Those awful infographics that promise to explain and only distort

Not to belabor, but just because you have access to mountains of data doesn't mean you know what to do with it. The city of L.A. is discovering as much with its new numbers-bloated websites from the mayor's office and the Controller's office. No infographics so far, but the confusing mishmash of facts and figures, along with a balky interface, doesn't do anyone much good. Slate's Will Oremus notes that "the proliferation of build-your-own-infographic tools has led to a deluge of hideous charts, graphs, and lists - many of them compiled by marketers of one ilk or another - that have so befouled the concept of the infographic that it may be years before it fully recovers." Zach Weiner captures the problem on his webcomic site Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.