A flawed White House document regarding President Trump’s accomplishments in his first hundred days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first hundred days of a presidency often is used as a benchmark for what to expect. There is a White House document titled President Trump’s 100 Days of Historic Accomplishments. It has a mixture of arrogance and ignorance we would expect. This document contains a list of his executive orders compared with predecessors (as shown above in a bar chart). But that list is missing results for both his immediate predecessor Joe Biden (42) and his first term (24). Worse yet the claim of only 30 executive orders is obviously wrong:  the Wikipedia page titled List of executive orders in the second presidency of Donald Trump shows 26 signed on the very first day, 36 in the first week and 130 total.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart (shown above) from the March 27, 2025 Ballotpedia article titled President Donald Trump issues most executive orders in the first 100 days since 1933 says Trump instead had 103, versus 33 in his first term.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump’s document also has a list of number of laws enacted (shown above in a third bar chart). Again, it is missing both his immediate predecessor Joe Biden (with 11) and his first term (again with 28), but it also left off Franklin Roosevelt with 77, who was included in the list of executive orders.

 

Cory Booker delivered the longest speech in the history of the United States Senate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cory Booker is a Democrat and the senior senator from the state of New Jersey. Starting at 7:00 PM on on March 31, 2025 he delivered the longest speech in the history of the Senate – lasting for twenty-five hours and five minutes. There is a Wikipedia page titled Cory Booker’s marathon speech. He protested Donald Trump’s second term as president.

 

There is an article about it by Robin Camarote at Inc. on April 2, 2025 titled Cory Booker and the Art of Authentic Communication. A second article by Suzanne Lucas, also at Inc. on April 2, 2025 is titled Leadership lessons from Cory Booker’s filibuster: Focus on the message, not the spotlight. And there is a third article by Stephen Khan at The Conversation on April 4, 2025 titled The hidden power of marathon Senate speeches: What history tells us about Cory Booker’s 25-hour oration.

 

The portrait of Senator Booker is from Wikimedia Commons.

 

A list of ten ‘startling phobias’ that have ‘a strangle hold’ on Idahoans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a rather silly article by Kyle Matthews at 104.3 Wow Country [KAWO Boise] on March 11, 2024 titled 10 Startling phobias that have a strangle hold on Idahoans. The list is shown above as a bar chart. It’s not from a survey. Rather it’s just a list of how common they were on web searches. (Back on March 7, 2015 I blogged about Is that Top Ten list from a real survey or just a glorified stack of web searches?) The list is clickbait which came from a sports betting web site called BetCarolina, but it is not shown there. Small holes were first, deep water was second, vomiting was third, spiders were fourth, and confined spaces were fifth. Public speaking came in tenth.

 

Kyle’s filler article has the following paragraph which cites public speaking as first (25.3%) for the sum of Afraid and Very Afraid from the 2014 Chapman Survey, which I blogged about in a post on October 29, 2014 titled Chapman Survey on American Fears includes both zombies and ghosts:

 

“Americans grapple with a diverse range of phobias. Notably, fear of public speaking, also known as Glossophobia, stands out as America's most common phobia, affecting a significant 25.3% of the population. Acrophobia, the fear of heights [24.7%], and Entomophobia, the fear of bugs and insects [animals or insects 22.2%] closely follow this. However, an interesting revelation is that nearly one in three U.S. adults confesses to Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes [not even on that list!]. These fears underline the complexity and diversity of phobias prevalent across the country.”

 

And more careful research instead would have used results from the percent list of fears in the most recent 2023 Chapman Survey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, Kyle’s article confuses fears and phobias, whose difference is shown above in a Venn diagram from my blog post on December 11, 2013 titled Spouting Nonsense: July 2013 Toastmaster magazine article fumbles fears and phobias.

 

Xkcd cartoon about being the tallest in a geographic region

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randall Munroe’s xkcd webcomic for March 1, 2024, shown above, is titled Geographic Qualifiers. If you don’t have a superlative for the world, then you can just pick someplace smaller. There is a discussion at Explain xkcd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For example, the 550-foot High Roller in Las Vegas is the tallest operating Ferris Wheel in the world. But the 175-foot Seattle Great Wheel is the tallest in the Pacific Northwest.

 

You also can dial back on other qualifiers. There is Honest John’s Used Cars. But here in Boise we instead have Fairly Reliable Bob’s.

 

Patrick O’Mara got a Guinness World Record by delivering 32 ten-minute impromptu speeches in 24 hours

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patrick O’Mara is from from Hoover, Alabama. He works at State Farm Insurance as a subrogation analyst and has a side business doing public speaking training (Pro Presenting). There is an article by Jon Anderson in the Hoover Sun on January 18, 2024 titled Hoover man certified as Guinness World Record holder for most speeches in 24 hours. Another article by Aliciamarie Rodriguez at Guinness World Records on February 5, 2024 is titled Vocal virtuoso from Alabama delivers 32 ten-minute impromptu speeches in 24 hours.

 

Patrick gave 33 unique ten-minute impromptu speeches (inspired by fortune cookies), but only 32 counted. Each was to be to a different venue with an audience of at least ten people (and room for fifty). The previous record of 30 speeches was set in 2018 by Piyush Vyas in Gujarat, India.

 

Club meetings of Toastmasters International have a one-to-two-minute impromptu speaking section known as Table Topics. Most Toastmasters (including me) initially found it difficult to speak impromptu for over a minute. Patrick’s record therefore is quite impressive.

 

The image of a cartoon man speaking was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

Did Idaho’s education freedom have a losing streak?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No! At the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) on December 7, 2023 there is an article by Ronald M. Nate mistitled Losing Streak – Idaho Education Freedom. It’s not really a losing streak. As shown above in a table from the IFF article, for the five categories in the Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card, Idaho ranked first in Return on Investment (both this and last year). This year we were ranked in the Top Ten in two categories, the Top Twenty in three categories, and the Top Thirty in all five categories.

 

But it makes more sense to also list where we ranked relative to our six neighboring states of Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. As shown below, we ranked first in Return on Investment (#1), second on Transparency (#8) and Overall (#11), third on Teacher Freedom (#23), and fourth on Education Choice (#29). That's not bad! 

 

Return on Investment

State                Rank               

Idaho               #1 (same as last year)

Utah                #2       

Nevada            #3       

Washington     #8                               

Montana         #26                 

Oregon            #39                  -

Wyoming         #41     

 

Transparency

State                Rank

Montana         #6

Idaho               #8                               

Utah                #9       

Nevada            #19                 

Wyoming         #23                 

Oregon            #25                             

Washington     #36     

 

Overall

State                Rank

Utah                #3       

Idaho               #11     

Montana         #17                             

Nevada            #23                 

Wyoming         #34                 

Washington     #43                 

Oregon            #51                  

 

Teacher Freedom

State                Rank               

Wyoming         #15 (tie)         

Utah                #19     

Idaho               #23                 

Montana         #37                 

Nevada            #42                 

Washington     #49                 

Oregon            #51                             

 

Education Choice

State                Rank               

Utah                #8

Montana         #10

Nevada            #24     

Idaho               #29

Wyoming         #44                 

Oregon            #46                 

Washington     #47                 

           

The Idaho Freedom Foundation has an axe to grind with education, as I blogged about on February 24, 2019 in a post titled A radical dismissal of our state public education system.

 

What were the Top 25 Boise radio stations for spring 2023, based on Nielsen Audio ratings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When driving I listen to the radio both for music and news. Which stations in Boise are popular? There is an article by Michael Deeds at the Idaho Statesman on August 2, 2023 titled Boise has two #1 radio stations, but one is on the AM dial? Really? Here are ratings. The bar chart made using Excel shown above lists the Top 25 from his article. There indeed is a tie for #1 (a 6.6 share) between the news-talk KBOI 670 AM and the country KQBL FM 101.9, who call themselves The Bull. #2 is a variety hits station (with a 5.2 share), KSRV FM 96.1 who call themselves Bob and say they play anything. #3 is a classic rock station (with a 4.4 share), KKGL FM 96.9 who call themselves The Eagle. #4 is a Christian contemporary station (with a 3.9 share), KTSY FM 89.5. For #5 there is another tie (with a 3.7 share) between the Boise State U.’s NPR news/talk station KBSX 91.5 and the hot Adult Contemporary (AC) KZMG 102.7 who call themselves My 102.7.          

 

It's not that surprising that KBOI tied for the largest share. They are a 50 kW AM station and also began simulcasting on 93.1 FM about a year and a half ago. Their powerful AM signal can be heard for ~ 100 miles during daytime. They carry ABC news, but also added the 4 to 5 AM Fox News Rundown. In comparison, KKOO AM 1260 is 8.4 kW, and KIDO AM 580 (#14) is just 5 kW. In 2018 KIDO also added FM at 107.5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I last blogged about ratings on January 25, 2021 in a post titled What are the Top 25 radio stations people in Boise were listening to in fall 2020? The bar chart from that post is shown above. Then news-talk KBOI 670 AM was a definite first (a 7.8 share) – with country KQBL FM 101.9 second (a 6.9 share). Third was 107.9 Lite FM (a 4.9 share) – but in 2023 they fell to a 3.3 share. Fourth was KSRV FM 96.1 (a 4.7 share) – which in 2023 went up to a 5.2 share. Just behind at fifth was a tie between Boise State U.’s NPR news/talk station KBSX 91.5 (a 4.6 share) which fell to 3.7 in 2023, and KIDO AM 580 news/talk (which in 2023 fell to just a 2.5 share).   

 

One surprise is just how concentrated the ownership of those 25 stations is. Just four organizations own 20 of 25. Cumulus owns four: KBOI AM (#1), KKGL 96.9 the Eagle (#4), KIZN FM 92.3 (#9), and KQFC 97.9 Magic (#25). And Iliad Media Group owns another six: KQBL FM 101.9 (#2), KSRV FM 96.1 (#3), KZMG FM 102.7 (#7), KWYD FM 101.1 (#13), KQBL FM 99.1 I-Rock (#23), and KQBL FM 96.5 (#24). Lotus Communications owns another four: KQXR 100.3 (#8), KJOT 105.1 (#15),KTHI 107.1 (#16), and KRVB 94.9 (#20). Finally, Townsquare owns six: KXLT FM 107.9 Lite (#10), KAWO 104.3 Wow (#12), KIDO AM 580 (#14), KCIX FM 105.9 Mix (#18), KFXD FM 105.5 Power (#19), and KSAS FM 103.5 KISS (#21).

 

Share is not the same as percentage. Shares for the Top 25 only add up to a total of 73.2, rather than nearly 100.

 

It is pretty, but does it work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new books shelf at my friendly local public library has a big, long, heavy, coffee-table book titled 1000 Design Classics (published in 2022). I borrowed it, and mostly enjoyed looking through their pictures and brief descriptions. Those items are listed in chronological order. There are many chairs. As shown above, there were some clunkers in it – items that are pretty but did not work well. One was the Zig-Zag chair (on page 120), designed by Gerrit Rietveld and also shown in silhouette on the cover. It’s silly because we don’t have flat bottoms. That chair needs a cushion added to make it functional, unlike the Mezzadro chair (on page 290) designed by Achille Castiglioni using the form-fitting seat from a tractor.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1941 Chemex Coffemaker (page 167) is another clunker. The one-piece glass double-cone design  is no better than the 1937 Melitta Cone Filter holder (on page 137) meant to sit atop a separate receptacle. The Chemex is hard to clean. You need a long bottle brush.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most poorly chosen item in the book (on page 108) is the LZ 129 Hindenburg airship filled with flammable hydrogen gas rather than inert heluim. It first flew on March 4, 1936, but only flew 63 times before famously being destroyed by a fire (as shown above) during a landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937. Its predecessor, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, had the first transatlantic passenger service, and flew 590 times from 1928 to 1937.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another questionable choice (on page 183) is the 1946 Saab 92 car. Saab primarily was an aircraft company, and would better have been represented by their 1955 Saab 35 Draken double-delta jet fighter-interceptor (shown above).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet another poor choice is the 1949 de Havilland DH 106 Comet jet airliner (page 205). Three were lost in its first year of airline service, and the entire fleet grounded. Tests revealed the fuselage was subject to fatigue failure just from repeated pressurization. The aircraft had to be redesigned as the Comet 4 (shown above). Only 114 ever were built. Curiously there was a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute titled No Highway about an airliner called the Rutland Reindeer whose tail failed by fatigue. In 1951 it became a movie titled No Highway in the Sky.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

De Havilland should instead have been represented by their much more popular World War II Mosquito, a 400 mph, plywood, twin-engine fighter and bomber (shown above). 7,781 were built.

   

Celebrating a milestone of 2,400 blog posts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I reached a milestone of 2,400 posts on this blog. In early December I realized that I was approaching it, so I posted two-dozen times to get there in 2022. My blog has been running for 14.6 years, averaging 164 posts per year, or 13.7 per month. There are a total of 1,919,157 page views, which averages to 360 per day. In December 2022 there are 10,070 or 325 per day.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first graphic really has 2400 ‘fence posts,’ taken from a vertical one at Openclipart and assembled via PowerPoint starting with groups of five, as shown above.  

 

My Top Ten most popular posts, their dates, and relative rankings are:

 

The 14 Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data really come from? 

October 27, 2009 [100% =  22,200]

 

Two types of speech outlines: speaking and preparation

July 5, 2009 [99.1% =  22,000]

 

Is flip-chart a racist term?

February 6, 2019 [55.0% = 12,200]

 

How can you easily draw dotted chalk lines on a blackboard? 

December 29, 2011 [37.3% = 8,290]

 

Does homeopathic Argentum nitricum reduce anxiety?

December 11, 2009 [28.1% = 6,240]

 

Acronyms – LOL, LMAO, and LMFAO

July 22, 2018 [24.2% = 5,380]

 

Falling in love and Table Topics questions

February 12, 2018 [17.7% = 3,930]

 

Herbal remedies for anxiety

September 18, 2009 [16.5% = 3,660]

 

25 questions for Table Topics from Claire Lew

January 27, 2018 [15.8% = 3,510]

 

Timing lights for speakers

January 11, 2011 [15.6% = 3,460]

 

Two posts are about Table Topics - the impromptu speaking section in a Toastmasters club meeting.

Our 45 U. S. Presidents, ranked from best to worst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At CBS News on September 13, 2022 there is an article by Elisha Fieldstadt titled Presidents ranked from worst to best. Those results came from a June 22, 2022 article about a survey by the Siena College Research Institute (SCRI) titled American Presidents: Greatest and Worst. It was a survey of historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars. I prefer listing results for the 45 of them from best to worst, as follows:

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) #1

Abraham Lincoln (1861-65) #2

George Washington (1789-1797) #3

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) #4

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) #5

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) #6

Harry Truman (1945-1953) #7

Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) #8

John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) #9

James Madison (1809-1817) #10

Barrack Obama (2009-2017) #11

James Monroe (1817-1825) #12

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) #13

Bill Clinton (1993-2001) #14

James K. Polk (1845-1849) #15

John Adams (1797-1801) #16

John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) #17

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) #18

Joseph Biden (2021- ) #19

George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) #20

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) #21

William McKinley (1897-1901 #22

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) #23

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) #24

William Howard Taft (1909-1913) #25

Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) and (1893-1897) #26

James A. Garfield (1881) #27

Richard Nixon (1969-1974) #28

Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) #29

Gerald Ford (1974-1977) #30

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) #31

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) #32

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) #33

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) #34

George W. Bush (2001-2009) #35

Zachary Taylor (1849-1850) #36

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) #37

Millard Fillmore (1850-1853) #38

John Tyler (1841-1845) #39

William Henry Harrison (1841) #40

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) #41

Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) #42

Donald J. Trump (2017-2021) #43

James Buchanan (1857-1861) #44

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) #45

 

Note that the Top Five are Franklin D. Roosevelt followed by the four sculpted on Mount Rushmore. Also, note the very low ranking for Donald J. Trump at #43 of 45. If you are wondering why there are only 45, that’s because Grover Cleveland served for two nonconsecutive terms as president 22 and 24.

 

What about the 21 most recent presidents, who served us in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? They rank as follows (with Trump last):

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) #1 [#1]

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) #4 [#2]

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) #6 [#3]

Harry Truman (1945-1953) #7 [#4]

Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) #8 [#5]

John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) #9 [#6]

Barrack Obama (2009-2017) #11 [#7]

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) #13 [#8]

Bill Clinton (1993-2001) #14 [#9]

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) #18 [#10]

Joseph Biden (2021- ) #19 [#11]

George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) #20 [#12]

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) #24 [#13]

William Howard Taft (1909-1913) #25 [#14]

Richard Nixon (1969-1974) #28 [#15]

Gerald Ford (1974-1977) #30 [#16]

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) #32 [#17]

George W. Bush (2001-2009) #35 [#18]

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) #37 [#19]

Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) #42 [#20]

Donald J. Trump (2017-2021) #43 [#21]

 

The SCRI has a spreadsheet listing ranks for individual attributes like Integrity and Intelligence. For number 14, integrity, Trump ranked #45 below James Buchanan #41, Andrew Johnson #42, Warren Harding #43, and Richard Nixon #44. And for number 18, Intelligence, Trump also ranked #45 below George W. Bush #41, James Buchanan #42, Warren Harding #43, and Andrew Johnson #44.  

 

Images of Mount Rushmore and Franklin D. Roosevelt (in 1933) both came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Ten blue-ribbon speech openings that will be remembered and repeated

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday at PR Newswire there was a press release titled Presentation experts Fripp, La Croix and Brown: Speech openings that are remembered and repeated. It lists the following ones, each of which is discussed further:

 

A story

Interesting statistics or little-known facts

A powerful quotation

A question, or a rhetorical question

A challenge

Tie to the headlines

Bold claim or big promise

Read a letter, email, or review

Compliment the audience

Relevant humor

 

(I have combined two of them – A Question and A Rhetorical Question because no one really wants to see a top list with eleven items).

 

That press release refers to a 2022 book by those three, titled Deliver Unforgettable Presentations: How to speak to be remembered and repeated in-person, online, and onstage. All three authors are well-known as speakers. Patricia Fripp was elected president of the National Speakers Association (NSA) in 1984. Darren LaCroix was the 2001 Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking, and Mark Brown was the 1995 Champion.

 

The prize blue ribbon came from Openclipart.

 

Spouting nonsense: a fake statistic in an article on how public speaking is related to leadership

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Dane Cobain at Speakerhub on May 30, 2022 titled How public speaking is related to leadership. It has nine paragraphs titled:

 

Leaders need to:

Challenge the status quo

Bring people together

Overcome their fear

Lead from the heart

Tap into emotional intelligence

Accurately convey information

Address people’s needs

Always be prepared to answer questions

Continuously learn

 

His third paragraph on how Leaders need to overcome their fears begins by claiming that:

 

“Public speaking is the world’s most common phobia, ahead of fears such as death, spiders and heights.”

 

That statement violates his sixth paragraph, titled Leaders need to accurately convey information. The first clause in Dane’s third paragraph links to another article at the National Social Anxiety Center which is titled Public Speaking Anxiety. That article contains a fake statistic. It claims that:

 

“The fear of public speaking is the most common phobia ahead of death, spiders, or heights. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, affects about 73% of the population.”

 

That is rubbish, which I blogged about on March 22, 2019 in a post titled An apparently authoritative statistic about fear of public speaking that really lacks any support. The 73% just is crap from Statistic Brain. So, Dane is awarded a Spoutly for spouting nonsense.

 

Could his article have been better another way? On January 28, 2017 I blogged about How many items should be on a list of tips or top tips? He could have added a tenth paragraph, and changed the title to the Top Ten ways public speaking is related to leadership.   

 

The United States only ranked #16 in the 2022 World Happiness Report, while Finland was #1 for the fifth year in a row

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week was the tenth anniversary of the World Happiness Report. It uses survey data to report how people rank their level of happiness in almost 150 countries on a scale from zero to ten. You can download the 2022 report here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bar chart above shows the Top 20 happiest countries, and also selects five others. The Top Ten are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand. Surprisingly five of the Top Ten are Nordic countries, and 14 of the Top 20 are in Europe. The United States is #16, just behind our northern neighbor Canada (#15). Our other neighbor, Mexico, is way down at #46. Four others with relatively low scores are #46 Japan, #72 China, #80 Russia, and #136 India.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finland was #1 for five years in a row. Another bar chart compares the rankings for Finland and the United States over the ten surveys. We have been as high as #11 in 2012, and as low as #19 in 2019. On March 25, 2019 I blogged about how According to the 2019 World Happiness Report, Americans are not exceptionally happy.

 

The cartoon with a happy couple comes from pdf page 35 of Punch magazine from July 1920, found here at the Internet Archive.