Morning News Roundup (07 June)

• Happy Birthday, Dear Leader: A “bored-looking” President Bush “sprang to life whenever the subject turned to his birthday” during yesterday’s press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Afterwards, Bush invited anyone in the room with a July 6 birthday on stage; Harper “stood off to the side, rubbing his nose, as his photo op [with Bush] disintegrated.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Watch what you wear! Seems that wearing a Veterans for Peace T-shirt at a VA hospital will get you arrested.
  
  
• Mayor Gavin Newsom wants San Francisco to become the first city in the nation to provide coverage for a growing and increasingly costly segment of the population: adults with no health insurance or other means of paying for doctor visits, surgeries, catastrophic illness and prescription drugs.
  
  The uninsured — an estimated 45.8 million people across the USA and 82,000 here — increasingly drain the budgets of cities and counties whose hospital emergency rooms and clinics bear the brunt of costs for treating them.
  [...]
  The plan would not insure the uninsured but give them the same access to a network of doctors, hospitals and drug benefits that other workers receive through insured coverage. [USAToday]
  
  
• The Financial Times sees through BushCo's "energy independence" hype (via Tom Paine):
  

  But like several other initiatives since the January speech, the tightening of the so-called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in March was more smoke than fire. The slight increase in the average fuel economy required for popular sport utility vehicles and light trucks—to 24 miles per gallon beginning in 2011, up from 21.6 mpg—was largely offset by the continuation of loopholes aimed at keeping Detroit carmakers happy.
  
  The pattern is one that has repeated itself even as rising petrol prices and the possibility of confrontation with Iran have pushed energy security to the top of the administration’s agenda.
  
  The White House has promised aggressive initiatives in alternative fuels, more efficient technologies and fresh exploration for conventional energy. But it has shied away from any measures that might significantly reduce energy consumption in the short term.

  
  
• Rising temperatures throughout the West have stoked an increase in large wildfires over the past 34 years as spring comes earlier, mountain snows melt sooner and forests dry to tinder, scientists reported Thursday.
  
  The average spring and summer temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees higher in Western states between 1987 and 2003 than during the previous 17 years. In fact, the seasonal temperatures were the warmest since record-keeping started in 1895, the researchers said.
  
  While the researchers stopped short of linking increased wildfire intensity to global warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases, they were confident that they had documented a broad climate trend and not a fluke of natural weather variability. [LATimes]
  
  
• The Episcopal Church's split over homosexuality is getting worldwide attention, but a denomination of roughly equal numbers and stature in the United States -- the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- is similarly torn up by the issue.
  [...]
  The Presbyterian conflict entered a new phase when a June assembly in Birmingham, Ala., approved a two-sided unity plan. For the conservatives, a church law remains in place that requires clergy and lay officers to limit sex to man-woman marriage -- in keeping with biblical teaching as it's been traditionally understood.
  
  But liberals were granted new leeway for local congregations and regional presbyteries to sidestep that sexual law with particular nominees. So an openly gay minister or lay elder could take office if local Presbyterians hold the liberal position that the Bible is chiefly concerned with love and inclusiveness. [WaPo]
  
  
• Two notes on energy independence in Hawaii from Treehugger:
  
  • The Senate Energy Committee recently approved a $1 million ethanol demonstration project for the 50th state. These funds will help Hawaii comply with a new state law requiring that 85% of all gas sold on the islands contain 10% ethanol. Despite the abundance of sugar cane, Hawaii has not yet developed its own ethanol industry.
    
    
  • Shell WindEnergy recently announced plans for a wind farm on Maui. If approved the wind farm would occupy a corner of the 20,000 acre Ulupalakua Ranch. This site was chosen because of strong winds and a minimal visual impact. The first phase of the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2008, could provide up to 40 megawatts of power, enough to power thousands of homes on the island.
  
  
  
• Laptops could soon outnumber lovers in Paris’ Tuileries gardens, after the city’s mayor outlined plans to make Paris the most connected capital city in the world. Bertrand Delanoë plans to install 400 free wi-fi points next year in public spaces such as parks, libraries and town halls, and to give internet service providers low-cost access to publicly-owned buildings to speed the development of a full wireless network. [Financial Times]
  
  
• The World Cup has been successful in its bit to go green: The ‘Green Goal’ project aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transport and electricity generation during the month long tournament. The plan had hoped to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically-- partly by encouraging 50 per cent of the estimated 3.2 million fans to take public transport and partly by alternative energy projects in India and South Africa. Initial estimates are that this is well on track with some 70 per cent of journeys being made on foot or by train, bus, coach and bicycle with only 30 per cent by private car. [UN Environment Programme]