what happens in vegas...

In the third quarter of 2015, flips accounted for 10.4 percent of homes sales in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, the highest rate among the 85 metros included in the report. That's down from a peak flip rate of 13.1 percent in the third quarter of 2005. Las Vegas and Birmingham, Ala., are the only two metropolitan areas where the flip rate has recovered to 80 percent of the 15-year peak. (An October report from RealtyTrac put Las Vegas's flip rate at 8.7 percent in the third quarter of 2015, behind Memphis and other major markets.)

what a coincidence

Turkey's president says there is evidence to prove the Kurdish YPG militia based in Syria were behind Wednesday's deadly bombing in Ankara.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said they had been supported by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. Both groups deny involvement.

Earlier, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu named the Ankara bomber as Salih Necar, a Syrian national and member of the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

"A direct link between the attack and the YPG has been established," he said, adding that PKK militants inside Turkey provided the YPG logistical support.

The political arm of the YPG "completely refuted" the claims of its involvement, saying Turkey is not its enemy. A senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible, Reuters news agency reports.

But President Erdogan, speaking on live television, said: "Even if the leaders of YPG or PKK deny being involved in the attack, there is evidence proving they were behind it."

He said he hoped that this would convince Turkey's allies of the link between the two groups.

it's not Putin's fault this time

Two years after Ukrainians shed blood on the streets of Kiev to crush a Kremlin-backed kleptocracy, the country of more than 40 million people is back on the brink of failed-state status.

The government’s long descent into chaos reached a new nadir this week, when amid reform delays and a cacophony of corruption claims President Petro Poroshenko sought Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s removal in parliament, only to be rejected by a majority that included two dozen members of his own bloc.

More defections followed as Yuliya Tymoshenko, the darling of the Orange Revolution a dozen years ago, pulled her party out of the ruling coalition. A fourth ally, Samopomich, will discuss its future in the government on Thursday. Both groups accused Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk of staging the no-confidence vote spectacle to preserve the status quo and deflect blame for corruption, which polls show the public holds them responsible for....

The infighting is jeopardizing the flow of aid from a $17.5 billion bailout and hampering the economy’s recovery from an 18-month recession, which was fueled by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and support for a separatist war that’s claimed more than 9,000 lives.

If Ukraine fails to seize what may be its last chance to enact meaningful reforms, the West will abandon the country, sparking a new crisis and more protests by a betrayed public, according to Forbrig.

“Ukraine will effectively implode,” Forbrig said. “Russia, which has long worked through oligarchic structures, will be able to manipulate the country at will. The Kremlin will triumphantly portray this failure and celebrate its own autocracy as superior.”

The divisions in Kiev may hand Putin an advantage in the Minsk peace process aimed at resolving the conflict in the east. Poroshenko has so far failed to muster the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to pass constitutional amendments called for in the Minsk accords, which would give more powers to pro-Russian separatists.

Ukraine's government almost fell

The Ukrainian cabinet delivered its performance report to the Ukrainian parliament, and the parliament voted the cabinet’s performance unsatisfactory. However, the parliament failed to vote no confidence in the government and prime minister Arsenii Yatsenyuk. 194 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, 32 votes short of the necessary 226 for the vote to pass. The outcome of the vote was uncertain until the end, and many believed that the government might resign or be dismissed, especially after Poroshenko publicly called for the cabinet’s resignation.

I'm all commented out. Just an empty shell due to the silly season I was going to ignore. Sometimes it seems to me that elections are just held to distract people from reading the news. I did like this local story about Oregon's Democratic controlled state house yesterday. It's a microcosm of the state of absurd partisanship kabuki that passes for legislative governance these days. No wonder the whole country is in throw the bums out mode.

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2016/02/oregon_house_passe...

SALEM — The Oregon House approved a bill Monday that removes a two-year residency requirement for recreational marijuana producers, processors and retailers, but first lawmakers had to read the bill.

Aloud. All 51 pages.

The extraordinary narration — which after a few minutes made for an effective sleep aid — resulted from a rarely used procedural move deployed by Republicans during the Legislature's 35-day session: Each bill must be read aloud, in its entirety, no matter how long it takes.

As pot is now legal in Oregon through a citizens ballot measure that passed, this bill was a hashing out of bureaucratic implementation details. After 5 hours of reading it aloud it passed.

About 90 minutes in, House Republicans used a procedural move to call all absent members to the floor for a roll call and then bar them from leaving until the bill received a vote. That move immediately shut down three House committees, stranding people who'd come to testify — including U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore.

It also forced the cancellation of a hearing where lawmakers were set to take up renter relief legislation. And it pushed off, for a few hours, a vote on a controversial bill aimed at ridding the state of coal-fired electricity. House Bill 4036 passed 39-20, with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats. Lawmakers took turns reading that bill, too.

This is exactly why people don't see the point of voting. Rent control is needed as our state is awash in shady developers, investors from Arizona to Shanghai and is building over priced toxic shoddy slums of the future in the name of an affordable housing crisis. These huge monstrosities are charging 1,500 for a studio apt.s that look like jail cells. Urban density that bills itself as environmental while bulldozing and remaking the beautiful tree laden inner city residential neighborhoods into an architectural urban nightmarish landscape. The developers cut down and dug out four huge old redwood trees down the street from us. They're building a 40 unit butt ugly apartment building. The trees we're along the property line of a vacant corner lot. They are bulldozing the house next to the vacant lot and wedging the new building in tight so the trees had to go. Watching this desecration of these stately redwoods progress was depressing to say the least.

I am taking some time off from the net. I'm so addicted I am going to have to unplug my computer. Even that will most likely not deter me from plugging in and starting to blog non-stop. Maybe it will slow me down a bit. My strategy is too get busy working off line on needed house projects and even some arting.

Maybe I'll hire someone to hit me over the head with a hammer when i need to get offline. One of my art mentors always said it took to people to paint a picture one to paint it and another to hit the painter over the head with a hammer when it was done. Sorry to have been missing in action around here as this is my favorite community online. See you later. Go Bernie!