More Bad News for The GOP

Uh-oh. President Bush plans to campaign for the Republican Party this year. That can't be good news.

The White House on Monday sidestepped a question about how much Bush will campaign with McCain but said the president would actively hit the trail in support of Republican candidates despite his low approval ratings and questions about whether his presence would help or hurt the likely GOP nominee.

"The president believes very strongly that, if we get out and take our message to voters, that we can be successful," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

What message is that? More unprovoked invasions of other countries. More tax breaks for the super rich at the expense of the rest of Americans? Continual depletion of the Treasury?

Oh, the mind boggles.

Realtors in the News

With all the recent reports focusing on the mortgage crisis and the impending doom and gloom for the real estate industry we have decided to post a few briefs of realtor news.

If we get a lot of interest, will make our Realtor News Section a regular feature at News Olio. If you're interested, be sure to let us know.

Realtors: Median home price up ever so slightly
Bizjournals.com, NC - 16 hours ago
The median home price in metro Portland in March was $286500, an increase of $300 from a year ago. While local home prices are holding their own against a gloomy national backdrop, news from the Regional Multiple Listing Service noted that both pending and closed sales have tanked. Closed sales dropped nearly 40 percent and pending sales dropped nearly 37 percent, the Realtor group said Tuesday.

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Washington REALTORS endorse Dino Rossi for governor

The Washington Association of REALTORS, the state’s largest professional organization of 25,000 members, has endorsed Dino Rossi for governor. The endorsement follows interviews of both Rossi and Gov. Christine Gregoire by a 17-member Statewide Candidate Interview Team. Good news for him.

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Prudential Parks & Weisberg Realtors sold
Louisville Courier-Journal, KY - 21 hours ago
Prudential Parks & Weisberg Realtors has been sold to two children of president and managing partner Pat Parks, the firm announced in a news release.

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Local realtors discuss increase in housing market activity
Log Cabin Democrat, AR - Apr 15, 2008
By RACHEL PARKER DICKERSON Last week, news from the Arkansas Realtors Association showed Faulkner County's home sales in February were down only 1 percent from the same month in 2007.

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For up-to-the-minute reports, check out National Realty News.

Accompa Offers Free Trial

All product development managers must keep track of the various requirements of the products on which their teams are working, and until recently this has been an ominous task of juggling spreadsheets, emails, memos and Post-It notes.

Accompa, a Silicon Valley company founded by people who managed requirements for products and projects at some of the most successful high-tech companies, has developed software to make that job much easier.

And the best thing of all is that Accompa is offering a Free Trial of their On-Demand Requirements Management Software.

Accompa's software is different from others in that it is web-based, thus it can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. (It works in both Internet Explorer and FireFox.) Their product is also customizable to meet the individual needs of each company. They offer unlimited custom fields, custom reports to extract just the data needed, and custom views to assist in the management of requirements for multiple products or projects.

If you are a product, project or program manager trying to keep track of requirements using paper and pencil, you should take advantage of the free trial offer from Accompa.

Bailout Could Signal Worse Times Ahead

The Federal Reserve's emergency loan to Bears Stearns may signal that things are getting worse for the economy.

. . . with Friday's surprise announcement that the Fed would temporarily inject its own money into tottering brokerage giant Bear Stearns Cos., many Wall Street pros say they have little confidence that the move is a prelude to better times for beleaguered markets and the economy.

Indeed, some experts say Bear Stearns' woes warn of potentially larger calamities that will severely test the Fed, the economy and, ultimately, taxpayers as the government gets more deeply involved in fixing the markets' troubles.

"We will lose, in some form, several major financial institutions before this is over," said veteran economist Allen Sinai of Decision Economics Inc. in New York.

The heart of the problem is that the nation is living through an unwinding of a 25-year-long, consumer-led borrowing binge. Bear Stearns was a key player in financing that binge, most notably in high-risk mortgages.

Wall Street in recent years designed ever more creative ways to transform loans into bonds and sell them to investors who were hungry for interest income. That alchemy reached its zenith with sub-prime mortgages -- loans to people with dubious credit.

Canada's Economy Booming

The Canadian economy added five times as many jobs as expected in February, surprising nearly everyone.

Statistics Canada said on Friday that the economy added 43,300 jobs last month, defying market forecasts of a more tepid gain of 8,000 amid signs of softer growth. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at a 33-year low of 5.8 percent.

The news sent the Canadian dollar flying to a one-week high against the U.S. dollar and left economists scratching their heads.

"Mind boggling," said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. "I'm obviously a little shocked right now," he told Reuters.

KBR Water Sickens Soldiers

Water supplied by Halliburton subsidiary KBR, is responsible for illnesses reported by U.S. troops in Iraq.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Pentagon's inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."

"Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water," the report said.

The problems did not extend to troops' drinking water, but rather to water used for washing, bathing, shaving and cleaning. Water used for hygiene and laundry must meet minimum safety standards under military regulations because of the potential for harmful exposure through the eyes, nose, mouth, cuts and wounds.

Does Cell Phone Use Disrupt Sleep?

Cell phone use will disrupt sleep, says a study conducted by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and Wayne State University in Detroit.

The study of 35 men and 36 women between 18 and 45 years old was funded by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, the trade group for the industry. At this writing, however, its site has not posted a news release or the study results.

But a spokesman for British mobile phone operators called the findings inconclusive, according to Telecoms.com He said on BBC radio this morning that using a phone before or in bed was no worse than having a cup of coffee before turning in. The report also said manufacturers called into question the size of the study sample.