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Tax cut approved for modular houses
Mississippi Gulf Coast residents can now save a few thousand dollars on quick-built houses under a tax break swiftly approved by lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour on Thursday. In a special session that lasted less than two hours, both the House and Senate agreed on legislation that trims sales tax on modular houses from 7 percent to 3 percent, hoping to boost reconstruction in south Mississippi. Barbour signed Senate Bill 2001 into law shortly after 4 p.m. when legislative staff rushed paperwork to his office. "Hallelujah!" said Mack Harper, an Ocean Springs resident who is helping his mother buy a modular home. "I was wondering if they ever would see eye to eye." His mother, Peggy, lost her Gulfport home in Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters last year. He expects to save $6,000 on the three-bedroom, two-bath house.
BEA to optimise software for SOAs
BEA Systems on Tuesday sketched out plans to optimise its infrastructure software for a services-oriented architecture (SOA), a modular system design being adopted by corporate customers. The company said its three primary product lines Aqualogic, WebLogic and Tuxedo will eventually use a common software foundation called MicroServices Architecture. Once this new, "lightweight" architecture is in place, customers will be able to build and modify applications with BEA's tools and server software more quickly and easily, said Alfred Chuang, the chief executive of BEA, who spoke at the company's customer conference in San Francisco. "MicroServices Architecture has been architected with SOA principles in mind and conforms to all standards," Chuang said.
Ikea takes a poke at high-end cousin
The 2007 Ikea catalog dropped with a global 80,000-ton thud a few weeks ago. Though its arrival hardly rates on the American cultural calendar, it's something of a phenomenon in Europe, where shelter catalogs aren't so plentiful.
Still, publishing 160 million catalogs a year worldwide (20 million in the United States) is a retail achievement nonpareil. By way of comparison, three years after its release, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has about 60 million copies in print.
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District 116 campaign all about recovery
BILOXI - The three candidates running for state House District 116 promise to push legislative efforts to help speed South Mississippi's recovery from Katrina. Democrat Maryann Graczyk and Republicans George Emile Jr. and Steven Palazzo are seeking to fill the unexpired term of Republican Leonard Bentz, who resigned when Gov. Haley Barbour appointed him to the state Public Service Commission. The three candidates agree housing and insurance are top Katrina-related issues lawmakers need to deal with. Graczyk and Emile support a House plan - opposed by Gov. Haley Barbour and many Senate leaders - to create a state-funded loan or grant program for Katrina homeowners. But Palazzo says he agrees with Barbour, that lawmakers should wait until federal funds are exhausted.
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