Tanks

The U.N. Security Council condemned the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria on Wednesday as authorities intensified the assault on a city that symbolizes resistance to President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule. The Security Council, which has been deadlocked over Syria for three months, expressed "grave concern at the deteriorating situation," and called on authorities "to fully respect human rights and to comply with their obligations under applicable international law. Those responsible for the violence should be held accountable.

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.

Federal safety officials have launched an investigation into reports that problems with gas tanks on more than 3 million Jeep Grand Cherokees could cause fuel leaks and fires in some crashes. The government probe involves possible defects in the sport utility vehicles from the 1993 to 2004 model years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The action is the first step in determining whether a recall is needed. The advocacy group Center for Auto Safety called for the investigation in October, alleging that the placement of the Grand Cherokee's plastic fuel tank behind the rear axle and below the rear bumper allowed for the possibility of tank ruptures, fuel spills and tank detachment during rear-end collisions and rollovers.

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.

Coup in the Soviet Union? That was not a coup; it was a Communist election. JOHN JAEGER Irvine

I hope others share my outrage at the inclusion of military tanks and troop carriers in this year's Pacific Beach Christmas Parade. The Town Council's flyers encouraged us to bring our children to see the clowns and Santa Claus. My daughter has marched in the parade for several years, and we always bring our younger son to watch. A Christmas parade should convey a message of joy and peace on Earth--the message of the Christmas season. We always enjoy hearing the Navy band.

In Woodland Hills, saleswoman Danielle LaRocca checked on her order: a chicken salad, dressing on the side, fried crunchy wonton noodles on the top. Over in Westwood, Laurie Tynan wanted a pulled-pork sandwich. In Santa Monica, paninis were on the grill. Tasty food is nothing new in Los Angeles, a city where restaurants dot every block. But these made-to-order meals are being served up at gas stations, where cheap hot dogs and warmed-up pizza are starting to be replaced by freshly baked croissants for breakfast and Cobb salads for lunch.

Two National Guard M-1 tanks collided Wednesday at Ft. Harrison, killing one driver and seriously injuring the other, officials said. Sheriff Chuck O'Reilly said one of the 60-ton tanks ended up on top of the other and both were severely damaged. The cause of the accident was under investigation.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, noting last year's natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in San Bruno, wants to review the safety of a giant propane and butane storage facility in San Pedro that has been controversial for decades. The 40-year-old facility, which can store about 25 million gallons of liquefied petroleum gas, is one of the largest and oldest facilities of its type in the United States. Its two 80-foot-tall tanks are along North Gaffey Street about 1,000 feet from homes.

I'd like to commend you on an excellent article, "Underground Tanks Pose Leakage Factor" (Aug. 14). Moine Brothers Inc. pioneered the removal of the underground gasoline storage tanks in 1948. Since then, we have removed and safely disposed of more than 10,000 underground tanks from all over Southern California. We have been retained by dozens of major corporations, oil and gasoline refiners, many smaller businesses and most major service station operators. JACK MOINE Wilmington Moine is president of Moine Brothers Inc.

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.

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.

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.

Headline Sept. 30:: "Reagan Library Discards Think-Tank Plan." Aren't "Reagan" and "ThinkTank" an oxymoron? However, should the nabobs reconsider, I suggest the following items to think about: Illegal funding of Contras of Nicaragua; secret Iran policy, i.e., arms for hostages; ignoring human rights in El Salvador; $5-billion secret Iraq policy; Star Wars fraud and idiocy; our unusual alliance with Noriega. I doubt that the distinguished "thinkers" will want to tangle with these issues and will employ the all-encompassing cliche of politics everywhere; to wit, "We want to put those questions behind us."

Two storage tanks at an oil facility exploded Wednesday, injuring five men, authorities said. The cause of the explosion was being investigated.

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.

  In one of the single deadliest episodes reported during the 9-month-old uprising, Syrian security forces surrounded and killed more than 100 people in a hail of tank and machine-gun fire in a valley near the Turkish border, opposition activists said. The attack Tuesday near the village of Kfar Owaid came as government forces pressed an offensive against a mountainous region in Idlib province, in northwestern Syria, that has been gripped for weeks by protests and fierce clashes with military defectors.