WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

• An international space team lead by Qatar, discovered a new planet. It's been named Qatar-1b and demonstrates how countries from all over can collaborate to make stellar discoveries.
• China's Huawei -- a telecom solutions provider - will be investing $2 Billion over 5 years in India. Just another piece of business America lost out on.
• Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, passed away.
• South Korea thinks that North Korea has more uranium sites. SK thinks that NK is working on building a nuclear bomb. There's so much he-said/she-said going on between those two that i feel like I'm watching an episode of Law & Order: Sexy Crimes.
• OOF! Yahoo! is laying off about 600 employees just in time for the holidays. Didn't they just hire a bunch of awesome bloggers for their site? My condolences to all of you. :(
• Apparently someone forgot to give the European Union the memo about the state of Israel. They're laying the pressure down on Israel and Palestine to figure their shit out and live peacefully side by side so they can eventually move forward and recognize Palestine. Focus on Ireland, will ya?
• South Africa just opened its first Space Agency in hopes of becoming Africa's leading Earth observation location. Is there competition?
• Medicaid cuts are killing Americans basically. Can someone please figure out a plan B, please?
• The Sun is FUCKING AWESOME. Check this out. Scientists just observed some crazy massive sun storm that totally will effect our telecommunications AND we're also in the middle of Mercury in Retrograde (that's when communications fail based on astrology... and sorta astronomy). Coincidence? I think not!
• And finally, a Festivus miracle - an inmate cited his belief in the Seinfeld-created holiday of Festivus, as a reason to get Kosher meals in prison. Genius.