Tank

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

SACRAMENTO - Good reform ideas are a dime a dozen. Look in any faculty lounge. But successful strategies for implementing those ideas are rare. Espousing sweeping reform that can't be enacted because it's politically unacceptable is a common habit of profs, pols and pundits. There also are idealists unwilling to compromise, who'd rather strike out than bunt the runner to the next base. California Forward, a blue-ribbon reform group, is none of that. But the think tank provides a case study of how difficult it is to enact significant change when confronted by the status quo. Not that every proposed reform is golden or all status quo rotten.

Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy -- moving America forward. Tank Johnson -- dragging America right back. EVAN PUZISS Mar Vista

A healthcare policy think tank founded by Newt Gingrich has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Center for Health Transformation, an organization with offices in Washington, D.C., St. Louis and Atlanta, has filed the necessary paperwork in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta. The think tank was seen as a sign of Gingrich's clout in Washington. It is part of the vast empire of lucrative projects that he abandoned when he became a presidential candidate. The organization, which describes itself as "a high-impact collaboration of private and public sector leaders committed to creating a 21st century intelligent health system that saves lives and saves money for all Americans," had grossed nearly $55 million since 2001, according to its website.

A healthcare policy think tank founded by Newt Gingrich has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Center for Health Transformation, an organization with offices in Washington, D.C., St. Louis and Atlanta, has filed the necessary paperwork in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta. The think tank was seen as a sign of Gingrich's clout in Washington. It is part of the vast empire of lucrative projects that he abandoned when he became a presidential candidate. The organization, which describes itself as "a high-impact collaboration of private and public sector leaders committed to creating a 21st century intelligent health system that saves lives and saves money for all Americans," had grossed nearly $55 million since 2001, according to its website.

In the article by Times writer Ronald B. Taylor ("Top Tank," June 8), Taylor mentioned a Lt. Gen. William Desobry as a World War II tanker who later helped design the U.S. Army's new M-1A1 tank. As a U.S. Army Infantryman with the 106th "Golden Lion" division during World War II's Battle of the Bulge, I was hit in the right side by a rifle bullet and taken prisoner by the German Army. While standing on a railroad station platform just south of Cologne, Germany, on Dec. 19, 1944, I met a tall American officer who had a white bandage wound over both eyes and around his head.

The Land Systems division of General Dynamics Corp. received a $5.5-million Army Contract for technical support for tanks.

Re "Lessons From Tank's Failure," Nov. 23 editorial: Thank you for your investigation into the Westminster water tank failure. One small correction might be in order. The proper nomenclature for the missing reinforcement bars would be "hairpins." These bars are so named for their U shape and resemblance to ladies' hairpins. It is really a shame that so many cities and property owners will waive the proper inspection of reinforcement installation and concrete placement installation at precast manufacturing plants and on site in order to save a few thousand dollars.

Not that the West finals are over but you have to admit Game 1 hardly lived up to expectations. Or maybe the expectations got a little nuts, suggesting the media had too much time between series, or was on mushrooms. In any case, Kobe Bryant didn't tank Game 1. That makes at least seven in a row he hasn't tanked, even for those suspicious of his motives in Game 4 in Oklahoma City. Phil Jackson didn't retire. There were no reports of LeBron James or John Calipari contacting the Lakers.

Thousands of gallons of water gushed from a Department of Water and Power storage tank in the Mar Vista area of West Los Angeles early today, creating a rushing rivulet of mud and gravel and causing the temporary evacuation of one home. "Water was leaking from an eight-inch valve at the rate of 1,000 gallons a minute," a city Fire Department spokesman said, but DWP officials said they have not yet determined what caused the leak.

A high-level peace envoy urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to take "concrete steps" to end the turmoil in his nation, the United Nations said Saturday, but a reported offensive against rebels in the country's rugged northwest highlighted the ferocity of the violence almost a year after the country's uprising began. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a bid to head off what U.S. and other officials fear could become a full-fledged civil war in Syria, where protesters and insurgents demanding Assad's ouster have been battling security forces.

Motorcycles represent a lot of things: freedom, power, fearlessness. With Harley-Davidson's new Softail Slim, unveiled Wednesday, "exposure" would also be appropriate. The Milwaukee manufacturer has stripped its classic Softail to its skivvies with a retro bobber that highlights the brute force of the machine. Starting at $15,499, the new-for-2012 Softail Slim represents a sort of Harley-style spring cleaning, for which every bit of bling was removed to showcase the bike's essentials.

Syrian tanks and troops moved Sunday to crush resistance in the rebellious suburbs of Damascus, opposition groups reported, bringing the bloody battle that has ravaged the nation for months to the doorsteps of the nation's capital. The fierce fighting reported outside Damascus was the latest sign that Syria's armed insurgency — long concentrated in provincial hotbeds of revolt like Homs, Hama and Dara — has now reached the edge of the city from which the Assad family has ruled Syria in autocratic fashion for more than 40 years.

California's combination of business, sales, income and other taxes ranks it close to the bottom of the 50 states for being business-friendly, according to a conservative Washington think tank. California placed 48th, ahead of New York at 49th place and New Jersey at 50th, said a report released Wednesday by the Tax Foundation. The findings, which are contradicted by other studies and disputed by some economists, are likely to become an issue in this fall's elections. California Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to put an initiative on the November ballot to temporarily raise the state sales tax and the individual income tax for people who make more than $250,000 a year.

Calabasas officials say they plan to flush a controversial septic tank inspection program this week after a two-year battle with residents living in the affluent city's rural outskirts. Citing widespread financial and emotional grief, City Council members say they will vote Wednesday to rescind rules that targeted owners of hillside houses with backyard septic systems. The city will instead abide by new and simpler state rules that are due to be adopted this summer. "My own personal preference is to be rid of this and take this onerous thing and throw it in the trash where it should have been in the first place," Mayor James Bozajian said about the city's septic policy.

Biola University, an evangelical Christian school in La Mirada, has received a $3-million grant to run a think tank on contemporary Christian perspectives on such topics as neuroscience, psychology and politics. The grant comes from the Pennsylvania-based John Templeton Foundation, which was founded by its namesake, the late Wall Street mutual funds pioneer, to help explore spirituality and links to other areas of scholarship. The award, the largest academic grant in Biola's history, will help its new Center for Christian Thought bring together eight scholars each semester — four from its faculty and four from elsewhere — over three years to research and debate "important questions facing our culture," said center Director Gregg Ten Elshof.

U.S. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci signed an agreement with Egypt on Tuesday for the Arab nation to help produce and acquire M-1A1 tanks, the most sophisticated in the U.S. arsenal. After three years of negotiation, Egypt will become the first country apart from the United States to build a modified version of the tank, also known as the Abrams tank. Before signing the agreement, Carlucci met President Hosni Mubarak for an hour of "very friendly" talks, the defense secretary said.

An 18-month competition for the right to develop an airborne radar system that can target tanks behind enemy lines ended with the selection of Grumman Aerospace Corp. The Air Force said Friday that it had awarded Grumman's Bethpage, N. Y., unit a $657-million contract "for full-scale engineering development of the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System."

The hot stars on the TV screen this fall were supposed to be Playboy bunnies, Pan Am stewardesses and angry dinosaurs. Instead the winners were broke waitresses, snarky suburbanites and Snow White. Welcome to the 2011-12 television season, where the costly shows that were supposed to be hits tanked and the ones that prognosticators had overlooked turned into ratings gold. Among the biggest disappointments have been NBC's short-lived "The Playboy Club," ABC's "Pan Am," which is struggling to stay airborne, and Fox's prehistoric drama "Terra Nova," which may end up going extinct in its first year.

For more than two years the bank robber dubbed the Geezer Bandit has flummoxed law enforcement, pulling off 16 heists and leaving little evidence behind. Now the FBI concedes the catchy nickname that the agency bestowed on the bandit — and that helped make him a minor folk hero — may have been a misnomer. Amateur sleuths, taking their lead from television detective shows, have long surmised that the Geezer Bandit is not a senior between 60 and 70 years old, but a younger man, perhaps wearing a theatrical mask.