The labor department released figures last friday that showed that while the US lost 20,000 jobs last month (instead of the expected 80,000 - yay) the unemployment rate was reported to have *fallen* slightly (from 5.1% to 5%).

How anybody could say this in public with a straight face (even with the disclaimer "derived from a different statistical survey than the payroll figures") is beyond me. Then again, they so gerrymander this kind of data as to make these reports more than useless.

lies, damned lies, and...