• A NEW CREW: Association focuses on helping women (and some men) succeed …
  A new local association for commercial real estate folks.
  (tags: realestate commercialrealestate triad piedmonttriad)
• Ed Cone: Does this blog make me look fat?
  Ed writes about blogging, particularly how it's not the coolest new thing yet and why it's still important.
  (tags: blogging)
• Lincoln County Shenanigans
  It looks like a story that Fec has been bird dogging for a while is starting to really heat up. The sheriff in Lincoln County hired a blogger who identifies himself as digital media newsman to be his PR rep. Somehow neither the blogger/rep nor the sheriff seem to recognize a conflict of interest in the situation. Now the PR guy has filed a criminal complaint against the editor and publisher at News@Norman and the Lincoln County magistrate has issued a summons. This is gonna get really juicy.
  (tags: northcarolina government governmentwatchdog)

Justin has a pretty bad case of poison ivy (oak?). It’s really bad on his hands, which means we’re having a hard time keeping it from spreading. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

• The Seventh Sense: K'ville's Nathan Tabor Needs To Read The Constitution Before He Comments About It
  Looks like Forsyth County's GOP chair needs to think a little harder about the Constitution and how it works.
  (tags: politics forsythcounty)

• Forsyth Co. Schools Get Bus Route Changes – Money News Story – WXII The …
  Our county schools are cutting their bus routes down to size. Something I learned from this article: the county school buses were traveling 38,000 miles a day. I wonder how many miles parents who drive their kids to school put on the odometer each day?
  (tags: school education forsythcounty)
• Blog on the Run: 535 Members of Congress…
  Lex has video of a Congressman from Florida grilling the Federal Reserve chairman on the 1/2 trillion dollars that were swapped with foreign banks.
  (tags: economic economy finance)

• TriadWatch Post on TREBIC Poll
  (tags: greensboro politics)
• Vie de Malchance: The GOP and the Banksters
  Fec does it again. Not good to read right after lunch, that is if you want to retain your lunch.
  (tags: economics economy)
• Site of proposed apartments near new ballpark for sale
  The current financing doldroms have claimed another victim in the local apartment market.
  (tags: apartment realestate)

• Applied Rationality: Don't Let the Facts Distract You
  "More and more covered-up government science keeps emerging from earlier this decade–science that could have saved lives. This time it's research by the Department of Transportation on the dangers of driver distraction. The New York Times reports:
  'In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel.

  They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.

  But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress.'"

  (tags: government research)

• Triad Biz Journal: Survey Says Winston-Salem Office Vacancies Up, Rents Down
  "A survey of major multi-tenant office buildings in Winston-Salem by the appraising and consulting firm Michael S. Clapp & Associates finds increasing vacancy rates and falling rents.

  Between January and July, the survey found that vacancies in Class A office buildings increased from 12.3 percent to 14 percent, and in Class B buildings from 26.1 percent to 29.7 percent."

  (tags: winston-salem realestate economy)

• NC Mortgage Rates Up 14 Basis Points
  Zillow is reporting that average rates for 30 year fixed mortgages rose from 5.29% to 5.43% in a week. Still hard for me to get worked up about interest rates that are way lower than anything I would have dreamed getting on my first mortgage back in 1994.
  (tags: economy realestate finance)

• Vie de Malchance: Financialization
  Fec follows up his jobs post with another good one about the impact of financialization on the economy.
  (tags: economics economy)

• Vie de Malchance: It's Jobs, Stupid
  Fec compiles a compelling post about the importance of jobs, and it frankly scares the bejeezus out of me.
  (tags: economics jobdata)

• Apartment Vacancies Up
  According to this article the Greensboro/Winston-Salem apartment markets have the fourth highest vacancy rate in the country.
  (tags: apartment taa)