Sarah Palin Topic Browser
Earlier this month, several thousand emails from Sarah Palin's time as governor of Alaska were released. The emails weren't organized in any fashion, though, so to make them easier to browse, I did some topic modeling (in particular, using latent Dirichlet allocation) to separate the documents into different groups.
Below are the topics learned by the model; click through to see emails falling within each topic. (I named the topics using my own rough interpretation, to make them easier to browse.)
For some more analysis and information on how the browser works, see this blog post. By Edwin Chen (edchedch).
Topics
family, web, mail, god, son, from, congratulations, children, life, child, down, trig, baby, birth, love, you, syndrome, very, special, bless, old, husband, years, thank, best, …
game, fish, moose, wildlife, hunting, bears, polar, bear, subsistence, management, area, board, hunt, wolves, control, department, year, use, wolf, habitat, hunters, caribou, program, denby, fishing, …
energy, fuel, costs, oil, alaskans, prices, cost, nome, now, high, being, home, public, power, mine, crisis, price, resource, need, community, fairbanks, rebate, use, mining, villages, …
gas, oil, pipeline, agia, project, natural, north, producers, companies, tax, company, energy, development, slope, production, resources, line, gasline, transcanada, said, billion, plan, administration, million, industry, …
school, waste, education, students, schools, million, read, email, market, policy, student, year, high, news, states, program, first, report, business, management, bulletin, information, reports, 2008, quarter, …
mail, web, from, thank, you, box, mccain, sarah, very, good, great, john, hope, president, sincerely, wasilla, work, keep, make, add, family, republican, support, doing, p.o, …
:00, p.m, meeting, janice, :30, friday, a.m, monday, event, meet, call, thursday, tomorrow, schedule, anc, tuesday, attend, remarks, saturday, thanks, speech, mayor, conference, wednesday, afternoon, …
kenai, maid, river, mat, dairy, milk, industry, water, seafood, fish, nbsp, products, boat, farmers, plant, million, food, board, plan, conservation, public, kasilof, 2007, alaskan, creamery, …
budget, funding, capital, projects, year, million, spending, funds, public, money, veto, support, need, operating, legislature, project, last, karen, fund, thank, cuts, increase, work, see, future, …
event, first, day, year, military, events, national, service, army, home, visit, honor, awards, sarah, soldiers, attend, make, support, family, guard, thank, juneau, two, team, invitation, …
board, council, native, university, arts, fairbanks, years, director, commission, appointed, served, fisheries, member, rural, members, 2007, community, executive, development, committee, serve, chief, 907, seat, juneau, …
health, department, services, public, program, care, safety, training, employees, work, provide, agencies, federal, issues, contract, system, administration, service, such, troopers, security, government, union, mental, employee, …
court, law, states, under, attorney, section, case, general, act, right, rights, united, u.s, supreme, amendment, order, public, individual, regulation, legal, federal, second, judge, first, district, …
bill, senate, house, session, rep, committee, senator, special, bills, legislative, legislation, green, 907, date, sen, vote, district, tax, legislators, legislature, representative, finance, members, resolution, public, …
project, road, city, ketchikan, juneau, said, borough, dot, community, cruise, fire, highway, system, area, bridge, transportation, water, airport, mayor, manager, first, land, during, use, house, …
roston, west, released, presented, crivella, todd, erika, house, juneau, 10/14/2009, phone, fax, thanks, fagerstrom, residence, avenue, 99801, first, manager, flight, executive, 716, travel, calhoun, you, …
email, senator, stevens, note, federal, jwkatz, changed, thank, =3d, energy, arctic, john, org, congress, congressional, relations, delegation, katz, anwr, special, gas, senate, work, earmarks, secretary, …