Fraser Homes, one of the largest house builders in the north of Ireland, is fight the housing slump by reducing prices by as much as £100,000 ($200,000), bringing the asking price down to £229,950.  When the company advertised the price reduction, the Aylesbury Place development in County Antrim was inundated with hundreds of potential buyers.  The company ran a news paper advertisement with the byline "We give in! We're finding it tough to sell. So let's cut to the chase with an offer you can't refuse."  The company was so pleased with the response that it released the final stage of the development to extend the promotion.

August 31, 2008: If you want to track a Hurricane, here's a tool that will help.  The site consolidates information from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. and publishes a storm tracker.  Gustav has taken a strange path through the Gulf.  Fortunately, it's now accelerating, meaning that it's spending less time over the warm Gulf waters which help it gather strength.  Landfall is now forecast for September 1; almost the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Gustav should hit the coast of Louisiana just west of New Orleans.

Storms are tracked from a number of sources, including satellite imagery, land-based weather stations and aircraft that fly into the eye of the storm to take barometric pressure measurements.  The lower the pressure in the eye of a hurricane and the more compact the structure of the nucleus of the storm, the more likely it is to generate damaging winds.  Most damage is typically done on the northeastern edge of the storm.  Hurricanes rapidly lose strength as the make landfall; typically, extensive damage is caused by the winds, which for a Category 5 hurricane, can exceed 150 miles per hour.  If a hurricane is weaker, it can still cause extensive damage; for example, if a storm slows once it makes landfall, it can cause severe damage through flooding.

Houston, Texas, August 31, 2008: Continental Airlines [NYSE:CAL] continues to monitor Hurricane Gustav as it moves toward the Gulf Coast.

On Saturday, Continental began adding larger aircraft and additional flights into and out of New Orleans to assist with evacuation efforts. The extra capacity will provide space for more than 1,200 additional customers through Sunday. To assist the affected areas, Continental has transported employees into the region to provide additional staffing.

August 31, 2008: Robert Paxton, president of a community college in Iowa, has resigned after a photo of him was discovered where he apparently poured beer into a young woman's mouth.  The board of trustees of the college unanimously accepted the resignation.  The college is located near Fort Dodge in Iowa.  Paxton has been president of the college for over twelve years and recently signed a two-year extension.  Upon accepting his resignation, the board of trustees handed the former president a severance package which is reported to include two years of salary and benefits valued at around $400,000. 

The photograph appeared last weekend in the Des Moines Register.  The paper reported that the photograph was taken over the Fourth of July weekend; the photograph was sent to the paper by an anonymous party.