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Posts Tagged ‘government’

When President Obama welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House today, Obama will most likely propose that Israel be a test of Iran’s readiness to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

He won’t put it in such blunt terms of course, but will talk of the supposed linkage that exists between Israel making peace with the Palestinians, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Obama will unsuccessfully try to prove, that there is a connection between an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and Iran’s mullahs giving up their quest for nuclear weapons.

If Obama takes this tack, which is he expected to, he will fail miserably because there is no connection whatsoever between the two issues, and Netanyahu will correctly remain unconvinced.

Obama may then try gentle pressure, which is the most that he can use, but the facts are clear and Obama surely knows them and will respect Netanyahu’s rejection.

Did Iran set out to get nuclear weapons in order to help the Palestinians get a State? Of course not.

Has Iran even faintly suggested that it will halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons if the Palestinians get a State. Never.

Abbas controls nothing, and can hardly order a pizza.

He would lose the West Bank to Hamas in a matter of weeks if Israel were to hand it over to him, and Hamas stated as recently as yesterday that it will never recognize Israel.

Where would this new State be, and who would control it?

What is more, even under Abbas’s moderate guidance, Palestinian children are still raised on a diet of hatred in their schools, and specially made cartoons and videos that glorify dying a martyr’s death and others that show Jews drinking babies blood are common place.

There are presently fifty seven Islamic states, but Abbas is recently on record as saying that he will “never accept Israel as a Jewish state”.

Some in the U.S. would like to coerce Israel into some sort of two state deal, simply to see how Iran would respond, since there is not much appetite for either an Iran with nuclear bombs or launching an attack against it at the present time.

Netanyahu is a seasoned politician however, and knowing that Obama cannot force him, he will refuse to allow Israel to be used as a guinea pig.

Why Banks Are Using Bulldozers on Foreclosed Homes | The …

curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com8/1/11

UPDATED (5:29 PM) Banks have a new remedy for America's ailing housing market: bulldozers. There are nearly 1.7 million homes in the U.S. in some state of foreclosure. Banks already own some of these homes and will …

Council to bulldoze 175 homes in Gateshead – Chronicle News …

www.chroniclelive.co.uk12/6/11

YET more families are being forced from their homes as Gateshead Council flattens a third housing estate.

The growing number of abandoned properties across the country has caused property values and tax revenues to drop substantially, which in turn has led to fewer buyers and a growing number of vacant properties.

As of March 31, about 4 million homes had been empty for at least three months, a higher figure than in 2008, and about 3% of all U.S. homes.

Many cities and States, are themselves struggling with potential bankruptcy, and they’re finding it difficult to pay the firemen and policeman who are expected to deal with the increasing number of abandoned homes.

All is not doom and gloom however, and an innovative solution is now rapidly spreading across the country which entails local governments bulldozing abandoned properties, and using the newly reclaimed land for parks and playgrounds.

It’s a seemingly win-win situation, because it not only pleases local residents, but also creates jobs, and the icing on the cake is that the federal government is funding the action.

Last summer, Congress allocated $3.9 billion in emergency funds for cities to acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed properties, and a further $2 billion was assigned after Cleveland and other cities lobbied Congress.

In fact, Cleveland, which has over 10,000 abandoned homes, says it will use more than half of its $25.5 million stabilization fund to demolish more than 1,700 houses.

In addition to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis and Youngstown all say they have plans to use at least one-third of their neighborhood-stabilization funds for demolition.

Housing supply presently stands at about nine months, which is almost double the historic level of around five months, and approximately one in four home-buyers is in arrears on their mortgages, both of which sadly suggest the appearance of more and more abandoned homes, but happily, more jobs and more parks and playgrounds.