Boondoggle:
Boondoggle is a North American term which has come to refer to the performance of useless or trivial tasks whilst appearing to be doing something important.
In the United States, the key feature of this "art" is the waste of time and/or money involved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondoggle
Part of its oddity lies in its sudden emergence into public view in an article in the New York Times on 4 April 1935. This had the headline “$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play ... Boon Doggles Made”.
The “boon doggles” of the headline turn out to be small items of leather, rope and canvas, which were being crafted by the jobless during the Great Depression as a form of make-work.
The article said that the word was “simply a term applied back in the pioneer days to what we call gadgets today”.
It was suggested that boondoggles were small items of leatherwork which were made by cowboys on idle days as decorations for their saddles.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-boo1.htm
Today, the term has been redefined as the Administration.
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