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Edward Tufte Appointed To Help Track and Explain Stimulus Funds
President Obama recently announced several appointments to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, including data visualization expert Edward Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The purpose of the panel is to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose aim is "To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information." Tufte said on his website, "I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I'll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary."
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'" -Bill Hicks
Living With a Nerd
Just another feel good appointment of an academic to a position where they can't really do anything. Meanwhile Obama staffs his cabinet with wall street insiders. If Obama really wants transparency and accountability, he should fire Geithner and replace him with Elizabeth Warren. But no, he won't do that.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Seriously though, I'm an Edward Tufte fun myself, but his statement, "And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do," is kind of funny. I know he didn't mean it literally. "Yeah my car's not working, so I hired a painter to fix it."
just take one of the most famous graphs from his book, and reproduce it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Napoleon's_Invasion_of_Russia
relabel the advancing french soldiers "good intentions for accountable government"
relabel the retreating french soldiers "obfuscation by entrenched special interests"
job done
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I know about this guys books, but I fail to see why he is going to be helpful.
This should be - v e r y - interesting indeed.
I have enormous respect for Tufte and his integrity. I can;t wait to see what happens.
Remember, this is the guy who put Stalin on the cover of his pamphlet on "The Cognitive Style Of Powerpoint"
I'm reminded of Feynman on the Columbia commission.
-=Maggie Leber=-
It should be called the Recovery Advisory Panel Enhancement
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I own his books and recommend them but it seems Tufte is difficult to deal with in person. He charged credit cards for pre-orders before shipping his not-yet-published book and then called someone who politely objected to that a "whiny sanctimonious asshole."
See Flip Philips' blog entry about the scandal here
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
So, no Power Point presentation?
The stimulus is a dead issue. GOP won the round. Considering Bush essentially ran .5 stimuluses a year in deficits for 6 years and then capped it off with a stimuluses worth of bailouts for banks, its rather remarkable that the GOP could do so, but they did.
Trying to keep refighting the stimulus battle is just bad politics...
Obama ought to be a good enough fighter to know that and move on. His best hope for 2010 is to get the troops out of Iraq and declare an epic victory, then use the mantle of victory to take his case before the people.
This is my sig.
Whatever they produce will contain pretty graphs.
Sounds like what I was saying in early 2007, but no one wanted to listen. Now a foreign observer, much more impartial than our own media, is saying exactly the same thing. Gee, I thought Obama was going to usher in a new era of global peace and prosperity. What happened? I would venture to guess that it has something to do with the fact that he has never run even so much as a convenience store, and now his naivete and inexperience are catching up to his vacuous rhetoric.
In Obama's defense, none of the other options were any better. McCain bends to the will of his party far too easily (we already had one puppet president for 8 years with GWB, we certainly didn't need 4 more with McCain), Ron Paul (like many third party candidates) is convinced that only his way is the right way, and everyone else was too polarizing.
Unfortunately, the extremes of the parties are the ones in control...this makes electing someone truly worthy of being president nearly impossible. You can't get anywhere in politics unless you give up your values, and once you give up your values you become worthless as a leader.
Living With a Nerd
Shouldn't this post have been created first, *before* the gov't let loose billions of our taxpayer dollars, seems once in the wild, tracking that cash is going to be difficult.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Wouldn't it be more efficient to keep up with where the money goes AS IT GOES OUT THE DOOR? The way this panel is doing it now is just a waste of even more resources, and it provides a little time for the recipients to come up with some more BS to explain why all their execs needed multi-million dollar bonuses for running their companies into the ground.
Not surprised.
The Republican party lost it's spine a long time ago and have splintered into many factions. Effectively, the party was dead even before the 2000 elections and since then has been without leadership.
The Democratic party however, has been very unified but has been rotting from the core since the days of JFK. Now, it too is crumbling apart with rampant thuggery and corruption.
I think we all know how the November elections will turn out. However, there is no way in hell we can foresee who the next president will be. Our political system as we know it, is fucked. I reckon this is a good thing. Perhaps now we can get people more involved with how politics happen in DC and start voting based on someones voting record, and not based purely on party. At least, I hope so.
Life is not for the lazy.
I think we all know how the November elections will turn out. However, there is no way in hell we can foresee who the next president will be. Our political system as we know it, is fucked. I reckon this is a good thing. Perhaps now we can get people more involved with how politics happen in DC and start voting based on someones voting record, and not based purely on party. At least, I hope so.
This isn't an ageism thing, but I honestly feel that anyone in the house or senate over the age of 45 should not be allowed to be reelected, at least not for the next few cycles. Part of the problem is that so many people running this country are stuck in the past without an eye for the future. This worked fine in the 80's and 90's, but nowadays that just doesn't cut it.
Term limits in general would be a great thing...
Living With a Nerd
Tufte may have used that graph, but Charles Joseph Minard made it, way back in 1869. Minard was an early pioneer in data visualization, and Tufte says that particular graph "may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You have to be 35 to serve, so that leaves a rather narrow window.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes, I trust Tufte will do an admirable job of rendering such information clear and concise. The truth will be unassailable.
At which point the Obama will realize that the waste and futility of the "stimulus package[s]" will be crystal-clear to voters, the graphs & explanations will be suppressed, and Tufte quietly shown the door.
Wrong guy for the job. Tufte and Chicago-way politics is like oil and water.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
It's hard to be impartial with shivers running up your leg.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It's not the incompetent job they did registering voters,,, (Note, incompetent does not mean "criminal")
It's not the money laundering charges... (Although they probably had a legal obligation to report someone planning to commit a crime, BIANAL)
What it is, is their financial structure, they way the bring in money from the federal government to, say, help lower-income folks secure affordable housing, but the federal funds wind up disappearing into the corporate structure and funding other activities (AIG executive homes bus tours in CT, paying for campaign activities, etc.).
The kids dressed up as pimps and ho's were simply the final straw that put ACORN on the radar of the mainstream media...
Ken
Step one for the GOP is to toss out the evangelicals. Even Nixon warned about mixing politcis and religion. When freaking *Nixon* finds your plans lacking, you might want to run a reassessment. Most who have analyzed the situation feel they'd gain far more than they lost.
Our political system as we know it, is fucked.
It acts, in combination with the media, to filter out anyone but complete sociopaths. You have to be utterly without care about other people- what they think of you, how your decisions affect their daily lives, etc.- to run for office these days.
I reckon this is a good thing.
...whut?
Perhaps now we can get people more involved with how politics happen in DC and start voting based on someones voting record, and not based purely on party.
Bah ha ha! Yeah, good luck with that. Wasn't Obama supposed to be morning in America again? How's that working out?
At least, I hope so.
Hope is not a strategy.
Wait, got another pithy one: hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which hand fills up first.
OK, now you can admonish me about how my hateful cynicism will never solve anything and perhaps something vaguely erudite on self fulfilling prophecies.
he has never run even so much as a convenience store
I realize this is really only intended as empty rhetoric but, come on. Here are a few things Obama has run, for everyone's information:
The Harvard law Review
Chicago's Developing Communities Project (DCP)
Illinois's Project Vote
Chicago Annenberg Challenge
Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services
U.S. Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs
Now, I realize that it is at least arguable that none of these provide the leadership experience required to be an effective president. You probably would like to have seen a former governor/mayor/head of a large agency. I don't think that sort of experience is strictly necessary, but I see how reasonable people could disagree. (Though, if I may ask, what leadership experience does John McCain have that qualifies him in your eyes? Is it just length of service in the Senate?)
But to say that Obama has not run so much as a convenience store is just totally false and it smacks of an either mean spirited (or, at best, willfully ignorant) parroting of the popular right-wing line that Obama is somehow a lightweight.
caritj.org
Have any of these claims actually been established and/or verified?
The money laundering thing occurred after a team of undercover reporters virtually coaxed it out of the volunteers (and had tried to do so several dozen times before one fell for the bait), while I've never seen any sort of verification of the other claims from a reputable (ie. non-pundit) source.
To be perfectly honest, it smells a lot like the swiftboat "scandal"
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Unless by "extremes of the parties" you mean the rightmost extremes of both parties, I think you've gone round the bend. If the extreme left wing of the Democrats had been in control, Dennis Kucinich would have been the nominee. That guy really is far to the left. Obama? There are few Democrats more centrist. Just a quick example: health care. The current plan in play in Congress is almost exactly the same as the one Mitt freakin' Romney signed into law when he was governor of Massachusetts. Until recently, this would have been a Republican health care plan - the mainstream opinion among Democrats is that single-payer is the way to go.
Regardless of your personal preferences on issues like health care, it's an absolute fact that the Democratic party is controlled by highly centrist types, and the Republican party is being run by, not to put too fine a point on it, whackjobs.
Unfortunately, the extremes of the parties are the ones in control...
Really? The last election was a close fought battle between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich? I must have missed that .... Perhaps you should check out what the extremes of the parties actually are?
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
mommy daddy stop fighting
Not surprised.
The Republican party lost it's spine a long time ago and have splintered into many factions. Effectively, the party was dead even before the 2000 elections and since then has been without leadership.
True, it's splintered into factions (Teabaggers vs business conservatives vs religious wackos) but in the current Congress it has been remarkably unified. It says "No!" to everything. Of course, it's easy to be the minority opposition. You don't have to have any ideas on how to solve problems and move the country forward. (As an example of what happens when Republicans are fully in power, look to Arizona. Here the Republicans remain unified and committed to "No!" Our state is on beyond fucked.)
The Democratic party however, has been very unified but has been rotting from the core since the days of JFK. Now, it too is crumbling apart with rampant thuggery and corruption.
What Democratic party are you talking about? In what bizarro world is it unified? Asshats like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln seem to want to be all "mavericky" like that idiot McCain and his boyfriend Joe Lieberman, so any notion of party unity is a pipe dream. As for "rotting at the core," this happens as the Blue Dogs triangulate and try to have it all ways instead of having any principles.
Step one for the GOP is to toss out the evangelicals. Even Nixon warned about mixing politcis and religion. When freaking *Nixon* finds your plans lacking, you might want to run a reassessment. Most who have analyzed the situation feel they'd gain far more than they lost.
Absolutely. If your belief in some mystical imaginary higher power is the most important thing in your life, you are unqualified for public office. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that evangelicals remember to breathe.
he has never run even so much as a convenience store
I realize this is really only intended as empty rhetoric but, come on. Here are a few things Obama has run, for everyone's information:
The Harvard law Review Chicago's Developing Communities Project (DCP) Illinois's Project Vote Chicago Annenberg Challenge Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services U.S. Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs
Now, I realize that it is at least arguable that none of these provide the leadership experience required to be an effective president. You probably would like to have seen a former governor/mayor/head of a large agency. I don't think that sort of experience is strictly necessary, but I see how reasonable people could disagree. (Though, if I may ask, what leadership experience does John McCain have that qualifies him in your eyes? Is it just length of service in the Senate?)
But to say that Obama has not run so much as a convenience store is just totally false and it smacks of an either mean spirited (or, at best, willfully ignorant) parroting of the popular right-wing line that Obama is somehow a lightweight.
And let's remember that this experience was a LOT more relevant than George W Bush's term as Governor of Texas. Texas has a constitutionally weak governor.
for one thing the biggest argument for fiat currency was so the government could regulate the boom/bust business cycle. It has shown not only to worsen it by making the booms and busts bigger but has also been shown to be abused horribly.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Right now, they (unelected) are effectively controlling government (elected) when it should be the other way around.
The Board of Governors is appointed in precisely the way the Supreme Court is appointed.
The member banks are privately owned. I thought that private ownership was precisely what Paul would want. But as private institutions they're even less accountable than government ones.
I don't see why they need to hire such an illustrious researcher for such a simple task. I've prepared an accurate IMO data visualization of the results of the Federal stimulus spending. It can be viewed at:
http://shambala.net/stimulusvisualization.jpg
Dollars are just buckets for wealth. When people sell off stocks en masse, you need more buckets (dollars) to catch all the wealth they pump out of them.
Imagine if buckets were made of gold. They wouldn't be much help in a flood because people would hoard them instead of using them. When that happens to dollars it's called deflation and it has a nasty effect on an economy.
But anyway, I believe we were talking about Treasury Secretary not Fed chairman. Ron Paul as Sec. Treasury would probably have a different problem--closing down all the regulators to let the market "fix itself."
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.