While You Were Sleeping: March 2010

The gist of what you may have missed

by Siobhan McBride, February 24, 2010

A week after a massive earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, Florida-based Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines resumed docking ships less than 100 miles from the quake's epicenter. Labadee, on Haiti's northern coast, provides tourists with jet-ski rides, parasailing, and hommack-delivered rum cocktails. A Royal Caribbean executive cited the economic importance of the resort to Haitian citizens. The company also sees it as an opportunity to deliver much needed supplies (delivering 40 pallets of food on their first docking) to the earthquake survivors. One passenger onboard the ship posted on an Internet message board, protesting vacationing where "tens of thousands of dead people are being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water." Royal Caribbean has pledged $1 million to the relief effort—part of which will go to helping 200 Haitian crew members.
Source: Yahoo! News

Research has shown that young people devote an average of seven-and-a-half-hours to media use a day. The study, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that watching TV, playing video games, using a computer, and music consumption has risen over an hour a day in the past five years. According to Vicky Rideout, who directed the study, the huge increase can be attributed to the transformation of the cell phone into a content delivery device. "What surprised me the most is the sheer amount of media content coming into their lives each day,” said Rideout. The Kaiser report found a difference in heavy and light media users when it came to academics as well, although they haven't determined cause and effect; nearly half of those who consumed more than 16 hours a day received “fair or poor” grades, while only about a quarter of those consuming less than three hours daily reported the same results.
Source: Chicago Tribune

California courts unanimously rejected a law which sought to limit the amount of marijuana a medical patient can legally possess. The law, which passed in 1998, had allowed medical marijuana patients to possess an unspecified amount. The Legislature attempted to get the law down to eight ounces of dried marijuana. The Supreme Court said only voters could change amendments that they have added to the State Constitution. A few weeks after the rejection, the Los Angeles City Council adopted a comprehensive medical marijuana ordinance to strictly control dispensaries. The ordinance would require marijuana shops to locate at least 1,000 feet from schools, parks, libraries, residential lots, and other dispensaries, and to have the LAPD closely monitor their accounts for profits. The ordinance caps the number of dispensaries at 70, with an exception for stores registered before 2007, leaving Los Angeles with around 150 stores.
Sources: New York Times and Los Angeles Times

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), has proposed to strip the Environmental Protection Agency's right to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Through the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court granted the EPA legal authority to limit such emissions in 2007. “If Congress allows this to happen there will be severe consequences,” Murkowski said. According to Murkowski, it would lead to businesses closing or moving overseas, the curtailing of domestic energy production, and raise the cost of housing and agriculture. Her resolution would require a majority vote in the Senate and the House, plus the signature of President Obama. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who opposes the resolution, said “It would be better for Congress to pass bipartisan comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation making our economy and businesses more efficient and globally competitive.”
Source: New York Times