Thread by @EricColumbus

So why did Rand Paul include .140 here? Does he typically include cents-tenths, including where the last digit literally adds nothing? Turns out there's a funny (?) backstory. 1/

https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1398283588613939208

As @geoffreyvs noted, Sen. Paul (or his staff) lifted this example from a 2011 report by then-Senator Tom Coburn. This is ancient budgetary history! But wait, it gets better. 2/

https://twitter.com/geoffreyvs/status/1398273948819804164?s=20

It seems Team Paul didn't even dig up Sen. Coburn's actual report, but only a @sciam blog post about it. Because it's difficult to copy-and-paste footnote numbers, the numbers appeared in full text when the blog post quoted Coburn's report. 3/
blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-bra…

Either Paul's staff deliberately tried to mislead folks into thinking that the number was bigger, or they misread the period for a comma—in which case maybe they should see an eye doctor. There's one nearby! 4/ washingtonpost.com/politics/how-r…

Oh, and that @sciam blog post from 2011 discussed in great detail about why one might want to study the effect of cocaine on quail sexual behavior. Worth a read. 5/end
blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-bra…

P.S. The great @pbump has a deep dive with a slightly alternative hypothesis that an excitable Sen. Paul staffer did read Sen. Coburn's report but accidentally selected the footnote number before copying and pasting. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…