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

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva weighs in today with an Op-Ed on the coming G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, expressing his concern that leaders of the developed world are celebrating the recovering economy too early. In particular, he writes, industrialized nations seem reluctant to "reform" the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, combat global warming and reduce trade barriers:

Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten again uses Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) as the muse for a piece on political discourse, this time focusing on the origins of incivility. (It's Don Rickles, you hockey puck!) And novelist and longtime UC Riverside professor Susan Straight sees a teachable moment in the planned systemwide walkout by university workers and faculty Thursday.

On the editorial side of the fold, the Times board argues that China's new commitment to slow the growth of its carbon emissions makes the United States "the most environmentally irresponsible nation on Earth." We're No. 1! We're No. 1! The board also rebukes the Los Angeles district attorney's office for insisting that Bruce Lisker, whose murder conviction was thrown out by the federal courts for lack of evidence after he'd spent 26 years in prison, was guilty even as officials announced they would not put him on trial again. And although the detention center at Bagram air base in Afghanistan is on different legal footing from the one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the board contends that detainees seized on the battlefield and held at Bagram should be tried as terrorists "with all the protections and avenues of appeal available to criminal defendants."

-- Jon Healey

Cartoon by Matt Wuerker / Politico

Today the Opinion Manufacturing Division takes both sides of the debate over whether to investigate CIA interrogators, with columnist Tim Rutten lamenting the appointment of a special prosecutor and the editorial board applauding it. Rutten argues that it would be a "travesty" to charge the small fry without going after the higher ups in the Justice Department and the White House who egged them on. And that, he says, is a road to a place we don't want to go:

The editorial board, on the other hand, sees wisdom in having a respected career prosecutor conduct a limited inquiry into whether interrogators violated laws against torture or exceeded the "minimal" limits imposed by the Justice Department. It also opines:

The board also questions the motives ...

It's all about budgets and spending programs today on the Times Opinion pages. Well, OK, there are pieces on North Korea and Gitmo, too, but work with me here.

The editorial board blasts Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for using his line-item veto power to make deeper cuts than the legislature enacted in its hard-fought budget revision -- a power grab that probably violates the state's constitution:

California vests lawmaking power in the Legislature and properly limits the executive by allowing him to veto appropriations, line-by-line if he likes, but not to unilaterally alter those already on the books.

The board also calls on Congress to put more money into the Kash4Klunkers CARS program that subsidizes the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles, despite the grumbling from some economists, because it's providing a much-needed boost to consumer confidence. But the money should come out of the unspent portion of the $787 billion stimulus package enacted in February, and there should be no more refills, the board says.

On the Op-Ed page ...

Today's pages are packed with heavy-headed examinations of perennial hot-button items that won't be solved any time soon (think race, education, healthcare and so on), so I'll ease you into the week with Monday's most cuddly topic: wild horses.

The editorial board analyzes a bill that would ban the culling of wild horses despite the fact that there are too many mustangs on the range and it's getting too expensive to keep the 31,000 horses that are corralled (in an attempt to control the growing herd) fed and happy. The editorial board's solution? Birth control:

The board also notes that the July 22 deadline for laying out a plan for Guantanamo Bay came and went with no recommendations by the White House-appointed task forces. The editorial board asks President Obama to keep his word and set a date for closing Gitmo.

On the Op-Ed page, columnist Gregory Rodriguez writes that it's silly for allies of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to use his arrest as proof that Americans haven't made much progress on race:

Also on the Op-Ed page, John Stobo and Tom Rosenthal weigh in on the healthcare debate, writing that a plan to cut Medicare costs by extrapolating research data from one region of the country to arrive at conclusions regarding another could leave the urban poor and those who live near pockets of urban poverty without adequate care. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorses L.A. Board of Education member Yoli Flores Aguilar's proposal to allow a variety of school operators to bid on running new L.A. schools. The mayor says the plan encourages new ideas and puts students first.

Finally, pilot Peter Garrison looks back at millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett's plane crash. Garrison writes that although we'll never know what happened on the day Fossett died in 2007, we do know this:

Photo credit: David Grubs / AP photo/The Billings Gazette

On the Op-Ed page today, John P. Hannah, security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney during President George W. Bush's second term, evaluates whether Iraq is ready for the looming withdrawal of U.S. troops from its cities. His conclusion is that President Obama is effectively giving up on Iraq before the job is done:

While Hannah argues that Obama's focus in the Middle East has shifted to Iran and he'd rather be done with Iraq, isn't the pulling out of troops and the handing of power to a government we helped build part of getting the job done? Even Bush was not planning on staying in Iraq forever, but that's the track we've been on since the 2003 invasion. Retreating our troops so the Iraqi police can take over the security of Iraqi cities may be the right step to the conclusion for which Hannah is calling.

Criminal Justice Professor Eric J. Williams writes to another aspect of the Bush administration's legacy: Guantanamo Bay. Williams specifically responds to the surprise expressed by many Republican politicians over a myriad of rural towns asking for the Gitmo detainees, as prisons have become an economic remedy for such towns that have lost staple industries.

The two other Op-Eds today offer more hopeful ruminations.

In Thursday's editorial pages, the Times focuses on the continuing fallout from this week's controversial election in Iran. 

The editorial board comes down hard on the Islamic republic, dismissing its absurd allegations that the United States is behind the current unrest, and blasting the Iranian government for its efforts to squelch coverage.

While it's true that the U.S. may have urged Twitter to keep its global network functioning, or opened its Voice of America site to video and messages from Iran, those were efforts at the margin. The real Iranian fight is internal. Until now, elections in Iran have given legitimacy to the religious government, but this time the vote is widely believed to have been stolen, and that has divided the country's ruling elite along with its citizens. Today's conflict is between factions in the religious elite.

On the Op-Ed page, Judith Lewis gives a shout-out to a sometimes intriguing, often annoying medium that did allow some information to get out: Twitter.

It's important not to get carried away here. There is no revolution being Twitterized, as some have reported, only a possible desire for one. There is certainly no direct line from Twitter to democracy. But Twitter is, by its very nature and architecture, destined to at least democratize information: Google and Yahoo executives can help Chinese authorities censor and rout out opponents with only minor public relations damage. But if Twitter betrays its base of millions, it ceases to exist.

See Lewis' previous op-eds for the Times here.

Also, writing from Iran, UC San Diego professor Babak Rahimi -- who has also studied the role of new media on Iranian politics -- compares this revolution to the one in 1979, which overthrew democracy and established the Islamic republic. This one, he says, is different:

This time, the protesters seek a more democratic state, transparent in structure and accountable only to its citizens.

But we're not only about Iran; we're also thinking about the Uighurs. The editorial board looks at the resettlement of Guantanamo detainees and argues that the best way to get recalcitrant Europeans to open up their countries to Uighers and others who can't be returned to their homes is for the U.S. to set the example:

Obama seemed to make such a commitment in a speech last month in which he reminded nervous members of Congress that hundreds of convicted terrorists are already held in "supermax" prisons from which no one has escaped. The president mustn't waver from that position.

The board also calls for an increase in Community College fees, and columnist Meghan Daum tries to get Barack Obama to light up.

Photo: AP / Getty Images

The Times editorial board notes the end of the Screen Actors Guild's two-year contract saga but cautions that peace is "illusory." SAG remains bitterly divided between hard-line factions and more moderate ones, and relations remain strained with the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. Oh, and the Directors Guild of America isn't a happy camp either.

The editorial board also notes that despite the political upheaval in Iran, with political rallies and surprisingly open criticism of the government, the winner of the presidential election tomorrow probably won't be able to circumvent the ruling mullahs and bring about real reform.

Lastly, the board hopes that if her nomination to the Supreme Court is confirmed, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will urge her colleagues on the bench to permit television cameras in the court. Technological advances, among other reasons, make objections to broadcasting oral arguments quaint:

The contention that cameras would alter the traditions of the court has been undermined by recent innovations such as the same-day release of audio recordings of high-profile arguments and the prompt posting on the Internet of transcripts.

Over on the Op-Ed page, UC Berkeley professors Laurel Fletcher and Eric Stove say the best way for the United States to prevent radicalization of prisoners freed from Guantanamo Bay is to help them readjust to life at home:

As the U.S. prepares to close Guantanamo, it also needs to plan for post-release services to  help detainees reintegrate into their communities. U.S.-supported programs should provide former detainees with job training and psychological support and help them secure stable employment...By helping re-anchor released detainees in their communities, we will reduce the risk of terrorist attacks against the United States.

Further down the page, columnist Meghan Daum muses about a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the University of Pennsylvania that found women's "subjective well-being" has declined. No one knows exactly why this is, but Daum blames Angelina Jolie. With her Oscar, Brad Pitt, pilot's license and mega family, she sets a standard other women simply can't meet.

Lastly, Mark Steinberg, a retired partner at O'Melveny & Myers, writes about the political $kills he learned growing up in Chicago.

Photo: Uighur detainees display a homemade message to media visitors (Brennan Linsley / AP).

Update: The DGA accurately noted a discrepancy between the editorial published in today's pages and its scrunched up summation on the blog. The editorial notes that factions in the talent unions remain bitter about the DGA's deal wth studios while writers were striking, not that the DGA itself is unhappy.