Pres. Bush has reaffirmed his rejection of the Kyoto Protocols, which requires countries to sharply curb their emissions of greenhouse gases. This, "despite a fresh report from 300 scientists in the United States and seven other nations that shows Arctic temperatures are rising." The treaty will take effect at the beginning of 2005, even without U.S. ratification, because Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, signed on to it last week.

GWB says he opposes Kyoto because it would cause the loss of 5 million American jobs. It's odd that he should worry about that, given that his administration has expressed a positive attitude toward the outsourcing of American jobs to countries like India. About a week before the election, Bush's campaign policy director opined that instead of being afraid of outsourcing, we should try to understand it better. And earlier in the year, Bush's chief economic adviser, Greg Mankiw, praised outsourcing as merely "a new way of doing international trade" that would be "a plus for the economy in the long run." Mankiw hastened to "clarify" his comments a few days later, after a firestorm erupted over them, and Bush tried to distance himself from Mankiw at a public appearance the same day Mankiw backed away from what he had said, but nobody could be fooled into believing GWB opposes sending American jobs overseas.