Tick. Tick. Tick.

The courts have decided that the big bad Bush Administration has 16 days to decide how to subvert the meaning of "endangered." OK, really, that's not what the article says. Instead, it says this:

The Bush administration has 16 days to decide whether polar bears are now an endangered species because of climate change, a California judge ruled today.

The US court handed a victory to three environmental groups that sued to protect polar bears threatened by melting sea ice, rejecting a plea by the government to postpone its decision until June 30.

An agency of the US interior department was supposed to have ruled by January 9 on whether to designate the polar bear an endangered species. But the agency failed to act, angering green activists who attributed the delay to the Bush administration's sale of oil and gas drilling leases near polar bear habitats in Alaska.

The California judge handling the case, Claudia Wilken, ruled that the administration presented "no specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further delay".

I can't wait to see the listing rule.

Meanwhile, Bush is yammering away about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge again pandering to the folks going broke filling their fuel inefficient vehicles. "Cheap oil! Cheap oil! Cheap oil!"

It doesn't matter what gets paid at the pump. Oil is incalculably expensive.