NP: Genesis, Wind & Wuthering

Newsweek reports that President Obama is appointing Edward Tufte to an advisory panel for stimulus/recovery funds. Apparently Tufte also consulted on the design of recovery.gov, and he's as big of a rock star as you can be when it comes to the visual representation of complicated data. I've been to one of Tufte's presentations, and have three of his books on my shelf. It's not a glamorous move towards government transparency, but it's a move nonetheless.

As for other cool uses of data, Nate Silver -- a data analysis rock star in his own right -- built a couple of "word clouds" off of open-ended questions in a recent health care poll. It does a really good job of breaking down the two sides of the debate.

It still doesn't necessarily tell the whole story, though, as some of those against reform are actually against what shows up in the first cloud as opposed to what shows up in the second cloud. Not all, but some, as evidenced by a report of a town hall meeting between a Blue Dog Democratic house member and some Tea Party folks.