The climate-change bill has, under the hands of various Congress members, become a weak cousin of what it could have been, the editorial board complains. Sections have been reshaped to benefit the farm industry, while other important sections have simply been gutted. Still, it represents the first real effort by the United States to grapple with global warming, and should pass, as the board concludes:

The House should pass the Waxman-Markey bill, and the Senate should speedily follow suit. Even congressional Republicans can't generate as much hot air as the billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide it would eliminate.

The board also bemoans a court ruling that badly weakens the powers of the Los Angeles controller's office. Under Laura Chick, the office produced important watchdog reports on the operations of city government; now it is in danger of becoming weaker than it was even in the days before Chick. The board calls on the City Council to restore these powers legislatively but doubts, considering that council members also could find themselves the butt of the controller's investigations, that it will.

On the other side of the page, thoughts on Iran dominate the page. Renowned former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky advises the West to listen more closely to the dissenters in oppressive regimes such as Iran. They might lack money, power and sophistication, Sharansky writes, but they know more about the evolution of the national mindset.

People in free societies watching massive military parades or vociferous displays of love for the leaders of totalitarian regimes often conclude, "Well, that's their mentality; there's nothing we can do about it." Thus they and their leaders miss what is readily grasped by local dissidents attuned to what is happening on the ground: the spectacle of a nation of double-thinkers slowly or rapidly approaching a condition of open dissent.

And John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, criticizes President Obama for soft-pedaling his response to Iran. The president will never succeed in persuading Iran to forgo its nuclear initiative, Bolton argues, so there's no point in playing nice.

Photo by Giuseppe Cacace/ AFP/Getty Images

The Times editorial page today comes to the end of the first year at Los Angeles Unified School District's troubled Locke High School under charter school operator Green Dot Public Schools and finds progress, disappointment and hope. And change:

What makes Locke different under Green Dot...isn't that the charter operator has the magic formula for successful schools. It's that the people in charge don't spend years obfuscating, defending and delaying when things don't work. They do something to fix it.

The Times has been following the Locke Green Dot experiment closely. See reporter Howard Blume's articles from earlier this week here, here and here, and the editorial page's year-long series, A Year at Locke, here, and its earlier editorials like this one at the birth of the Green Dot experiment here. And don't miss editorial writer Karin Klein's many blog posts, including yesterday's post from the graduation, with its chilling quote:

 "It's happy, but it's also sad," [a parent said]. I waited for the predictable next words - happy because his child had grown up, sad because...well, his child had grown up. Instead, he continued, "Because you know after today some of these kids are going to die. Some will go down a bad path and get taken out too young."

In Op-Ed, this just in from calbuzz.com's Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine: California government is hard to handle. The two bloggers probed and have discovered that the problems include Proposition 13, voter initiatives, gerrymandering, term limits, a volatile tax structure, and the two-thirds rule for adopting budgets and taxes. Who knew? And guess what? It turns out some people are calling for a constitutional convention.

They made me look up the word bibulous, and now I'm embarrassed I didn't know it before, so I deny it.

Roberts, by the way, is the former political editor, editorial page editor and managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and was the embattled editor and publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press before his well-chronicled battle with owner Wendy McCaw. He wrote about one episode here.

He and Trounstine last wrote for the Times Opinion page here in March on whether Dianne Feinstein would run for governor.

Trounstine is former political editor of the San Jose Mercury News, communications director for California Gov. Gray Davis and founder and director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University.

Elsewhere in the page, filmmaker Todd Darling writes in favorof the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, but says it's not enough. By the way, catch the trailer from his film, "A Snow Mobile for George," on YouTube here.

And columnist Meghan Daum wonderswhat the deal is with J.D. Salinger, who went to court to block publication of a book in Sweden about his Catcher in the Rye character Holden Caulfield. Say what you will about Salinger, who Daum points out has dabbled in (gasp) Zen Buddhism. But even at 90, he's no phony.

Photo: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Obviously, some California public services will have to be cut, the editorial board observes, but what sense does it make to eliminate CalWorks, a program funded mostly by the federal dollars that enables people to get jobs and pay the rent? The board also notes that this is the big day for switching to digital TV, and it calls on the Federal Communications Commission to define the broadcasters' public-service obligations for digital channels.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta might be right in saying that he can't possibly make public a single paragraph within 65 documents describing his agency's interrogation techniques, the board says, but that doesn't mean the federal judge in the case should take his word for it. The judge should review the documents personally before making a decision, the board advises.

 On the other side of the fold. a teacher of history and education says the use of the term "Hispanic" to denote an ethnic group is a relatively recent phenomenon in the nation's history, and one that has served to make those of Latin American descent feel more "other" than they used to. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor should be seen as the first person of Puerto Rican descent who might be appointed to the high court, Jonathan Zimmerman argues, rather than as Hispanic. And Bill Maher has had enough with the puppies and the hamburgers; he wishes President Obama were less visible and barking more orders over the phone. The man is in serious danger of cute media overexposure, Maher huffs:

We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

Illustration: Pedro X. Molina

The Times editorial board gives a qualified "no" today to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to sell some of the state's real estate. The idea might be worth considering, the editorial board concludes, but it's not going to help with the state's current financial crisis. It would take years to complete Schwarzenegger's proposed sales of such iconic properties as San Quentin and the Memorial Coliseum, which would have to go for bargain prices in today's market, anyway.

The board applauds Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Christine Varney's pledge to hold big business to a tougher antitrust standard than the previous administration did, and points to the European Commission's fine on Intel as an example of how such standards might play out. As for former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, both of whom have been busily talking up the policies of yesterday while trying to forestall the progress of new administrations, the advice goes more like: You worked hard, now take a break. Spend more time with your family. And for heaven's sake, quiet, already.

On the other side of the fold, author Lisa Sweetingham, a Manny Ramirez fan brought up short by his suspension for violating baseball's drug rules, reviews the reasons why so many athletes -- and so many others -- have taken hormones and "accessory" medications. And environmental activist Bill McKibben writes that the combined might of environment groups is still too small to push faster government action on global warming. That, he says, will take grassroots action of the type his 350.org group is promoting.

Illustration by Patrick O'Connor for the Times

In anticipation of the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee endurance test to be faced by President Obama's Supreme Court pick, the editorial board has some advice. To spare everyone involved the Bork-era partisanship, "inane" questions such as whether "the opposite of being dead is being alive?"  (which was posed to John Roberts) and flat-out unbelievable answers  -- Clarence Thomas saying he'd never though much about Roe v. Wade-- the Times editotial board offers some guidelines. It starts by deferring to the president (but not acquiescing).  The board, however,  is far from siding with the president on his recent decision to withhold photos of detainees being tortured.

Over in Op-Ed, contributing editor D.J. Waldie warns that neighborhods will suffer if Sacramento forces already struggling cities and counties to loan the state 8% of their property tax revenue. Meghan Daum ruminates on children's author Judy Blume and how her message urging donations to Planned Parenthood for Mother's Day kicked off a controversy with abortion foes. Rounding out the page, Lori Pottinger of the environmental group International Rivers says U.S. efforts to help Ethiopia would be better spent on climate change adaptation and anti-drought measures than a poorly planned dam.

No one was surprised when it turned out the majority of 19 banks undergoing "stress tests" needed more money. While the editorial board is sorry about their stress, it also says we need a few more rules here before the federal government shells about billions more in rescue funding.

Companies whose solvency is implicitly guaranteed by the government don't have to pay as much for the money they borrow to fund their operations, giving them a competitive advantage, and they're more cavalier about risk. So they have a strong incentive to become so complex and interconnected that the government will be compelled to bail them out if they stumble again.

Our relief that the flu unfairly named for pigs looks much less deadly than first suspected should not stop the government from instituing some common-sense policy changes that will help slow the spread of such disease in the future. the board says, such as requiring employers to provide paid sick time to every employee so that people in contagious phases of illness will stay home. And the board takes a moment to envy the French who not only eat more brie, drink more wine, stay slimmer and work less, but also get more shut-eye. At least, that's what we think they meant when they said they sleep more.

On the other side of the fold, a pediatrician and a professor of education urge voters not to approve Proposition 1D, which would cut funds for pediatric medical care and preschool for the youngest Californians. Former Times columnist Mike Downey mourns the loss of L.A.'s collective baseball happiness this season after Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games, discipline for taking a banned female fertility drug.

He apologized to everybody in Southern California except the octomom, the topless Miss USA contestant, Steve Lopez and the dude with the cello.

And Kapil Komireddi, an Indian writer whgo specializes in South Asian affairs calls on the U.S. government to safeguard Pakistant's nuclear weapons arsenal as well as offer the country humanitarian aid.

Credit: Lisa Benson / Washington Post Writers Group

... and other things to get your mind off swine flu.

In today's editorial pages, The Times editorial board examines President Obama's attempt to triangulate on torture. Our conclusion: We can't close this chapter in history without reading it first.

It's now clear that if the country is to move beyond what the president called a "dark and painful chapter in our history," there must be a credible and comprehensive accounting of what went wrong and a serious study of whether the architects of the Bush policy violated the law. Equally important is the need to move strategically to secure two sometimes conflicting goals: punishment for any official who knowingly broke the law and accountability to the public.

On another front, the board builds on its Sunday endorsement of five of the six measures on the May 19 special election ballot by drilling down into Proposition 1C, which would revamp the California Lottery and get some cash out of it without waiting for the state's numbers to come up.

We're not enthusiastic about giving lawmakers the power to borrow against every penny of lottery revenue in perpetuity, because we fear that's what they will do. But if the spending caps in Proposition 1A work as advertised -- admittedly, a big if -- there will be less financial pressure on the state to sell another round of lottery securities after the first one is paid off.

On the Op-Ed page, we're back to torture, this time in a piece by author and KNBC news producer Frank Snepp.He knows what he's talking about. Snepp was a CIA interrogator in Vietnam during the war, and by his own account he put his soul "at extreme peril." He draws a link between his actions and those of the Bush administration at Guantanamo.

Controlled brutality is a slippery slope, and once you pass through the moral membrane that should contain our worst impulses, it becomes so very easy to rationalize another step, and yet another, in the wrong direction.

Also in Op-Ed today: Molecular biologist Henry I. Miller chides government for standing in the way of what he claims is one rational and useful response to drought -- gene-splicing. And columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes apart Texas Gov. Rick Perry's flirtation with secession.

Photo of Camp V at Guantanamo Bay by Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images

Today's Editorial Page weighs in on a Los Angeles billboard ordinance being considered today by a City Council committee, offering The Times' prescription for how the city could best fashion enforceable and effective sign restrictions. But we'd have more faith that the council could pull off such a feat if it hadn't failed so dismally in the past:

Before the city permits any new billboards or draws any new districts, it must demonstrate its ability and its will to enforce current law, cite and dismantle illegal signs and complete and publicly post its sign inventory. Absent that showing of good faith, over the course of a year or two, no Angeleno can be expected to see any new law as anything other than further concessions to the billboard industry.

We also discuss the Screen Actors Guild's tentative deal with the Hollywood studios, pointing out that SAG's efforts to negotiate a better deal in new media was undermined by the willingness of other unions to accept less. Next time around, the union might want to increase its leverage by negotiating jointly with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America, whose contracts will expire at about the same time as SAG's.

Over on the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the Environmental Protection Agency's decision last week to regulate greenhouse gases should be disturbing to "people who believe in democratic, constitutional government." That's because the agency is taking on sweeping powers to regulate nearly every sphere of economic activity, powers that were never put before the voters.

Neal Bascomb, author of a recent book on the hunt for Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, points out that the fledgling nation of Israel's pursuit and prosecution of the notorious operational manager of the "Final Solution" exposed his crimes to the world and served justice against a man who might otherwise have gone free. That's worth noting as the world works on systems, like the International Criminal Court, for trying others who have committed crimes against humanity.

And Dean Florez, chairman of the state Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture, points out the folly of some California pistachio growers, who thought the nuts' thick shells and the methods used to process them would protect them from bacteria. That mistake was exposed when about 3 million pounds of pistachios from a Terra Bella plant had to be recalled because of salmonella contamination. Florez has introduced a bill that he says will reduce the risks.

All that, and Letters, too.

*Photo of Adolf Eichman by Associated Press

Readers react to the Obama administration's tough words for the auto industry in Tuesday's Letters to the editor.

Roger A. Wells, of Manhattan Beach, welcomes limits for Detroit:

It's sad watching our major automakers slip into history with a tin cup in their hands. Over time, these giant automakers built up costly executive hierarchies and frittered away their competitive advantage to foreign brands that ate their lunch in the U.S. marketplace.

Because we taxpayers are stuck in the default position as lenders of last resort, we should clamor to "cut 'em back or cut 'em off" and force reevaluation of such layered executive sweeteners as bonuses, hiring inducements and golden parachutes.

But Steven Siry, of Los Angeles, worries that the president is overreaching:

The last time I checked, personnel actions within a private corporation were governed by a board of directors and shareholders. As a General Motors shareholder, I do not appreciate the president dictating the dismissal of GM chief Rick Wagoner.

This is a private matter. Just as we have separation of church and state in this country, we also need to honor the tradition of the separation of public and private entities. This is just one more step toward nationalization.

Also, Standard & Poor's EVP Vickie Tillman takes George Skelton to task for his assessment of California's lowest-in-the-nation bond rating:

...[C]redit ratings are assessments of creditworthiness -- primarily, the likelihood of default. In general, Standard & Poor's ratings for municipal debt reflect the relatively strong credit quality of municipal issuers.

Although the likelihood that, for example, either Beverly Hills (rated AAA) or Stockton (A+) will default may be low, that does not mean that both municipalities deserve the same rating, nor that neither would ever default. Their credit profiles and economic fundamentals differ.

A rating system should reflect these differences to help investors make decisions. Even though the ultimate risk may be small, in our opinion, California is more at risk of default than higher-rated states.

Letters about solar panels in the desert, healthcare reform, and Los Angeles billboards, too.

Photo: Flags outside General Motors' Detroit headquarters, Monday.  Credit:  Jeffrey Sauger/Bloomberg News.

Health reform took a major step forward, the editorial board notes, when insurers indicated they were open to ending some of the practices that have kept so many people from being able to obtain insurance -- basing premiums on health history and refusing to cover pre-existing conditions -- as long as everyone is required to purchase insurance.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earns the board's praise for acknowledging that the U.S. market for illegal drugs contributes to the drug violence that has seized Mexico. And the board warns that an attempt by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to give new protections to large swaths of the Mojave Desert could backfire for the environment -- and the desert itself -- if it keeps significant solar projects from being built.

On the other side of the fold, Sarah Chayes, who heads the Arghand Cooperative in Afghanistan, writes that the United States' scaled-back commitments to that country have not only disappointed the population there, but caused many to turn back toward the Taliban.

So when Obama said recently that there were no plans on tap to "rebuild Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy," or when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the aim wasn't to create "some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there," my colleagues were listening. Such formulations have the effect on Afghans of a cold shower. And without the energy and commitment of the Afghan population, even the narrowest of U.S. goals in Afghanistan -- denying sanctuary to international terrorists -- will not be achieved.

Joel Stein argues against tax deductions for charitable donations. And in the Letters to the Editor, readers weigh in on whether President Obama is wrecking a promising start as the nation's leader.

Illustration: Matt Davies/The Journal News