I have so much work to do. I really have no idea where to begin. My In Box overfloweth.

Except that I also have to give three employee reviews today, so I guess I�ll start there. And might I just take a moment to say a mighty �hallelujah� about the fact that, due to her recent departure, I don�t have to give a review to our Problem Child! Seriously, that was the first thing I thought when she quit: �Well, thank God I don�t have to do her review now!�

At my company, we have our employees do self reviews and hand them in to their boss. We bosses then look at what they�ve written and write our own. For each section of performance, we give a number rating and a brief explanation.

Generally, there are no surprises at review-time. We are good at communicating throughout the year and besides, as I have mentioned before, I work with a really good group of people.

However�the difference between what Problem Child rated herself and what I rated her was HUGE. I just knew we were in for a fun ride.

So again I say: Hallelujah.

Things I will write about, when I have time:

1. Spalding Gray is fucking missing, people!

2. The �Duh� factor

3. Staying cuddled up under an electric blanket seems a lot more enticing at 6:00am than getting up to do cardio work and crunches.

4. The Gauntlet and all that entails

Really, I just wanted to come here to bitch and moan about how much work I have to do and thus completely fail to do any of it, at least for a few minutes.

~~~

BUSH TWICE TRIES TO MISLEAD AMERICA ABOUT THE ECONOMY IN 24 HOURS

Within a span of 24 hours, President Bush twice attempted to mislead the American people about the economy and his tax policies. On Friday, the president said, "Unemployment dropped today to 5.7% [which] is a positive sign that the economy is getting better."

But the president didn't add that the unemployment drop occurred not because the economy was getting better, but because continued weak job growth led 309,000 people to stop looking for work. As one nonpartisan economist said, "Most of these dropouts would still be in the labor force working or trying to work if the economy were doing better," The president made no mention that only 1,000 total jobs were created in December - a "shockingly low number," where most economists had expected job growth to be around 100,000 to 150,000 for the month. 33 months after the beginning of the recession, this recovery is distinguished from all previous cycles of job contraction and resumed growth since 1939, according to the Economic Policy Institute, for not having fully recovered job levels to those above the pre-recessionary peak within 31 months from its start.

The following day, the president touted the same economic policies that helped create the unemployment crisis. Despite the bad economic news, he said, "Tax relief has got this economy going again," and bragged, "every American who pays income taxes got a tax cut." His use of the phrase "income tax," however, was tailored to divert attention from the millions of low-income American taxpayers (who pay payroll tax but not income tax) who received nothing. Bush's 2001 tax cut completely excluded 31% of all families in America. Similarly, Bush's 2003 tax cut completely excluded 31% of all taxpayers - including one million children of military families.

Read the Mis-Lead

~~~

Word of the Day for Tuesday January 13, 2004

tergiversation tuhr-jiv-uhr-SAY-shuhn, noun:

1. The act of practicing evasion or of being deliberately ambiguous.

2. The act of abandoning a party or cause.

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