plus 4, 20th annual free dinner is spiritual, personal - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

20th annual free dinner is spiritual, personal - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Two die in car collision near Merced - Fresno Bee
The CFCA, a millstone around the necks of lenders and borrowers - Pahrump Valley Times
Woman found slain in her home - Star-Press
Saab: An oddball in peril - Boston Globe

20th annual free dinner is spiritual, personal - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Posted: 25 Dec 2009 12:58 PM PST

Dec. 24, 2009 | Plans to buy a former supermarket in Cudahy, and convert it into a four-screen cinema with sit-down dining, are on hold.

Larry Widen and David Glazer have run into some setbacks on their proposal, which involves the former Kohl's Food Store, 4630 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., one block north of Layton Ave.

"I don't know if it's going to be resurrected or not," Glazer said. "I'd like to think it will be."

Widen and Glazer, who operate the Times Cinema, 5906 W. Vliet St., and Rosebud Cinema Drafthouse, 6823 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa, said in May they would remodel the 17,000-square-foot building. It would be named the Rosebud Cinema Cudahy.

Their proposal called for sit-down dining, with wine and beer served, similar to the Rosebud in Wauwatosa. »Read Full Blog Post

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Two die in car collision near Merced - Fresno Bee

Posted: 25 Dec 2009 12:29 PM PST

2 dead in Hwy. 99 crash near Earlimart

Two people were killed Wednesday morning when the pickup they were riding in crashed on Highway 99 near Earlimart, the Tulare County Fire Department reported.

The Ford F-150, which had three people aboard, was northbound near Avenue 24 just after 6 a.m. when it went off the road and through a barbed wire fence. The truck flipped several times. It came to rest in a ditch and was not visible from the highway.

One man died at the scene, and another man suffered major injuries. A woman in the truck got out and walked to where she could call for help.

Fresno man to stand trial on murder in DUI crash

A 28-year-old Fresno man was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on murder charges after a violent crash on Friant Road earlier this year that killed two people.

Police say Jose Luis Orozco's blood-alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit when he veered into oncoming traffic near the Copper River Country Club in July.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Edward Sarkisian Jr. ruled there was sufficient evidence to put Orozco on trial after a short preliminary hearing that featured one witness -- California Highway Patrol officer Ty Blasingame.

News briefs

Man dies when he crashes his motorcycle near Madera

A man died when he crashed his motorcycle Thursday afternoon near Madera, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The man, who was not identified, was traveling on Arizona Avenue near Mattingly Street about 4 p.m. when he lost control of the motorcycle.

Ford slogan rings true; Chrysler's outlook realistic

Two years ago, Ford's then-new sales chief Jim Farley pledged that the automaker would "democratize technology." It would repair its struggling business by offering the best features to the most customers for the least money.

It was a catchy phrase, but nobody in the audience at Ford's century-old Rouge plant took it seriously.

At least I didn't. In 2007, Ford was so far behind leading automakers that "democratizing technology" sounded like an empty marketing slogan; a catchphrase on the fast track to becoming a punchline for derogatory jokes about Detroit's obsolescence.

Different concept rolls out at Fresno auto show

"Concept" vehicles -- sleek, high-tech dream machines intended to show off an automaker's vision for the future -- are becoming a thing of the past.

You won't find any at the Central California Auto Show, an annual Motor Trend production that opens a four-day run today at the Fresno Convention Center.

With the economy wreaking havoc on automakers around the world, manufacturers simply cannot justify the cost of building and touring new concept vehicles, said Mark Rapin, head of the Fresno-Clovis New Car Dealers Association.

Two 25-year-old men died Thursday evening after a traffic accident near Merced, the California Highway Patrol reported.

About 9:40 p.m., a man from Merced, driving a 2005 Ford F-350 pickup eastbound on Dickenson Ferry Road, approached Gurr Road. At the same time, a man from Atwater was driving a 2001 Ford Focus southbound on Gurr road.

For unknown reasons, the driver of the Ford pickup ran the stop sign and collided broadside into the Ford Focus, the officers said. Both vehicles overturned several times. The two drivers were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two passengers in the Ford pickup were taken for treatment of minor injuries. A passenger in the Ford Focus was taken by air ambulance to Doctors Medical Center in Modesto with major injuries. She was in stable condition this morning, a nurse said.

The collision is under investigation.

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The CFCA, a millstone around the necks of lenders and borrowers - Pahrump Valley Times

Posted: 25 Dec 2009 12:29 PM PST

Dec. 25, 2009

The CFCA, a millstone around the necks of lenders and borrowers

On December 11, Congress passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, an odd title showing how Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank tried to combine needed systemic reform with a mostly unrelated agenda item from the Democrats' old wish list.

As White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, paraphrasing Machiavelli, likes to say, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

There was an element of this bill that Republicans and moderate Democrats hated, establishing the Consumer Finance Protection Agency. The name sounds good right? However, the CFPA was the most problematic and controversial element in this package.

Why dislike the CFPA? Because it would add $4.6 billion to the deficit and it would be a job-killer. It would also make consumers angry by constricting credit. Ostensibly set up to oversee credit card and mortgage practices, this agency will result in some people losing credit options while the rest will just pay more for credit.

Of course, the more people lose their credit, the harder it is for the economy to recover. If people can't borrow the money to fix their transmissions, soon the auto repair shops go under. You get the picture.

The job losses wouldn't be just in the credit business. In fact, the very threat of the overall legislation has already been a drag on the economy. Lenders have told me they have been unable to justify expansion in an atmosphere of uncertainty, and certainly not with Congress promising "death-panels for non-banks."

This idea of further regulating non-banks and their products is one of the most revealing and profound flaws in the Wall Street reform act. The premise was that banks are already regulated and that most of the cost of this new regulation must be borne by non-banks. But that term includes a wide range of lenders, even after some were given a reprieve. Some may indeed be unregulated while others, like the small installment loan companies, are already highly regulated, every office being separately licensed and frequently audited by the state where it is located.

When homeowners borrow money to replace the hot water heater and pay it back in 12 monthly installments this is the safest kind of loan devised for the consumer. Now this loan would be thrown into the same regulatory bundle with much riskier products.

The goal seems to be to kill off non-banks, which make their loans based on creditworthiness and price them according to their costs, and to replace their loans with loans made by banks.

Thanks to rules set up through the Community Reinvestment Act, TARP and the FDIC, I can see banks being forced to make small, subprime loans at a loss. Banks are already alarmed at the idea and are telling anybody who'll listen they don't want to do it. Every single bank which participated in an FDIC "small dollar" loan program lost money on it, but disturbingly the FDIC still proclaimed it a success. (Wasn't the FDIC's primary mission to protect deposits and keep the banks away from risky subprime loans?)

If the idea of using the credit institutions of this country to further a social and political agenda at their own considerable risk seems both frightening and familiar, it should. This is exactly what happened with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Who defended these government-sponsored enterprises? Who praised their mission, encouraged their growth and resisted attempts to regulate them? The same folk now planning to use the banks the same way while killing off their "non-bank" competition in one of the largest government power grabs ever seen?

It will be late January before the Senate is ready for move forward on the House-passed financial regulation bill. It will be interesting to see what if anything survives of the controversial Consumer Finance Protection Agency.

My advice to the U.S. Congress is, if you're serious about reforming Wall Street, don't take it out on Main Street.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone.

J.C. Watts is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. His e-mail address is JCWatts01@jcwatts.com

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Woman found slain in her home - Star-Press

Posted: 25 Dec 2009 11:18 AM PST

MUNCIE -- A Muncie woman was found slain Thursday, a day after she told police she had been threatened by a man who had earlier burglarized her near-southside home.

The body of Monica Renee Brown, 35, was found by relatives in her home at 1401 S. Kinney Ave. shortly before 11:15 a.m.

Delaware County Coroner James Clevenger Jr. said Brown's death was the apparent result of "multiple sharp-use injuries." An autopsy is scheduled at Ball Memorial Hospital on Saturday morning.

Police were called to the scene after two of Brown's daughters, ages 17 and 11 -- who had earlier been unable to reach their mother by phone -- discovered her body. Brown's ex-husband, who had been called to the scene by his daughters, told a Star Press photographer that the victim's throat had been cut.

Two of the victim's younger children, ages 2 years and 6 months, respectively, were in the house when the body was discovered. The coroner said late Thursday afternoon those children were "in a safe place, with family."

Clevenger said evidence suggested the victim had been "dead for several hours."

Muncie police Capt. Mark Vollmar said Brown had filed a report with midnight-shift uniform officers early Wednesday morning, saying she had been threatened by a man who had broken into her house several hours earlier.

Brown did not report the Tuesday night break-in to police until she reported the later threat, apparently received in a telephone call, Vollmar said.

The man who Brown said had threatened her was arrested, along with a woman also implicated in the Tuesday break-in, at a Dunkirk-area house on Thursday afternoon.

Vollmar said the house where the arrests were made was being searched for possible evidence, and that Muncie police intended to interview the man and the woman later in the day. However, the police captain declined to identify the pair as suspects in Brown's slaying.

Outside the Kinney Avenue home early Thursday afternoon, Farrah Webb said she was a friend of Brown, and that her children were friends with Brown's children.

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Saab: An oddball in peril - Boston Globe

Posted: 25 Dec 2009 10:35 AM PST

If so, the roads of America would be blander for it. Japanese makers have cornered the market on quality engineering, and worked to jazz up their ho-hum styling, but have succeeded mainly in raising the standard for the generic sedan. American makers, for their part, offer more sizzle, but their most distinctive models, such as the infamous Pontiac Aztek, often stand out for bad reasons rather than good ones. Whether Saabs look beautiful is a matter of personal taste, and there's plenty of room for disagreement. But they indisputably offer something lacking in most of today's Toyotas, Hondas, Fords, and Chevys: personality.