A Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday seems to confirm a point The Times made in an editorial last month on a California regulation that would ban large-screen TVs from being sold because they consume too much energy: Leave it up to the market to catch up on electricity-inefficient televisions. An excerpt from the Rasmussen summary:

Conservation-minded folks (this bike and bus commuter considers himself one) may be discouraged by the majority opinion that most people feel being able to buy whatever mega-screen television they darn well please is more important than saving energy. But the energy-unregulated TV market is working in conservation's favor: Nearly the same percentage of people -- 54% -- say efficiency is important enough to them that would pay more for televisions that use less electricity.

As The Times' editorial pointed out, the new regulation would actually hamper the innovation already underway in the industry. The Rasmussen poll adds another point: California's action may deprive consumers of the energy-efficient entertainment they'd pay a premium for.

Hat tip: Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason's Hit and Run.

-- Paul Thornton

Photo credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

After signing up for the 2010 L.A. Marathon early this morning and studying the course map -- which was unveiled today -- I remembered a piece on the 2007 race by then-Times Deputy Editorial Page Editor Michael Newman, my boss at the time. After finishing the marathon, Newman panned race organizers for ignoring L.A.'s best asset (the ocean) in routing runners from Universal City through Koreatown, Boyle Heights and other inland neighborhoods on their way to downtown L.A. Newman garnered his share of provincial scorn for declaring, based on his race experience, that "much of L.A. isn't very pretty."

I thoroughly agreed with Newman at the time -- that much of L.A. is ugly -- and I still do. But having actually signed up for the 2010 L.A. Marathon, my thoughts on the "stadium to the sea" route are mixed; perhaps bipolar would be a better way to put it. As a first-time marathoner, I look forward to the beach finish providing a major psychological boost to those of us pounding our feet on pavement for 26.2 miles. But putting on my lifelong Southern Californian hat -- which comes with a deep "warts and all" affection for Los Angeles -- the new route strikes me as ... just not right.

Despite its Hollywood-inspired reputation, Los Angeles has always struck me as a city unafraid to put its gritty face forward. Past marathon routes -- which started and ended in downtown L.A. -- reflected this attitude. Sure, runners would bisect tonier neighborhoods such as Hancock Park and Larchmont Village. But this is L.A., a city whose wealthy enclaves are often adjacent to or surrounded by working-class neighborhoods. Running in Hancock Park and Larchmont Village practically requires passing through Koreatown or the yet-to-be gentrified areas of Hollywood.

Looking at the route closely, and how magnetically it seems to abut the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains for much of the race, it's hard not to come away with the impression that race organizers deliberately avoided areas some may not consider "nice" (Rodeo Drive -- really?). You can call this the Los Angeles Marathon if you want, and come race day, I'll gladly run. But I won't be surprised if, for much of the race, some Southern Californians viewing the event from home on March 21 wonder what marathon they're watching.

-- Paul Thornton

Photo: The start line at the 24th annual Los Angeles Marathon on May 25, 2009. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times.

This won't take long to spell out. How long it'll take to fix, I don't know.

Spinning around the radio dial Wednesday, I alighted on a news story about the water deal reached in Sacramento. The announcer said something to the effect that the deal balances both ''human and environmental'' concerns.

What? Stop! When are we going to get it through our still-insufficiently evolved craniums [crania, if you like] that environmental concerns ARE human concerns, that we are only as healthy and as likely to survive as are our fellow species and the land and water and air on this planet?

For years, we've been shoved into accepting the false, manipulated choice of jobs versus the environment; now there's the insidious manufactured either-or of "us versus them,"'  the `"them'' being a balanced water system and the habitat and creatures that are part of it. Well, here's some breaking news that should be old news: We ARE them.

-- Patt Morrison

Let the speculation over recently reelected L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's gubernatorial ambitions resume, beginning with this blogpost. He already said he wasn't interested in the job (at least this time around), but that was before San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dropped out of the race today, leaving former governor and California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown as the last man standing in the Democratic Party field. Villaraigosa has a few natural advantages; namely, he would be the only nonwhite candidate and the only hopeful from Southern California in the field (Republicans Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell are all from the Silicon Valley, and Brown emerged from political exile as mayor of Oakland before becoming attorney general).

Back before Villaraigosa announced his non-candidacy in June, former state Sen. Tom Hayden predicted in a Times Blowback piece that Villaraigosa would run but that his chances in a two-man race against Brown weren't good:

Hayden was responding to a Feb. 27 Op-Ed article in The Times by Marc Cooper, who made the case against a run by the mayor:

What do you think? With Newsom out, should Mayor Villaraigosa take a shot at becoming Gov. Villaraigosa? Take our unscientific poll, leave a comment or do both.

-- Paul Thornton

Photo: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on Oct.11. Credit: David Cannon / Getty Images.

  In today's editorial and opinion pages, the Times editorial board gives former Assembly Speaker Fabuan Nuñez a shout-out for being cleared of ethics charges arising from his lavish spending, and then gives him a shout-down for the underlying actions. No, he's not a crook. But he still relied too heavily on the largesse of donors with issues to press in Sacramento.

And we pair a shout-down of Philadelphia Eagles player Michael Vick's dogfighting operation with a shout-out to Wayne Pacelle of the the Humane Society of the United States -- for going on a, pardon the expression, dog-and-pony tour with Vick to educate communities about stopping cruelty to animals.

And shoutouts and shout downs abound for the food industry's Smart Choices program.

Columnist Meghan Daum weighs in on farming-chic, and two folks sack Sacramento's recent move to waive environmental laws to hasten construction of a football stadium in Los Angeles or, rather, the City of Industry. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) worries that the Legislature "opened the floodgates" to future exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act. And sports author Dave Zirin sees just the latest in a series of sweetheart deals between unwitting taxpayers and tycoon team owners.

Photo: AP/Nick Ut

The police commission picked three finalists in its search for Los Angeles' new police chief, and the editorial board says each possesses many of the qualities needed to succeed atop the LAPD. Just so there won't be any confusion on that point, the board also describes what those qualities might be. The board also notes that two proposed ballot measures are due to be submitted today to enable and call a state constitutional convention, and it all but endorses them in a near-desperate plea for functional governance in California.

On the Op-Ed page, Raphael J. Sonenshein, former executive director of the city's charter reform commission, accuses rookie City Atty. Carmen Trutanich of not understanding what a city attorney is supposed to do in this town. Columnist Tim Rutten gives a highly nuanced defense of the push to reveal who is contributing to efforts in other states to put Prop. 8-style bans on gay marriage on the ballot. Musing about the Northwest Airlines flight that overshot its destination by 150 miles, Peter Garrison, a pilot and contributing editor to Flying magazine, reveals just how boring it is to fly a modern airline jet. And columnist Doyle McManus dissects the Obama administration's decision-making process on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan:

Credit: Ted Rall / For The Times

-- Jon Healey

Departing Police Chief William Bratton prods immigration culture warriors today with an op-ed explaining why the LAPD doesn't, and shouldn't, participate in the controversial 287(g) program, which gives local law enforcement officers the powers of federal immigration agents. Turning police into de facto Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents harms community policing and discourages witnesses who might be illegal immigrants from coming forward.

Also on the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that trying to limit carbon emissions to fight global warming is a pointless waste of money because it can't solve the problem; better to invest in technological solutions and adjusting to a warmer world. And think tank scholars Leo Michel and Robert Hunter argue that U.S. allies are already doing plenty of heavy lifting as part of the NATO contingent in Afghanistan, so American officials should do less lecturing and more listening if they want more cooperation.

Speaking of Afghanistan, the Editorial page says the country can't be pacified simply by sending more troops. That has become abundantly clear in the face of increased suicide bombings in Iraq, which like Afghanistan has been slow to build a credible government.

We also send a rare love note to the California Legislature, pointing out two genuinely worthwhile bills that will help cities make better use of water, an increasingly precious resource in this dry and crowded state. And we weigh in on Operation Gatekeeper, the federal effort started in 1994 to tighten border security in a five-mile stretch from the Pacific Ocean to San Ysidro. Though the program has been successful in reducing crossings in that area, it has had an unintended consequence that must be addressed: Deaths of people trying to cross the desert farther to the east have skyrocketed.

Editorial cartoon by Tom Toles / Washington Post

California's "three-strikes" law is about truly heinous crimes. But in politics, it's a serious breach of behavior and self-interest to commit a ''do as I say, not as I do'' violation.

Maria Shriver is not an elected official, but she is married to a renowned one, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was born into an even more famous family of them, the Kennedys.

So the inevitable outcome when hubris meets hypocrisy can't have been lost on her. Why should the hoi polloi of us feel we need to obey the laws the politicians pass, if the high and mighty themselves won't observe them? It undercuts the repute of politics and the public regard for the rules and regulations we are all supposed to adhere to.

At least twice, Shriver has been photographed using her cellphone without a hands-free device -- a violation of a law her husband signed. When he made it law, he noted that if he ever caught his teenage daughter breaking it, ''she'll be taking the bus.''

After his wife was caught by a gossip site driving while chatting on a cellphone sans legally required device, Schwarzenegger promised, ''There's going to be swift action,'' and Shriver apologized. I wonder whether her daughter, the one who was threatened with the bus if she broke the law, gave her mother a piece of her mind.

But Shriver was not aboard a bus -- although a Cadillac Escalade is certainly of long and lumbering proportions -- when she was seen parking said SUV in a red zone in Santa Monica for nearly an hour. She was reportedly at a doctor's office, which I can't imagine to be official business.

Everybody screws up once in a while, sometimes in bigger ways than not. But a red zone is a big unmistakable crimson no-no that drivers learn even before they're old enough to get behind the wheel. How could she not see it? And if she did see it, what little voice told her, ''It's OK, go ahead,'' especially on the heels of her cellphone transgressions?

It's a shame that paparazzi follow her hither and yon, but one definition of morality is doing the right thing even when no one's looking, isn't it? I am pretty sure that if I'd tried to get away with the same thing, I'd have come out of my doctor's office to see my car on the way to the tow yard.

What ''swift action'' will her husband insist upon this time? Another apology will ring a bit hollow on the heels of the other one. In the meantime, maybe we should all chip in and buy her a bus pass.

-- Patt Morrison

This, apparently, is how to win a parks award: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sided with the toll-road agency and against San Onofre State Beach, supporting plans to build a freeway through the length of the park.

Then as soon as the budget got incredibly bad, one of his first ideas was to close a couple hundred state parks, even though the savings were relatively paltry. He backed down on that only after an analysis showed that it could be more expensive to close the parks than to keep them open because of the potential for vandalism, fires and illegal use.

On Thursday, the governor will receive an award from the National Park Trust for his record of supporting and protecting parks. This is a little befuddling, to say the least. Oh, wait, there was that moment when he told the federal government that he wanted California's road-free areas in its national forests to remain road-free.

If this is how awards are given out, we could have fun imagining similar honors. Nadya "Octomom" Suleman for the Zero Population Growth Award? The possibilities are endless.

-- Karin Klein

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Now that covert videos have shown widespread law-breaking at gun shows, the Times calls for a couple of changes, including a federal law like California's requiring that all gun sales be channeled through licensed dealers who must perform a background check. The board also chides Cal State San Luis Obispo for caving in to pressure from the owner of the Harris Ranch beef company, who didn't like the idea of food reformer and author Michael Pollan speaking at the school. The school reduced Pollan's rule to panelist, a craven abandonment of the principle of academic freedom

On the other side of the fold, a senior fellow at the Council of Public Relations argues that there is value to opening dialogue with North Korea, even if that particular olive branch isn't going to bear fruit any time in the near future. And a board member of the Friends of the World Food Program explains why school lunches in developing countries could be our best tool against global violence. The food attracts hungry children to school, where their education contributes to a more rational society.

Finally, Times staffer Paul Whitefield worries about what he should do with the $100 bill he found on the sidewalk. It could have been money for a child's birthday gift from grandparents; it might be someone's last $100, meant to see him or her through for a week. But it's really mine, so Paul can just hand it over and feel at peace.

Photo: Dean Lewins / AFP / Getty Images

-- Karin Klein