rulers, and not the kind you measure with

I was reminded of this by Duke's post:

They Rule aims to provide a glimpse of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 500 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.

I first saw this at a seminar in February and was quite impressed - not just because of the idea that Time Warner is connected to AmEx is connected to Viacom etc etc, but also by the construction of the site itself. If you've got an hour to kill, go play around a bit. It's kinda fun.