Big Sunday founder David T. Levinson reflects on the idiosyncrasies of pop volunteerism, and Ronald Brownstein picks apart John McCain's true views on the U.S. military's future in Iraq. Merrick J. Bob, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, investigates better ways to track racial profiling by LAPD officers, and cartoonist Rob Rogers snarks at Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's problem relationships. Joel Stein finds out that a new citizen's vote is worth $6 and a cookie:

There's an emotional ceremony every month in which 3,500 newly naturalized citizens pledge their loyalty to the United States, and it really feels like they've joined a community of shared values, goals and purpose. Then, as soon as they pass through the gates of the L.A. County fairgrounds and enter the parking lot, they are charged from the right by Republicans and from the left by Democrats, begging them to register to vote. It is a bit like kissing the bride and being told your new father-in-law is a Capulet and your mother-in-law's a Montague and they've each registered you for a Glock.

The editorial board calls for the Supreme Court to let a murder victim's posthumous testimony stand, and wonders how to turn the beleaguered Santa Barbara Plaza project around. The board also whips out its pen to defend taco trucks against a new L.A. County ordinance:

Supervisors may have expected the new law to attract little controversy; after all, it was backed by Eastside restaurateurs and developers, a group with considerably more money and political power than the largely immigrant entrepreneurs who own taco trucks. But it has raised the ire of a far larger group: the thousands of Angelenos who have long gathered at taco trucks, in many cases since childhood, for quick carnitas burritos or mouthwatering cemitas, central Mexican sandwiches filled with avocado, cheese, fried meat and other gut-busting goodness. An Internet-driven movement started by a pair of Highland Park residents has already produced 2,200 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. Sign us up too.

Readers also react to the LAPD's dismissal of all complaints of racial profiling from last year. Leni Fleming writes:

"Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit" is, bar none, the most hilarious sentence I have ever read in The Times.

And I'm white!

UC Santa Barbara professor Brian Fagan warns that our future survival in a drier world depends on our ability to adapt to our environment, and writer Francis Fukuyama blames the Chinese government's weakness, not strength, for domestic human rights violations. Economist Korinna Horta and attorney Delphine Djiraibe argue that Darfur cannot be saved without fixing Chad first, and Jonah Goldberg thanks the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for revealing how radical he really is:

Asked whether he stood by his assertion that the U.S. government created HIV as part of a genocidal program to wipe out the black race, Wright mostly dodged but ultimately offered this nondenial denial: "I believe our government is capable of doing anything." He also offered a zesty defense of Louis Farrakhan -- "one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century" -- and dismissed criticism of Farrakhan as an anti-Semite.

To cap it off, Wright threw Obama under the bus. First, the pastor explained, Obama himself had taken Wright out of context. Moreover, Obama neither denounced nor distanced himself from Wright. And, besides, anything that Obama says on such matters is just stuff "politicians say." They "do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls." So much for Obama's new politics.

The editorial board warns parents that avoiding vaccinations for fear of autism could result in a future epidemic, and gives a reluctant green light to MTA's decision to turn some carpool lanes into toll lanes. The board also condemns the Supreme Court for upholding Indiana's voter ID law:

Indiana has a right to safeguard the integrity of its elections, but its identification requirement imposes sufficiently burdensome rules that it raises the question of whether the state is actually trying to discourage certain types of people -- the poor, the elderly, the infirm -- from exercising their right to vote. It's one thing to deter fraud; it's another to deter voting, particularly by certain classes of voters.

Readers react to the Dodger Stadium makeover. Ken Chane writes:

The Dodgers' new stadium plan sounds and looks wonderful. But before it attracts larger crowds, the current chaotic parking situation should be corrected. Management keeps touting the "wonderful fan experience." No matter how great it may be, it dissipates quickly when it's time to go home.

Not Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Both came out in favor of a congressional bill that would make it easier for victims of pay disparity to charge discrimination in court. That's what Lilly Ledbetter tried to do, but the Supreme Court ruled against her, adhering closely to a law that says discrimination must be reported within 180 days of its occurrence. As the editorial board wrote earlier this week:

As a narrow reading of the law, that's all well and good. But as a prescription for redressing harm -- the intent, after all, of anti-discrimination law -- the court's approach is impossibly binding. Most cases of discrimination, including the one before the court in Ledbetter, are difficult to discern at once, for the simple reason that most discrimination is covert. In the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a jury found that her employers had unfairly paid her less than male colleagues over a period of years.

Here's Obama's statement, and a video of Clinton on the Senate floor. The two returned to the capital to make remarks, uniting briefly on the issue before going back to trading blows in Indiana. (CQPolitics' David Nather has the play-by-play of their close encounter.)

For the record, the bill didn't get enough votes to avoid a filibuster. And John McCain joined most of his fellow Republicans in opposing it.

And as an aside, doesn't "Lilly Ledbetter" have a great Rosie-the-Riveter-ish ring? To hear more from the woman herself, read The American Prospect interview.

New Republic executive editor J. Peter Scoblic says if you like George W. Bush's foreign policy, you'll love John McCain's:

Weaned by a military family on the lessons of that most classically Manichaean of modern conflicts, World War II, and psychologically defined by his own maverick streak, McCain's worldview may be more instinctual than intellectual. But it doesn't matter. Like Cold War conservatives, McCain has taken a moral observation that the United States is a force for good battling the forces of evil and turned it into a strategic guide.

Thus, he rejects negotiation with our enemies in favor of "rogue state rollback," repeatedly deriding as "appeasement" the 1994 deal that froze North Korea's plutonium program and mocking calls for unconditional talks with Iran....

Columnist Tim Rutten argues that immigrant bashers weren't right to rough up the pope. And author John M. Barry thinks paying for New Orleans should be the federal government's responsibility.

The editorial board urges Congress to pass a bill that would make it easier to assert pay discrimination in the work place, and analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's new budget. Finally, the board tells the Writers Guild of America to stop chastising the few members who broke ranks.

On the letters page readers discuss Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas. San Francisco's Joanne Minsky says, "I proudly voted for him twice, but his failure of memory and judgment calls into question the value of his forays into international politics. It is time to retire, Mr. President."

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says the science of intelligent design is science fiction:

If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors....

But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense.

Columnist Joel Stein compares the cost of home cooking to restaurant dining.

The editorial board argues for food labels to include country of origin, says the Supreme Court's lethal injection ruling raises some questions, and wonders how much we should blame a candidate for his or her friends: 

We can learn about a candidate from the people who have had demonstrable influence on his or her thinking. Such people include personal and political mentors, business partners and major donors, lovers, spouses, close friends and, especially, advisors. It's certainly fair to judge politicians by who they've worked for, hired, appointed or fired.... But it's unfair and unwise to judge a candidate by family members (remember Roger Clinton?), or by constituents they're sure to rub shoulders with, or by casual associates who run in the same crowd.

On the letters page, readers discuss The Times' editorial on California's tax system. Valencia's Patrick Lewandowski says, "Why do The Times and many politicians feel a need to blame Proposition 13 for California's financial woes and to tinker or even eliminate it so that unaffordable, if not unwarranted, pet projects can continue?"

*Photo courtesy Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Author David K. Shipler explores how candidates' words can strike a nerve:

Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps.... But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

Columnist Tim Rutten analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's State of the City address. Internist Albert Fuchs says the only way for a doctor to do a good job and make a living is to reject insurers. And contributing editor Gustavo Arellano notes that Fullerton's efforts to paint over murals is par for the Orange County course.

The editorial board maintains its anti-execution stance as the Supreme Court considers whether to allow the death penalty for rapists, and comments on the start of SAG negotiations. Editorial writer Lisa Richardson writes in from San Francisco, where Chevron Corp. faced off against a couple Ecuadorean environmentalists.

Readers discuss Irvine's Great Park. L.A.'s Danila Oder says, "The American 20th century experience was an anomaly and should be treated by governments and builders as such. The environmental factors that are assumed to underpin bonds for the Great Park project are no longer operative."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that a narrow definition of genocide often lets mass murderers off the hook:

This can lead to a dangerous way of thinking in which people who are perceived to be standing in the way of progress -- middle-class farmers opposed to collectivization, aristocrats, reactionaries -- can be more forgivably slaughtered than ethnic groups because they're allegedly part of the problem, not the solution. After all, you've got to break some eggs to make an omelet.

In general, the Soviets and the Red Chinese elude the genocide charge -- and hence the status of ultimate villains -- despite having murdered scores of millions of people in the 20th century, in large part because their victims stood in the way of progress.

Historian Martin Meredith laments that Robert Mugabe's hunger for power prevented him from becoming another Nelson Mandela. And contributing editor Max Boot says the U.S. can still win in Iraq if the troops just stay put.

The editorial board encourages Congress to approve a trade pact with Colombia, observes that the Supreme Court will once again consider a display of the Ten Commandments, and wonders if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both obscuring their true feelings on trade.

Readers react to columnist Patt Morrison's piece on billboards in L.A. Culver City's Gene Rothman updates Ogden Nash:

I see again an outdoor panel
It's another from Clear Channel
If from its stock we all withdrew
Perhaps we'd hear another view.

The state Supreme Court is in Los Angeles this afternoon to consider this question: How blatantly does a prosecutor have to exploit a case for big Hollywood or book bucks before the case is compromised?

The better known of the two cases focuses on the movie "Alpha Dog" and the real-life prosecution of Jesse James Hollywood in the kidnapping and killing of Nicholas Markowitz. Santa Barbara Deputy District Attorney Ronald J. Zonen, who was assigned to prosecute Hollywood, also served as an unpaid consultant to writer/director Nick Cassavetes in the making of the film. In October 2006, an appeals court ruled that Zonen had created a conflict of interest that should prevent him from proceeding with the case.

Then there is the "Intoxicating Agent" case, in which Santa Barbara Deputy District Attorney Joyce Dudley wrote a book describing the prosecution of a man for drugging and sexually assaulting his victim. She happened to be prosecuting, at the time, a man for drugging and sexually assaulting his victim. The supposedly fictional heroine is prosecutor Joyce, uh, no, sorry -- Jordan Danner. The appeals court ruled that Dudley, like Zonen, had compromised her ability to continue prosecuting the case.

You know what they say about Santa Barbara prosecutors. What they really want to be is waiters and waitresses in Los Angeles...so they can say that what they really want to be is screenwriters.

Haraguchi v. Superior Court -- that's Dudley's case -- and Hollywood v. Superior Court are both scheduled for oral arguments at 1:30 p.m. at the Reagan State Building at 300 S. Spring St. in downtown Los Angeles.

Contributing editor Michael Kinsley asks a question few have dared -- how long does it take Hillary Clinton to do her make-up? He writes:

Every day for almost two years, the candidates campaign. The average day is probably 15 to 20 hours. The average amount of sleep could be four hours. Yet, every day, the male candidates can sleep an extra precious half-hour or more -- or spend the time cramming for the day -- simply because our culture doesn't impose the same rules on them about their appearance.

And these really are rules. Sure, there are women who take no more trouble about their appearance than most men do, and men who take more than the typical woman. But a middle-aged woman who is the first of her sex to make a serious run for the presidency is not going to be a pioneer in indifference to looks. One revolution at a time. She has got to look put together, all day, every day.

Columnist Rosa Brooks warns her fellow mothers against aggressively marketed, often orphaned Disney princesses. The Center for European Policy Analysis' A. Wess Mitchell notes the efforts of NATO's newer members in Afghanistan. And Harold Hall, wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 20 years, says his case shows why the state should reconsider execution.

The editorial board highlights the need for transparency in the LAPD, examines Mexico's raging drug war as it hits a small border town, and argues for habeas rights for two U.S. citizens held in Iraq.

Readers consider California's law against driving while cell-phoning. Valencia's Lisa Stevenson says:

We have always been eating, drinking coffee, reading road maps, changing radio stations, applying makeup, shaving, talking to passengers, disciplining children, groping for dropped gum, staring at sign-twirlers and beating out drum solos on our steering wheels while driving. Yet there are no laws banning these activities.

Contributing editor Ian Buruma says Tibetan culture may not survive China's modernization, except among the diaspora:

The Chinese have exported their version of modern development to Tibet, not just in terms of architecture and infrastructure but people, wave after wave of them: businessmen from Sichuan, prostitutes from Hunan, technocrats from Beijing, party officials from Shanghai, shopkeepers from Yunnan. The majority of the people living today in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, are no longer Tibetan. Most people in rural areas are Tibetan, but their way of life is not likely to survive Chinese modernization any more than the ways of the Apaches did in the United States.

George Washington University's Jonathan Turley wonders why you can be competent to stand trial, but unfit to represent yourself. And Hope College's David G. Myers says primal urges are to blame for March madness.

The editorial board warns taxpayers that they'll face new risks as Fannie and Freddie buy more mortgages thanks to a rule change. The board also wants to know where scientific exhibits got their cadavers, and thinks the Supreme Court erred by not giving Jose Medellin, a Mexican national on death row in Texas, another day in court.

Readers discuss discussing race. Torrance's David Nelson says, "The article begins: 'How do we start a national dialogue on race?' A better question is: Why should we?"

A reader takes exception to my comment in an earlier post that California's constitution lacks the equivalent of a 2nd Amendment "right to keep and bear arms."

But even 2nd Amendment enthusiasts admit (and lament) that California is lacking a guarantee for either a collective or an individual right to keep and bear arms. Commenter Tom points to Article I Section 1 of the state constitution declaring: "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty..." Tom concludes, "I  seem to have the inalienable right to defend my life."

But Pennsylvania's constitution, which does have a robust (or wacky, depending on your point of view)  right to keep and bear arms also includes boilerplate similar to California's: "All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness." So, if Tom is right, Section 21 of Pennsylvania's Declaration of Rights — "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned" — is, as Chief Justice Marshall would say, mere surplusage.

Like the late Rodney Dangerfield, state constitutions "get no respect" in discussions of constitutional law. A rare exception came in this week's oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the District of Columbia's gun-control law. In trying to puzzle out the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Justice John Paul Stevens asked Walter Dellinger, D.C.'s lawyer: "To what extent do you think the similar provisions in State constitutions that were adopted more or less at the same time are relevant to our inquiry?" Dellinger bobbed a bit, replying that various state constitutional provisions  on the right to keep and bear arms are written in "different terms."

Dellinger surely knew that at least one state, my native Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, has a venerable state constitutional provision dealing with guns that sounds as if it was written by the NRA: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned" Hmm. maybe I was violating the state constitution when I was writing all those pro-gun-control editorials for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (I'm safe now; California's constitution lacks a little Second Amendment.)

Unlike the "real" Constitution, state constitutions are sometimes prolix documents. For example, their protections of religion and freedom of expression often read like the First Amendment on steroids. The First Amendment is content to say that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

Here's the equivalent provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution's Declaration of Rights:

The printing press shall be free to every person who may undertake to examine the proceedings of the Legislature or any branch of government, and no law shall ever by made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. No conviction shall be had in any prosecution for the publication of papers relating to the official conduct of officers or men in public capacity, or to any other matter proper for public investigation or information, where the fact that such publication was not maliciously or negligently made shall be established to the satisfaction of the jury; and in all indictments for libels the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.

Whew!

Ironically, in this case more (verbiage) is less: Pennsylvania's version of the First Amendment is less friendly to the press, particularly in libel cases, than the First Amednment as it has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Hunting is big in Pennsylvania; so are libel suits by public officials, including judges. Too bad the framers of the constitution didn't write: "The right of freedom of the press shall not be questioned"

New York University professor Robert E. Wright argues that when it comes to the economy, America needs a second party -- since Democrats and Republicans offer no choice at all. "Prozac Nation" author Elizabeth Wurtzel wonders what happened to feminism in a "Girls Gone Wild" world, and Jonah Goldberg explains why Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright is wrong for Obama:

A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 29% of blacks surveyed said Wright's comments made them more likely to support Obama, while only 18% said the opposite, and half said Wright's comments would have no effect on them.

That is a symptom of a problem that platitudinous "hope" cannot alone remedy.

The editorial board eyeballs a controversial gun-control case being heard in the Supreme Court today, and shakes its head at the Fed's short-term thinking in the Bear Stearns disaster:

The Bush administration tried to dole out a ration of calm Monday. The country is going through challenging times, President Bush said, but "our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively." White House Press Secretary Dana Perino later added, "This isn't about bailing anyone out." Neither happens to be true, though, and that's why the stock market gyrated from open to close.

Readers also react to Rev. Wright's racially incendiary comments. Richard Hawkins asks:

If Obama is to be dismissed for his pastor's rantings, how am I to judge members of the Catholic Church who still attend in spite of its crimes against children? How do I judge members of evangelical churches when their pastors cry out, "I have sinned against God"? How far do we take guilt by association? ... To bind Obama to his pastor's every word is absurd.

The U.S. Supreme Court is continuing its modified limited hangout when it comes to allowing the public to hear (but not see) its oral arguments in newsworthy cases. This week the court announced that  it will provide same-day release of the audio tapes of the March 18 arguments over the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. This is the third argument this term to get the same-day treatment.

March is turning out to be the equivalent of sweeps weeks for judicial junkies: The California Supreme Court this week made available audio and video of arguments over the constitutionality of the state’s limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples.

I analyze court decisions so a living, so I can justify my interest in oral arguments without admitting to be the Supreme Court equivalent of those C-SPAN junkies who watch every congressional hearing, think-tank panel discussion and book signing at Politics and Prose.  For listeners with better things to do, Supreme Court arguments can be soporific. It wouldn’t surprise me if some people who tuned into the three hours (!) of argument over the McCain-Feingold law in 2003 are still asleep.

An argument over gun control is about as sexy as it gets in the court — which isn’t very sexy at all. And if past arguments are any guide, the justices and the lawyers will discuss the Second Amendment  in the same mystifying shorthand they use when arguments aren’t being recorded for release. Don’t expect even Antonin Scalia to offer up a sound bite on the lines of “If you want my gun, you’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hand.”

But concede that most oral arguments won’t garner a big Nielsen share (or the equivalents for MP3s). Why not make audio of all arguments available on the same day — or even in real time?

Even better, of course, would be video of the argument, an innovation that will be introduced over the dead body of Justice David H. Souter. With video, you can be sure who is asking the question.  Audio alone can lead to confusion unless it’s being aired on television over sketches of the justices. No one would mistake Souter’s New England accent for the Chicago twang of Justice John Paul Stevens, but (especially when they ask short questions) Chief Justice John Roberts could be confused with Justice Anthony Kennedy or Justice Samuel Alito.  And if another female justice is appointed to the court, her voice might be hard to distinguish from that of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — especially if the  new Madame Justice were a New Yorker.

No justice, male or female, will be confused with Justice Clarence Thomas, because he almost never opens his mouth. All the more reason for putting video cameras in the court. At least then we could watch Thomas’ facial expressions.

Contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan says Barack Obama isn't the post-racial panacea that everyone thinks he is:

The core of the resistance to seeing Obama as what he is -- a black man -- even among his supporters (or perhaps especially among his supporters) is an assumption that he is capable and successful because he is "other." Beneath the post-racial talk and the how-black-is-he speculation lies an antebellum belief that blackness is inherently limiting, while whiteness is inherently transcendent. (Blackness is, however, inherently good for style and "soaring" oratory, qualities the media have been quick to attribute to Obama.)

Columnist Joel Stein says female running mates could save men the wrath of women mad about missing the chance for a female president. Author and former prison detainee in Tehran Zarah Ghahramani objects to Americans' radicalized image of Iran.

The editorial board praises newly-appointed Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. It also looks at two cases that will test the Supreme Court's commitment to protecting Americans from searches, and notes that ships can keep polluting California's ports unless lawmakers take action.

Readers react to The Times' poll on the presidency. See why Pasadena's Siddarth Dasgupta says, "The Democrats have not yet chosen their nominee, and you are already lining up to mislead the voting public."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg describes his experience as a guest on "The Daily Show":

It started civilly enough, discussing my new book, "Liberal Fascism." But things got sufficiently testy that we spent nearly 20 minutes swearing and sparring, and only six minutes aired. The result was "choppy as hell," Stewart had to concede.

Largely left on the cutting-room floor were some important points that might have made my book seem a bit more nuanced....

Former Gov. Gray Davis throws his support behind Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget cuts. Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell examines the twists and turns in presidential candidates' image. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman remind us that it's not 1973, and pro-choicers have to take back the moral high ground.

The editorial board also marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, supports Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97, and says declining record sales mean time for the industry to rethink its business model.

Readers react to President Bush's proposed stimulus package. L.A.'s Scott Kaye says it could be Bush's "most cynical proposal since his post-9/11 recommendation that we go shopping."

The editorial board is grateful that Liberia's Charles Taylor is finally on trial:

Taylor is just one in a depressingly long line of deposed African leaders who bled their countries dry in brutal wars against their own people and plundered their national treasuries. Yet while most of his fellow vampires have died in luxurious exile, Taylor finds himself in a detention center in Holland, stalking quarters formerly occupied by ex-Yugoslavian strongman Slobodan Milosevic....

He is on trial not for the circus of murder in Liberia for which he was ringmaster during his presidential term — a conflict that shocked the world as child soldiers loyal to Taylor, high on amphetamines and other drugs, charged into battle naked or wearing women's ball gowns — but for his role in the gruesome civil war in next-door Sierra Leone that ended in 2003.

The board asks for the recall of Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, and examines a voter identification case before the Supreme Court.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright says democracy needs defending now more than ever. Columnist Jonah Goldberg explores voting in the age of Dr. Phil, and SUNY Cortland's Robert J. Spitzer thinks Bush ignored the Constitution when he vetoed a defense spending bill.

Readers react to the presidential campaigns on the day of the New Hampshire primary. San Francisco's James Keefer says, "Are we Californians or are we sheep? We have more votes than many small states combined — are we to be prevented from voting our choice? Let's wait until Feb. 5 and not be intimidated by these early indicators."

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez bemoans the French smoking ban:

Particularly to the guilty, austere American mind, France has served as a sophisticated and less uptight oasis in a way that other more illicit and gritty getaways -- think Tijuana or New Orleans -- could not. It is the French who have given us terms for the things we lust after but rarely indulge in -- like femmes fatales or ménages à trois. They have been the baroque to our utilitarian sensibility. And by example, they have given us the sense that there is more to life than work, and that some "sins," ritualized and accepted, may protect us against even more destructive cycles of self-denial and excess.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the glories of smoking. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I even agree wholeheartedly with smoking bans in workplaces and restaurants. But I do find it absurd when smoking is banned in nocturnal haunts where adults commonly repair to imbibe known-to-be toxic beverages and otherwise indulge in (lightly) supervised, socially acceptable self-abuse.

California Chief Justice Ronald M. George says letting state appellate courts review death penalty appeals would ease backlog, and Elizabeth Larsen asks if Guatemala's adoption reforms will help kids.

The editorial board says no on Proposition 92, wants nuclear accountability from North Korea, and thinks its time for a Supreme Court review of the death penalty.

Readers offer their views on activist Ted Hayes appeal to African Americans on illegal immigration. L.A.'s Yuisa Gimeno says, "In my experience, the African American community opposes immigrant-bashers like Hayes because it knows well what it is like to face racism and economic hardship."

The Times' editorial board wraps up its American Values series with 'The blessings of liberty':

The Bush administration soon will be consigned to history, and not a moment too soon. The end of this cynical, mean-spirited presidency provides the opportunity for a renewal of generosity and hope, for a widening of political and cultural horizons, for a return to strength tempered by humility, for an era of decency and mutual respect rather than the blunt exercise of force.

That will be the mission of the next president.

The board also raises an eyebrow at a lawsuit filed by J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. seeking to block the publication of the "Harry Potter Lexicon."

The Opinion page caps off 2007 with a quiz on the year's "hard-to-forget moments," while columnist Joel Stein looks into his Magic 8 Ball and makes some predictions for next year. Under "Presidential election":

Barack Obama wins the general election but does not carry the Northeast, due to New Englanders' ingreasingly implausible excuse, "It's not that we're racist; it's just that the South would never elect a black person."

Readers weigh in on oil and green energy, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's hunting prowess and the billion-dollar child-support suit against Donald L. Bren. Snarks John Rabe,

I hereby publicly offer to be adopted by Bren. For a monthly remittance of $1,000, I promise to buy him one tie on Father's day, one pair of slippers and/or a robe at Christmas, and one joke card on his birthday....

For my part, the contract will be considered null and void if I get a DUI, disparage Bren in public or cause the police to be called to a noisy beach-house party.

With today’s installment of our series on the 2008 campaign, we move the discussion squarely to our system of justice – and particularly to the stresses on our liberties that the war on terror has created. Liberty, the value we explore today, is an embattled American idea, one honored in peacetime and all-too often abrogated during war.

In the long and recurring clash between liberty and security, we side with liberty and maintain that America’s long-term interests are best served by the jealous protection of its freedoms. The Cold War, for instance, was a clash of governments, but also of ideas, including the question of how much personal liberty a society can and should sanction. In that international competition for loyalty, America’s freedoms – its civil rights movement, its open markets, its acceptance and embrace of unpopular ideas – proved a far more compelling ideology than that of communism. We won the Cold War in large part because ours was a freer country than that of our adversary.

That said, our predecessors on this page have not always seen these questions quite the way we do today.

In January of 1942, with Californians on edge since the bombing of Pearl Harbor and with their fears stoked by the release of a study of the attack that suggested support for it among Hawaii’s Japanese population, The Times joined a clamorous call for the removal of the state’s Japanese. “California is a theater of war,” The Times editorialized on January 28 of that year. “The time has come to realize that the rigors of war demand proper detention of Japanese and their immediate removal from the most acute danger spots.

“It is not a pleasant task,” we then concluded. “But it must be done and done now. There is no safe alternative.”

That was a shameful moment in the history of this paper – one barely made less odious by the fact that our predecessors were in good company. Such devoted civil libertarians as Justice Hugo Black, President Franklin Roosevelt and then-California Attorney General Earl Warren, who 11 years later would write Brown vs. Board of Education, were among those who supported the internment, which began soon after that editorial was published. The internment locked up 110,000 Americans who were charged with no crime, a deprivation of liberty on a vast and abominable scale.

But we learn from history, and today our faith in liberty is more resolute, less insecure than it was in those frightening first months of America’s World War II. We on the editorial board believe wholeheartedly in freedom. We rely on the Supreme Court to protect it. And we hope for a President who, unlike the present occupant of the office, shares our devotion to it and sees it as part of our strength, not as a weakness.

Brain scans, Mormonism, the end times, UFOs and the return of Stonehenge. There's a theme to this week's top 10 stories, though it's not clear what it is...

Candidate mental health was the week's big winner, with distant but strong place and show taken by, respectively, the Joel Kottkin/Fred Siegel team and Bruce Ackerman. Hugo's gone, Stonehenge is back, and the rest is silence:

1. Getting inside their heads ... really inside by Daniel G. Amen

2. The gentry liberals by Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel

3. Bush isn't the only decider by Bruce Ackerman

4. We're on the brink of apocalypse! Again! by Gregory Rodriguez

5. Romney's JFK moment by Jonah Goldberg

6. Kucinich's close encounter by the editorial board

7. Stonehenges all around us by Craig Childs

8. Romney better pray he can be Jimmy Carter by Kenneth S. Baer

9. The 9th Circuit's new No. 1 by Carl Tobias

10. GOP's compassionless conservatism by the editorial board

Kenneth S. Baer, founder and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, says Mitt Romney should forget his JFK moment and pray to be Jimmy Carter:

Romney doesn't need to do a JFK. He needs to do a Jimmy Carter. After all, Kennedy ran away from his religion. Carter ran on it, using his religious belief -- he was the first "born again" president -- as a selling point. But as Carter's experience demonstrates, trying to be the candidate of faith, without being tied by voters to a particular faith, is a very hard course to navigate and must be done carefully.

The questions Romney is facing about his Mormonism pale in comparison to what Kennedy faced.

Contributing editor Ian Buruma says that even though Spain has passed the Law of Historical Memory, legislation is a blunt way to deal with the past. Neuropsychiatrist Daniel G. Amen suggests brain-scanning presidential candidates to make sure voters select the "brain healthiest" person.

The editorial board names a winner in the Iran intelligence disclosure — the Russians. The board urges the Supreme Court to reaffirm habeas protection for Guantanamo inmates, and tells Los Angeles to look to Orange County for inspiration on what to do with wastewater.

Columnist Joel Stein has a taco with Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.):

Carlos O'Kelly's makes the finest Mexican food with an Irish flair of any chain restaurant in Iowa. The enchiladas came with a sort of hollandaise sauce that constituted a greater insult to Mexicans than anything Tancredo has ever said. Tancredo, who is a very likable, polite man, gave the food a very generous C+. "I was sick we couldn't go to Mami's. I heard it was good," he said. "But if they're going to boycott America, I'm going to boycott Mami's." Looking at my enchiladas, he sighed. "For all I know, this place is owned by a big liberal." A big liberal who hates food.

Our waiter, Josh, was one of the nicest, most incompetent servers either of us had ever encountered. He kept running away in the middle of our orders, apparently distracted by either Mexican or Irish things. I told Tancredo that I wished we were at an L.A. restaurant with a Mexican waiter filling our chip basket every two minutes. "I'm with you," he said. "These people that come to our country are generally hard workers, and bless them for it."

British designer Jonathan Barnbrook says there's no purchase necessary on Black Friday.

The editorial board laments the impact of Alzheimer's on Sandra Day O'Connor, and on the country. It also asks who Rudy Giuliani would nominate to the Supreme Court bench. And editorial researcher Swati Pandey wants a louder honk.

Readers discuss the upcoming Middle East talks. Anaheim's Phil Karmelich says, "[Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert is engaging in a propaganda campaign to keep Americans believing that Israel wants peace."

Fatima Bhutto debunks her aunt Benazir's pro-democracy claims:

Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.)

Ms. Bhutto's political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.

The Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy says the Supreme Court has a chance to reaffirm the right to own guns. Matthew DeBord says Zipcar and Flexcar's automobile-sharing revolution is about to begin. And Pamela Druckerman says that even expats get consumer fever around the holidays.

The editorial board evaluates Supt. David L. Brewer's first year, and the results aren't good. The board also follows up the the Los Angeles Unified School District's payroll problem, and lists the lessons the pope might learn on his visit to the U.S. in April.

Readers react to a two-part Times series on one marine's service in the Iraq war. Alhambra's Patricia Huff says, "After looking at the photo of the Marlboro Marine, it looks like Jesus wasn't the only one who took on the sins of the world."

California is finally suing the federal government. That's only slightly less awesome than Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers suing God to put a stop to "terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons." (He later named former Husker coach Tom Osborne as the defendant.)

At issue are the state’s more stringent emissions standards. Back in 2002 Gov. Gray Davis signed a law designed to cut the state's emissions by a quarter by 2020. The one big kink in this plan? The federal Environmental Protection Agency has to sign a waiver allowing the Golden State to regulate itself. The EPA resisted, saying states don't have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, but this April the Supreme Court nixed that argument. Nearly half a year later, though, the EPA still hasn’t issued a decision. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope snipes, "[I]f the Bush administration isn’t going to take decisive action itself, the least they can do is step out of the way."

This suit has been a long time coming. ("Bring it on," the San Jose Mercury News cheered recently.) And if you think this is just another crazy California stunt, think again: According to the governor's office, 14 other states are slated to join the suit today. Just one more reason why the Golden State rocks.   

Columnist Jonah Goldberg critiques liberals and conservatives who place rhetoric over policy:

...both sides are certain they have staked out the intellectually superior ground. So they fixate on tactics, packaging and spinning. A lot has been written, including by myself, about how liberals consider political strategy more important than ideas. But it's worth noting that conservatives fall prey to such lines of thinking too, even as we take pride in our squabbles about liberty versus virtue.

Duke University professor Henry Petroski follows the evolution of the toothpick through human history. David A. Lehrer and Joe R. Hicks decry the Los Angeles City Claims Board's award of $95,000 to Gloria Jeff, linking it to "a worldview in which racial/ethnic identity is more important than any other factor in judging a person." Meanwhile, Mark Weisbrot cheers the role of Argentina's powerful first couple in their country's economic upswing.

The editorial board tips its hat to the Georgia Supreme Court for freeing Genarlow Wilson, originally sentenced to a decade in prison and branded a child molester. The board eyes upcoming water and power rate changes, and reminds NBC Universal and News Corp. that while joint project Hulu "seems to want complete control over the programming lineup ... the Net isn't television. Content may be king, but the mob rules."

Spooked by Joel Stein's recent column about tomorrow's sexed-up All Hallow's Eve, readers ruminate about the nature of sluttiness. Estin Stewart wonders, "Since when did underwear become a costume?" while Erin Tavano retorts:

Either Stein's column on Slutoween is unbelievably retrograde and sexist — a serious assertion that any woman who wears a sexy costume is a slut or a whore? — or a childish and tiresome attempt at being shocking.

Columnist Rosa Brooks says modern parents need to relax their insane expectations:

Intensive parenting is a relatively recent American invention, and the evidence suggests that it's not one of our better contributions to humanity. That mad swirl of activities? You get burned-out kids incapable of entertaining themselves. That homework you and your first-grader struggle through? It has zero educational benefit. That superhuman effort you make to protect your kids from every conceivable danger? It's not necessarily helpful if it means they never learn how to evaluate dangers for themselves. Someday, our kids will have to function without us.

City Journal senior editor Steven Malanga debunks the notion of the Latino voting bloc. Columnist Patt Morrison finds out what could keep you off a plane, from your choice of reading material to your union card to your miniskirt. Contributing editor and WGA member Rob Long says that striking writers not writing is pretty much business as usual.

The editorial board asks California Republicans to fall out of line with President Bush on SCHIP, and examines President Bush's position that his home state should retry a death row inmate. Finally, the board explores the role of Internet revenue in the possible writers strike.

Letter writers aren't pleased that NBC wants to replace Jay Leno with Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show. West Hollywood's Dee Dee Messina says, "if 'The Tonight Show' goes to O'Brien, I can finally get some sleep."

The editorial board sheds light on a major yet rarely acknowledged source of global warming:

It's a silent but deadly source of greenhouse gases that contributes more to global warming than the entire world transportation sector, yet politicians almost never discuss it, and environmental lobbyists and other green activist groups seem unaware of its existence.

That may be because it's tough to take cow flatulence seriously. But livestock emissions are no joke.... Seldom mentioned is that cows and other ruminants, such as sheep and goats, are walking gas factories that take in fodder and put out methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases that are far more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane, with 21 times the warming potential of CO2, comes from both ends of a cow, but mostly the front. Frat boys have nothing on bovines, as it's estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of methane a day.

Columnist Niall Ferguson notes that labeling the Armenian genocide as such won't accomplish a lot, and won't stop a potential genocide in Iraq. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez has finally laid to rest the image of Mexican American politicians as working class heroes. Writer John Kenney offers cocktail-napkin TV pilot ideas that could compete with 'Cavemen' and the New Republic's James Kirchick argues that it's unfair to use affirmative action against Clarence Thomas.

Readers respond to the Southern Baptist Church's take on women. Los Angeles' Don Belcher says, "Just one more little thing is missing -- burkas."

United Nations undersecretary general John Holmes says it's time to act to stop the Congo conflict's brutal sexual violence:

I cannot find the words to describe what I heard from the girls and women in Panzi Hospital, located in South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the epicenter of one of the world's major humanitarian crises. What I do know is that I am not the same person now as when I walked into that hospital.

As a United Nations official with a special brief for humanitarian affairs, I have seen many people around the globe suffering under truly tragic circumstances. But Congo is different. Its long-running conflict has always been a brutal one, having claimed nearly 4 million lives between 1998 and 2004 -- the equivalent of five Rwandan genocides. And although the war formally ended years ago, fighting has continued in the eastern part of the country, where the national army is battling local and foreign militias in a struggle involving unresolved ethnic conflicts, regional power dynamics and the powerful tug of greed, with all sides vying for a slice of Congo's rich mineral resources.

Columnist Rosa Brooks wonders who exactly the White House is protecting when it says it has a secret. And columnist Patt Morrison asks why kids obsess over athletes and not intellectuals.

The editorial board believes torture victim Khaled El-Masri deserves an apology and compensation, if not a day in court. It reviews the Los Angeles Police Department's latest post-controversy report, this one on the May Day rallies. And it applauds the Nobel Prize winners in physics, who have made ever-smaller gizmos possible.

Readers react to a former Jay Leno writer's critical take on his boss' inability to abide by innocent-til-proven-guilty in the case of accused celebrities. Monterey Park's Arnold Wong says, "Dickson's true hypocrisy is bleeding these unfortunate incidents for all his paychecks, then complaining bitterly about his material being unfair to the subjects."

As a former comic-book nerd, I did a double-take the other day as I perused the transcript of a recent oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court.  The justices were considering the case of Gall v. U.S., in which a judge sentenced a reformed Ecstasy dealer to probation rather than the prison term suggested by sentencing guidelines.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested to the defendant’s lawyer that jail time might have been appropriate because, while his client had left the drug conspiracy, he hadn’t blown the whistle on his co-conspirators.

The lawyer replied: “Justice Ginsburg, when someone leaves the conspiracy and blows the whistle, typically that individual is not charged...”

“I’m sure that’s not always true,” Chief Justice John Roberts interjected. “I mean, if the leader of some vast conspiracy is the one who blows the whistle, I suspect he may well be charged anyway.”

“Lex Luthor might,” added Justice Antonin Scalia.

Lex Luthor? Superman’s nemesis — and Superboy’s in Smallville, TV’s teenage angst take on the Superman mythos? Could Nino Scalia be a regular viewer? Or maybe he took in the recent Superman Returns film.

If so, he might have been returning to his own childhood in the 1940s, when comic books were sold in candy stores, not in comic shops. Perhaps it was then that Luthor (the Lex came later) became Scalia’s template for villainy.

As Bradford Wright notes in Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of a Youth Culture in America,  comic books “have helped to frame a worldview and define a sense of self for the generations that have grown up with them.” Even Supreme Court justices.

Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, Warner Bros. Pictures. Lex Luthor menaces Superman, Curt Swan and George Klein, DC Comics.

The editorial board thinks Bush's veto of a kids' healthcare plan was not only cruel, but also bad policy:

In purporting to defend against a government takeover of the insurance industry, he blocked one of the best options for lifting families from wholly government-paid entitlements like Medicaid and into private insurance paid for in part by parents.

SCHIP isn't welfare. In California, it is Healthy Families, the highly successful program that matches every state dollar with two from the federal government and entices parents to obtain and contribute to health coverage for their kids. Families that earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal (the California incarnation of Medicaid) but not enough to buy insurance on their own use Healthy Families to get their kids off to a good start in life and correct any problems that, left untreated, would turn into a larger taxpayer burden down the road. Those parents also get into the habit of making health insurance part of their budget, which is exactly what opponents of government-provided healthcare want.

The board also discusses the Supreme Court's decision to reexamine sentencing guidelines in a case involving a crack cocaine conviction, and recommends that Congress should extend and make permanent a ban on Internet taxes.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez thinks the new citizenship exam rightly emphasizes ideas over regurgitation. Temple University's Duncan B. Hollis argues that it's time international law expand to govern cyberwarfare. UC Irvine's Joan Petersilia says reducing the number of parolees on the streets would make for a safer system. And columnist Niall Ferguson explains how developing countries' debt purchases from Europe and the U.S. make Western leaders feel less influential.

Terry Schauer of Westlake Village takes issue with The Times' editorial chastising county sheriff's deputies for partaking in arrest contests: "I'm guessing genuine local law enforcement misconduct must be way down if The Times can only expose a productivity contest. I don't see mention of anything illegal -- no false arrests, no bad tickets, no humbug impounds and no complaints, except from professional complainers."

When is a public library not a public library? When it’s a church. The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t offer that common-sense explanation — or, any explanation, for that matter — when it declined this week to  hear a challenge to Contra Costa County’s refusal to allow religious services  in library space made available to community groups. But the justices — liberal and conservative — may have been troubled by the real-world consequences of treating worship as a form of free speech.

The “wall of separation” between church and state described by Thomas Jefferson is necessarily a porous one, partly because of  a tension between the two so-called religion clauses of the First Amendment. One clause says that Congress (and by extension the states) may not legislate the “establishment” of religion; the other says that government may not prohibit the “free exercise” of religion.

But refusing to allow religious services in a public library is hardly a prohibition of the “free exercise” of religion, which is alive and well  in churches, mosques and synagogues that, along with secular non-profit groups, enjoy tax-exempt status. And, wisely, lawyers for Pastor Hattie Hopkins, who wanted to hold services at a library in Antioch, focused on a different constitutional  argument.

"Religious worship is not a second-class form of expression that the government may ban from a forum generally open for indistinguishable 'secular' expression," the lawyers said. This argument relied  on a  2001 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that a school district couldn’t bar a Christian youth group from meeting on school grounds on the same basis as other organizations.

This is  more a free-speech argument than a freedom-of-religion argument; still, given recent decisions about “equal access” for religious groups on public property, it’s surprising that at least four justices wouldn’t agree to take the case. So why didn’t they?

It may be that even conservative justices agree with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that there is a clear distinction between religious speech and worship. Or it may be that they had  a sudden vision of a library in which patrons would have to close their eyes or ears to escape the revival meeting or High Mass in the adjacent room. Pastor Hopkins’ church, in deference to the sensibilities of library patrons, agreed not use musical instruments or amplified sound. But other worshippers might not be so restrained in heeding the call of Psalm 100 to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord” — in a library!