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Those figures appear to be "actual dollars" uncorrected for inflation. So you're technically correct, but if you want to compare years, the Wikipedia graph is a more accurate way to look at it. And it's not just Wikipedia. Other sources which have corrected for inflation look the same.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/Government-Debt-Graphic/39255812/1
http://www.supportingevidence.com/Government/fed_debt_over_time.html

This site looks at the debt in a lot of different ways: http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDebt.html

Err, link to that graph is http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/politics/USA_debt_2009.html

And Slashdot 3.0 blows goats for nickles.

So during the 60s, the US was facing a severe global recession not seen since the Great Depression, crushing debt, attacks by terrorists, and increasing environmental concerns? I don't remember any of those being factors in any history books.

Well then, I guess you missed the history of the 1960! As a percent of gross domestic product the national debt has been around 15-20 percent since the mid 1950s. The 1960s saw enormous social unrest with the Black Panthers, SDS, SLA, KKK, and others routinely committing terrorists acts. Silent Spring was written in 1962 serving as a rallying cry for environmentalists everywhere and eventually leading to a ban on DDT. The Cuyahoga River caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA.

On top of that a massive civil rights movement was under way, the US was embroiled in the biggest military conflict since World War II, we were at the height of the cold war, there were a couple big SNAFUs with Cuba, the assassination of numerous political figures, and crime at levels twice as high as normal.

The U.S. was facing so many problems in the 1960s that NASA was one of the few things the nation could look up to.

Govt. wasteful spending is the biggest cause of inflation. That is what's wrong with the whole "stimulus" crapshoot.

Unfortunately, it's also a sad fact that the only thing that has any chance of making the national debt manageable is that very same inflation. Government wants inflation (albeit preferably at a steady, predictable rate). Take a look at the debt we incurred (as a % of GDP) at the tail end of WW2. The debt essentially faded into nothingness while GDP grew only gradually, the majority of its growth being largely as a result of inflation. What it comes down to is that if you can tread water long enough, floating your debt close to the rate of inflation, you (theoretically) can bank on paying it back when your revenues grow with GDP. This assumes GDP will grow forever in the long term, though, which is the same sort of thinking that resulted in overvalued real estate and overvalued stocks. Fortunately, if GDP crashes like the housing market did, we'll likely be reduced to burning our government bonds for heat in the winter and our W-2's as cleaning patches for the rifles we defend our survivalist bunkers with anyway, so who cares...

I hope Part 2 remembers to cover Alternate Reality: The City (1985) and The Dungeon (1987) (Wikipedia). Those games were amazing for their time. AR had a raycasting engine 7 years before Wolfeinstein 3D, animated background scenery, weather and sun systems, great music with synchronized sing-along lyrics, character alignments, it tracked hunger/thirst/encumbrance/temperaturee/etc. The series had an ambitious Matrix-esque 6-game plot scripted out (only the first of which was made, in two parts). It even implemented garbage collection in a literal sense: if your inventory exceeded your free RAM, the Devourer came and ate some of your items at random. A review of the City tells more.

This simple average comparison is a bit unfair to Republican Presidents though. Given inflation a dollar borrowed in 1950 is a lot worse than one borrowed in 2006. In the timeframe since 1946 all Presidents (no matter what party) have decreased the national debt as a percentage of the GDP. With the notable exception of Reagan, Bush and G.W. Bush.

Here are some good graphs: http://zfacts.com/p/318.html the site has a clear bias though, so I doubt you'd want to accept the data without checking. There is confirming material availabe here though: http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNation alDebt.html - This is not quite as illustrative but provides the links to the official government information regarding debt, so you can verify the information.

That "spare" money went away after the 2001 inaugeration. That surplus went out the window real fast, and this was all pre-9/11, pre-Iraq, etc (and, of course, post-tax cuts).

There was a possibilty of turning AR into an online MMO (appropriately called, ARO) but that got canned by Monolith. Ironicly, a lot of the features they were planning on implementing found their way into another franchise...Matrix Online.

You can read more about the strange coincidences between the two franchises here: http://www.marktaw.com/reviews/AlternateRealityThe VideoG.html

But that doesn't mean they can't make a compelling MMORPG. Have you seen The Matrix franchise recently? Comic books, a half dozen non-wachowski animated shorts.

The world itself is full of possibility.

(donning tin foil hat) It's too bad they ripped everything off of Philip Price.

I can't vote (not a US citizen) but basing your idea solely on the purported "fact" that Bin Laden supports Kerry you may shoot yourself in the foot.

Then why is it trying to suck my soul out by making me never want to leave my computer? My day 1 review is here: The Sims 2: The Sims Reloaded. I think I'll follow it up soon. Oh, and you can play "Sim City Classic" on SimCity.com. Yes, online in your web browser. It's an active-x thingy, so... IE only. In another 20 years Sims 2 will probably be given away trivially as "play online" ware too. Kinda scary.

Yes, that's the one! The original article I read about this is here.

Thank you!

Ever play 'Alternate Reality' on the Atari 8 bit computers? This epic game was to end with a realization that you're in a matrix-like cocoon. The creator of the game, Phil Price, evidently met the W. brothers, and (quote)

I did talk to two guys while at a restaurant in Westwood [In LA , near UCLA, it's the core of Hollywood]. I explained to them AR and it storyline, ideas and the Hollywood movie Dark City simularities to some of it and it's differences [i.e. things I think they did wrong in that movie that made it a bomb in the box office]. They listened intently, and one of them remarked to me (as they smiled to each other) was that "ideas can't be copyrighted". Matrix came out a few years later, I very much doubt they were the two brothers who came up with Matrix, but it made me wonder after Matrix came out.

see this for many more comparisons between the two.

If you lived your life in a vat, with a simple mental projection into a computer simulation of reality, how would you even know what you looked like in the first place? It's amazing to me that Neo, once freed, looked like Thomas Anderson at all.

My review of The Matrix: Reloaded