Cafe Hayek: Flat or Rising or Both

The bloggers at Cafe Hayek are adding a new category, called Less Than Meets the Eye:

These posts will look at inaccurate or misleading charts, graphs or pictures.

For instance, Russell Roberts points out that the chart with a Washington Post first page story on energy conservation efforts in Japan claims to show that "Japan's oil consumption has remained steady since 1975, while U.S. consumption has risen steadily." The problem is that the figures show that Japanese oil consumption rose 21 percent between 1975 and 2004, while U.S. consumption rose 26 percent. (Hardly flat versus steady rising.)