There is a lot of talk about how Bush Administration policies favor the extraction and defense industries, but we think they must really be in cahoots with the Bar Association, since it takes a court order to get most anything done.

This time it's a federal court pushing the Administration to finally issue the Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on the US. Under a 1990 law, the paper is supposed to be issued every 4 years, but the last one to come out was in 2000. We're sure there are scores of climate enthusiasts who are feeling very cheated about having to wait eight years between reports.

The report findings are nothing new at this point, but the report is noteworthy in that it is the first (and likely only) comprehensive overview of the impacts of climate change throughout the US issued by the White House.

In case you don't have time to go through all 271 pages, here are a few highlights:

• Water shortages for both urban and agricultural users, coast to coast,
• More deaths from extreme weather events,
• The need to build new power plants to feed all the air conditioners of our warmer nation,
• Poor people basically screwed the hardest, as usual.