January 31, 2006

Abramoff Visual

Via the Stealthbadger, a extremely nice graphical representation of the so-called "bi-partisan" scandal. It shows that while both parties had been receiving "legal tribal money" what Abramoff did (the illegal part) was increase the Republicans' reception of money from those sources by 135%. The graph also shows why this isn't a bi-partisan scandal.

It's amazing how useful a picture can be. This reminds me of a graduate course in Latin American Politics I had, and how we discussed the case of the Challenger as a failure to present data in an understandable way. One of the problems with the O-ring failure that caused the crash was that it was known they would fail, but the presentation of the data failed to show the dramatic increase in risk below certain temperatures. For further reading, check out Tufte.

Posted by binky at January 31, 2006 06:02 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Corruption


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