Columnist Tim Rutten notes the recent complaints about the California initiative process by the state's chief justice and a top fund manager and asks, what to do? The answer is, umm, unclear:

Also on the Op-Ed page, James D. Zirin, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, urges President Obama to hurry up and appoint a cyber security czar because the risks are so great. And hey, you can never have enough czars! And author Barbara Ehrenreich scoffs at a recent study, "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," that "purports to show that women have become steadily unhappier since 1972." Says Ehrenreich:

On the editorial pages, the board blasts the health insurance lobby for hiring PricewaterhouseCooper to do a hatchet job on the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare reform bill. But it admits that the insurers have a point: The bill falls critically short of the goal of providing universal health insurance. And it argues that the recent botched execution in Ohio, the latest in a string of similar incidents in that state, adds to the evidence that lethal injections don't pass constitutional muster.

Photo credit: Susan Tibbles / For The Times

-- Jon Healey

The Times editorial board meets three times a week to discuss what we're going to say in our editorials, but sometimes news breaks between meetings and we scramble to reach a consensus through e-mail. The announcement that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize is a case in point. To give you an idea how ideas germinate within the Opinion Manufacturing Division, here's a transcript of that electronic discussion (with the spelling cleaned up a bit). Please note that this is just the starting point for an editorial -- the off-the-top thoughts that present the writer with angles to pursue and questions to answer. In other words, don't confuse this banter with the reporting editorial writers put into their pieces.

Michael McGough, our Washington-based senior editorial writer, started the conversation at 6:57 a.m. Pacific with a query circulated to the rest of the board:

Marjorie Miller, who writes about foreign policy (and Winnie the Pooh sequels), punched out a retort on her Blackberry as she got out of the gym:

Nick Goldberg, editor of the editorial pages, responded:

Miller soon elaborated ...

With my mother's side of the family hailing from Kongeriket Norge, I've gathered from personal experience that Norwegians (the ones I know, anyway) have a super-squishy soft spot for President Obama. This morning, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made its country's infatuation practically official:

President Obama, who has pledged to place diplomacy ahead of confrontation and reached out to a skeptical world with offers of mutual understanding, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace today for what the Nobel committee called "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"I will accept this award as a call to action, a call to all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century," Obama said in a White House Rose Garden appearance. "This award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity."

Professing humility and surprise in the awarding of the prize, the president said, "I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as a recognition of American leadership. . . .

"To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize," Obama said, suggesting that the prize has not always "been awarded just to honor specific achievements," but also to lend some momentum to the cause of peace.

I'm surprised, but not completely thrown for a loop. Norway, not being much larger than the city of Los Angeles in population, is deeply involved in world affairs to level that would suit a country the size of, say, France. Its diplomats have actively sought out peaceful resolutions to bloody conflicts in which Norway seemed to have had no practical national interest (the landmark 1993 peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis is called the Oslo Accords for a reason -- and yes, for their efforts the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin the Nobel Peace Prize). So when the leader of a nuclear-armed superpower, whose previous presidential administration disregarded parts of the Geneva Convention as "quaint" and was known for starting expensive wars it couldn't finish, reassures the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. should not seek to dominate weaker nations, you can bet the Norwegian Nobel Committee took notice. So yes, chalk this up as a nakedly political statement, wishful thinking that the president's actions will align with words or some other kind of naïveté, but the Norwegian Nobel Committee had its reasons.

Enough Norse talk; click here for more reaction.

What are your thoughts on the award? Take our unscientific poll, post a comment or do both.

Matthew Continetti, associate editor of the Weekly Standard, gets the Op-Ed page rolling this morning by accusing President Obama of being organized labor's Santa Claus. The First Community Organizer may believe that unionization helps lift workers into the middle class, Continetti writes, but the numbers don't support that argument:

Speaking of a unionized workforce, columnist Tim Rutten urges the state Senate to waive some California environmental rules to let developer Ed Roski Jr. build a football stadium in the City of Industry. Why?

Alllll-righty then. Closing out the page, Anna Husarska, senior policy advisor at the International Rescue Committee, laments the "huge human cost" of the Taliban's operations in Pakistan's Swat Valley and the government's counteroffensive. The image above is an illustration of the psychic toll; it's a drawing by a schoolgirl in the Swat Valley named Sheema.

On the other half of the opinion pages, the Times editorial board blasts the L.A. Department of Water and Power for the fabulous parting gifts it's planning to shower on departing chief H. David Nahai. We like how Nahai defied union leaders (the Opinion page's méchants du jour) to bring in more renewable power from outside the district, but we still don't see the need to pay him his salary for the rest of the year:

The board also says the Federal Trade Commission's new guidelines for online advertisers could put too much scrutiny on bloggers and amateur product reviewers. And it warns that the Supreme Court's review of a case involving the giant cross in California's Mojave National Preserve threatens to "blow a gaping hole" in the 1st Amendment's wall between church and state.

-- Jon Healey

The Times editorial board laments the departure of Guy Mehula, the man who oversaw the recent surge construction for the Los Angeles Unified School District. That program operated with an efficiency and competence rarely found at LAUSD, the board asserts, and those qualities are threatened by Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines' reported plans to supervise the unit more closely:

Elsewhere on the editorial page, the board defends Facebook's handling of a user-generated poll asking whether President Obama should be assassinated. And it urges lawmakers to grow spines and stop blocking the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to maximum security federal prisons in the U.S.

On the Op-Ed side of the fold, columnist Tim Rutten runs through the list of policy challenges facing President Obama -- the jobless recovery, rising health insurance premiums, the war in Afghanistan, the Iranian leadership's nuclear ambitions -- and finds no easy choices. Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the Chinese government is sending mixed signals about its willingness to play ball with international organizations to address global problems: And writer Kathryn Wilkens of Upland muses about the life and death of the mission fig tree that had anchored her garden for decades:

Insert your ironic comment about this article appearing in dead tree media here.

Illustration: Blair Thornley / For The Times

-- Jon Healey

Today's editorial page casts a wary eye on former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, whose candidacy for governor of California has been shaken by revelations that she didn't register to vote until she was 46 years old, and only became a Republican two years ago. Is someone so seemingly apathetic about politics the best choice to govern what may be the most ungovernable state in the union?

With all due respect to the French culture minister, who said U.S. efforts to prosecute filmmaker Roman Polanski revealed the face of a "scary America," we on the Times editorial board think it's time the 76-year-old fugitive was brought to justice. Polanski's defenders ignore the simple fact that he fled the country while facing charges of raping a 13-year-old girl. Even for successful movie directors, that's not OK.

The editorial page also weighs in on plans to upgrade the sagging waterfront in San Pedro, which the Harbor Commission will consider today. There's much to like in the proposal, but something not to like as well: Plans to build terminals for cruise ships adjacent to San Pedro's only public beach. We think commissioners should proceed with the overall plan, but table the outer harbor cruise berths.

On the Op-Ed side, columnist Jonah Goldberg questions whether President Obama is living up to his centrist campaign rhetoric on the war in Afghanistan. While running for office, Obama tried to out-hawk Republican Sen. John McCain when it came to the war, but as the conflict becomes less popular he seems to be reconsidering. "What seemed like principled centrism in 2008 might simply be exposed as left-wing expediency in 2009."

Professor Christopher Layne and journalist Benjamin Schwarz ponder the waning of the Pax Americana, the post-war bargain in which the United States spent overwhelmingly on its military in order to secure world peace -- a practice that given current fiscal conditions is no longer sustainable. The result will likely be de-globalization as countries move more aggressively to pursue their financial and security interests.

Finally, civil rights lawyer Constance L. Rice bemoans the resignation of the head of the L.A. Unified School District's construction division, who was apparently forced out by district politics. The independent construction division was created to avoid more disasters like the spectacularly expensive Belmont Learning Center, and the increasing political interference doesn't bode well for the future.

Cartoon: Ed Stein / Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

-- Dan Turner

Former Times staff writer Johanna Neuman polled Washington insiders for the cause of today's hyper-partisanship in the Capitol, and names the most-cited culprit: Newt Gingrich. The architect of the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-1990s also changed the congressional calendar and urged Republican lawmakers to spend their weekends at home, not mingling with colleagues of both parties in D.C. as they'd done before.

Updated at 1:05 p.m.: Neuman will discuss her Op-Ed on the "Michael Smerconish Show" at 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, in case you're up that early and want to listen online. Or if you're in Philadelphia.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg eulogizes the "godfather of neoconservatism" Irving Kristol, who died last week at 89 -- and who had a major impact on Goldberg's political thinking.

On the Editorial Page, The Times examines the much-delayed work of the blue-ribbon panel trying to reimagine California's tax structure, and wonders if it might be a little too innovative. Its business receipt tax might not stand up to legal scrutiny, and its attempts to decrease revenue volatility appear to come at the expense of the poor and middle class.

We also address the backfiring strategy of seven former CIA directors who sent a letter to President Obama urging him to abort a Justice Department inquiry into torture... er, enhanced interrogation techniques... by the CIA under the Bush administration. The directors seem not to have realized that they were asking the president to abandon his assurances that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder would put the law above loyalty to the White House. The unintended result: Obama was forced to renew his promise, the opposite of the outcome they wanted.

And on the tangled question of Net neutrality, we weigh in on the side of new FCC chief Julius Genachowski, who wants to develop new rules governing what Internet service providers can do with the data that travels through their networks. Without such rules, the major phone and Internet companies have too much power to quash innovation in the name of "managing congestion."

Cartoon by Tom Toles / Washington Post

-- Dan Turner

The Times editorial board praises President Obama for scrapping the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, calling the program "immensely expensive technology that still doesn't work, designed for a threat that may never materialize."

As various versions of health-care reform wend their contentious way around Washington, the board finds several weaknesses in the proposal by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) but finds reason to hope those very weaknesses will help "bring the public's focus back to the flaws in the current system and the challenges posed by any attempt to fix them."

Health care reform and several other moves and policies by the Obama administration have led to some vitriolic protest, which prompted  former President Jimmy Carter to declare that most of this protest was racial in nature. The board finds a kernel of truth in Carter's statement but also sees much legitimate protest about political differences.

On the other side of the fold, two writers debate whether the U.N. Human Rights Council report alleging war crimes by Israel in its Gaza fighting was the product of a prejudicial probe or a clear indication of abuses of international law that should not be tolerated by Israel's allies.

Photo of Jimmy Carter by Paul Abell / AP

--Karin Klein

Time's a-wastin'.

Next May, Norman Corwin celebrates his hundredth birthday.

The nation should celebrate with him.

The genius poet of radio, the Mozart of the spoken word, Corwin has won almost all the plaudits his craft can offer -- Peabody awards, an Emmy, an Academy Award nomination, and a documentary about his life and work did indeed win an Oscar.

He is a rarity in the writing world, as accomplished as he is prolific, and an author and thinker of the first water down to this day. He has just published, at age 99, his umpteenth book, ''One World Flight,'' his accounts and letters from his 1946 around-the-world journey to document the globe of the world in the wake of the war.

In his books, radio works, essays, screenplays and letters, he is sober and whimsical and always original and wisel. He is regarded as the poet laureate of the Golden Age of radio; he once commanded audiences of tens of millions of listeners, and deservedly so. President Franklin Roosevelt called upon him to write a radio play for the end of World War II, ''On a Note of Triumph.'' It is celebratory and cautionary, and men and women who were alive and aware then can still recite passages of it from memory.

It is one of the singular boasts of my life that Corwin counts me among his friends -- and I count myself among his fans. Another of his fans is filmmaker Michael James Kacey, who has taken up Corwin's cause. Kacey's website shows a Mt. Rushmore of radio with Corwin right up there with Orson Welles and Jack Benny.

Now Kacey is campaigning for a Congressional Gold Medal for Norman Corwin's 100th birthday. This has my wholehearted and full-throated support. I think Corwin and President Obama, both splendid and subtle speakers and accomplished prose stylists, would form a mutal admiration society.

But I think Kacey is being a bit too modest -- I think both a Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom are in order. Elsewhere, Corwin would already have been knighted, or be a member of a national academy of letters.

A couple of gold medals is the least we can do for someone who, in the world of words, is already Olympian.

-- Patt Morrison