Click here to see the SAS code.
Click here to see the example.

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This is a SAS/Graph imitation of the following graph:

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1104/congress/transparency.png


I create the main centerpiece "dot pie chart" annotate, laid out on
a gmap (the gmap provides the coordinate system, and guarantees that
the dot pie won't get stretched out of proportion).

I use a macro to loop through each of the concentric bands of dots,
telling it how many dots of each color to create in that band.
I also annotate big white pie slices behind these dots, so they will
"obscure" the 8 individual pie charts that are tucked behind it.

I create the 8 individual pie charts using traditional gchart pies,
but I annotate the text color-legend labels (since gchart pie does
not have an option to do it that way).  I create these pies first,
and save their output to png files, and then annotate those png
files onto the main graph ... I do it this way, rather than using
greplay, because greplay would get the depth of the various "layers" 
mixed up in the overlapping pieces (we're dealing with many layers
here, for all the annotated stuff).

Weaknesses of this graphic:

The labeling is a bit inadequate - for example, it does not tell
exactly what date (or even year) congress is represented in the graph.
Also, you have to read a lot of text in the top/right to understand
the graphic - seems like it could have a shorter & more intuitive label
(maybe 'If Congress was Reflective of the American Population',
rather than just 'Reflective'?)
And some of the 8 individual pies have too many slices to discern,
therefore maybe bar charts would have been a better choice?
(and why does the bottom/right pie have 2 'Other' slices?)
Also, the pie slices aren't always in a "logical" order.

One other thing (not sure if this is incorrect data, or just some
strange way of round-off to get whole numbers...) but the numbers
associated with the pies on the left don't match the numbers with
the pies on the right.  For example...
243+288+2=533 on the left, but 235+219+81=535 on the right
91+448=539 on the left, but 218+218=436 on the right
(Intuitively, seems like all the numbers in each small pie should
add up to the same number?...)

Nonetheless, a captivating/impressive info-graphic...

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