senate, it's a one-stop for daily events and conferences and all sorts of things that make the press drool (like contact information for press secretaries!)... put on your scoop hat and get to it!

Meausring Stability and Security in Iraq

The May edition of Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, was just released by the Department of Defense. This report features charts and graphs, some depicting election turn out and the growth of electoral participation. Other reports can be found here.