Housing Sales Up or Down?

I have two points to make about last months new housing sales reported today.

1. When housing sales for the month of April rose .3 percent with a +/- margin of error of 14.5 percent how can anyone use the number as a positive or a negative number. It is statistically irrelevant. "Margin of Error" is exactly that, the margin of error.

2. Sure, March to April sales have increased .3 percent (bullshit number) but April 2008 to 2009 sales have plummeted 34 percent +/- 11 percent (making the 34 percent statistically significant because even with the margin of error it's still a positive number). I woke up today to a cnn.com headline with encouraging news, HOME SALES RISE. They smartly removed the article shortly thereafter. I wonder what their editor does because they do this every month when the housing reports come out.