Open Data Mashups

A few days ago the smart fellows from JuiceAnalytics published an interesting Treemap using data from a draft of the economic stimulus bill. I am a big fan of Treemaps and I think they executed very well. 

This exercise reminded me of several comments on Open Government. I believe it was President Obama who a few weeks ago was talking about taking data from several government agencies and offer it to the public like Open Source. His theory was that citizens would take it upon themselves to analyze the data and hold their government accountable.

I find the concept fascinating. Maybe we could take the tax returns of individuals in power and pass them through a TurboTax Web Service to detect irregularities. At least it would help narrow down the field of candidates for cabinet positions.