The cities with the biggest home price discounts

Phoenix is one of the many Sun Belt cities where housing markets have taken a big hit during the recent real estate bust, with residential prices down nearly 45 percent since 2006. That, plus high foreclosure and vacancy rates, make for a dismal market for sellers. For homebuyers, of course, it's a very different story, both in Phoenix and in the many other cities that have followed similar patterns.

We created a list of the 10 U.S. cities with the biggest home price discounts. We compiled this list using the newly launched quarterly Home Offer Report from Trulia.com, a San Francisco-based real estate listing site. Trulia evaluated price cuts in America's 50 largest cities, as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

The Trulia folks scoured nonforeclosure residential listing data for all of these cities in the year through March 31, 2011. They tracked prices for single-family homes, townhouses, condos and apartments. The listing information itself came from real estate brokers, agents, third-party aggregators and Multiple Listing Services that participate on the Trulia.com platform.

Among all homes for sale in Phoenix, 35 percent had their prices cut at least once since going on the sale block, and 56 percent faced the likelihood of further cuts. The average Phoenix home has been sitting at the original sale price prior to that cut a short 48 days. That's a stark contrast to rebounding markets. In relatively robust New York City, for example, property prices had been cut a mere 6 percent after 80 days on the market.

"When you look at Mesa and Phoenix, there are so many foreclosures that sellers have to compete with," explains Daisy Kong, a manager at Trulia.com.

Forbes
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Navy Authorizes Chaplains to Perform Same-Sex ‘Marriages’ in Naval Chapels

Jude 1:3-10 (King James Version)

3Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

6And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

7Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

CNSNews.com) – Anticipating the elimination of the military ban on homosexuality, the Office of the Chief of Navy Chaplains has decided that same-sex couples in the Navy will be able to get married in Navy chapels, and that Navy chaplains will be allowed to perform the ceremonies -- if homosexual marriage is legal in the state where the unions are to be performed.

The advisory came in the form of an April 13 memo issued to all chaplains, in which the Chief of Navy Chaplains, Admiral Michael Tidd, said the Chaplain Corps was revising its Tier I training manuals, which had previously indicated that same-sex marriages are not authorized on federal property.

Instead, Tidd called for chaplains to comply with service-wide efforts underway to be more accepting of homosexuality and same-sex marriage as the end of the military policy on homosexuality nears.

Citing "additional legal review" by Navy attorneys, the admiral said the Navy "has concluded that, generally speaking, base facility use is sexual orientation neutral.”

“If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then the base facilities may be used to celebrate the marriage,” the admiral’s directive states.

The admiral’s memo also gives chaplains permission to "marry" homosexual couples – but would not force them to perform ceremines.

“Regarding chaplain participation, consistent with the tenets of his or her religious organization, a chaplain may officiate a same-sex, civil marriage: if it is conducted in accordance with the laws of the state which permits same-sex marriages or union; and if the chaplain is, according to applicable state and local laws, otherwise fully certified to officiate that state’s marriages.”

Navy spokeswoman Alana Garas confirmed the change was ordered, but told CNSNews.com that the document “does not reflect a change in policy, but a change in Tier I training for Navy chaplains that looks forward to when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is removed”— something which will not happen, she said, until 60 days after the president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify to Congress that repeal will not harm military readiness.

But Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is concerned that, in its haste to “hustle-in homosexuality,” the Navy may be violating federal law – the Defense of Marriage Act.

“Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriage violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land and is bound to the duties of our military, including chaplains,” Steve Taylor, communications director for Akin, told CNSNews.com.

“The administration and various states may be operating as if DOMA doesn't exist, but the Navy and Marine Corps and all the Armed Services are sworn to obey the law, which this new instruction violates,” he added.

Tom McClusky, senior vice president of government relations at the Family Research Council, agreed that the Navy is totally ignoring DOMA, part of which defines marriage for federal government purposes as being between one man and one woman.

“You’re talking about government facilities and government employees, so it would seem to be a direct violation of DOMA,” McClusky told CNSNews.com. “I’m not seeing a lot of wiggle room there.”

He said conservatives had warned months ago that the push to repeal the military ban on homosexuality would lead to efforts to introduce same-sex marriage -- but were dismissed at the time.

“This is what we thought was going to happen, and unfortunately now it's happening,” McClusky said.




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Iran says talks to reestablish diplomatic ties with Egypt underway

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that talks to reestablish diplomatic ties with Egypt were under way and it was hopeful ties would be resumed soon.

Mehmanparast said Foreign Minister Ali Akbar-Salehi was to meet his Egyptian counterpart, Nabil al-Arabi, this month on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement conference in Indonesia.



Before that, the two sides would meet at the deputy foreign minister level in Cairo, Mehmanparast said.

Tehran had urged Cairo to take a "courageous step" to upgrade diplomatic ties despite resistance from the United States and Israel.
Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had rejected Iran's overtures for 15 years.

Al-Arabi said in March that Cairo was ready to "open a new page with Iran" in the post-Mubarak era, but it has so far taken no concrete steps to restore relations.

Iran and Egypt have had no diplomatic ties since Iran's 1979 revolution because of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, but the two governments cooperate on diplomatic affairs at a non-ambassador level.

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Why does Obama have 2 different birth doctors?

The White House release of a copy of Barack Obama's long-form Hawaian birth certificate continues to raise more questions – since the name of the president's attending physician differs from previous published reports.

The name on the purported birth certificate lists Dr. David Sinclair as the obstetrician who delivered Obama in 1961.

But reports by the Buffalo News and supposedly confirmed by the hoaxbusting website Snopes.com indicate the name of Obama's birth physician was Dr. Rodney T. West.

Here is an image of what the White House claims is Obama's official, long-form birth certificate, with Sinclair's name listed as the doctor.

Image released by the White House April 27, 2011

Yet a report that West was the attending physician – and not Sinclair – comes fromSnopes.com,the self-described "definitive Internet reference source":

Snopes reference to Obama birth physician

The name was originally identified in anews story by reporter Paula Voellof theBuffalo Newsin upstate New York:

Buffalo News report from Jan. 20, 2009, identifies Rodney West, not David Sinclair, as the obstetrician who delivered Obama.

It's finally in! Be the first to get the new eligibility book signed by Jerome Corsi, the book that made Obama blink and release his birth certificate!

The previous reports, which date to Jan. 20, 2009, quote a New York woman, Barbara Nelson, who said she "remembers" the birth of Barack Obama. Her statements later were cited by the Democratic Underground website under the headline "Independent Confirmation of Obama's Birth."

Read more:Why does Obama have 2 different birth doctors?http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=294665#ixzz1LsLTDBAS


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