The Beauty of Charts

I have inflicted a number of charts on the readers of this blog over the past four months. 

While charts can be useful in showing data and relationships among data, they need to be as accurate, logical and graphically imaginative as possible. 

Ben Greenman has an "I Love Charts" blog that reminds us that the very best charts are those that are totally defensible based on the facts.  Here is one from Greenman's blog that is, I believe, wholly tautalogical:

 Here is another one from his blog that is perhaps a little less defensible:

And my favorite:

( Hat tip to Megan McArdle at The Atlantic.)