WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

• I'm back with news. I had my head in the sand for a bit... so all this is news for me!
• Philippine rebels shot and killed 5 police officers including a chief. The ambush came a week after Philippine government and communist rebel negotiators agreed to restart talks on ending the 42-year rural-based insurgency that has killed some 120,000 people.
• A Chinese pianist played an anti-American propaganda song at the White House.
• This winter is looking really really really rough. Get those Northface jackets, or invest in the company, while you can.
• A Seattle activist won a case against the TSA! Horay! In 2009, he was arrested for using a video camera in a public space and failing to show ID.
• Cuba is getting broadband! I went to Cuba in 2008. The hotels had access to the internet, but not many other places did... AND you had to show ID in order to use the 'net. This is kind of a big deal.
• More than 800 people in Rio de Janeiro have tragically died as a result of the flooding that was caused by torrential downpours in the region.
• Sarkozy talks G20 agenda. Main objective: Curb commodity price volatility. He warns that the world risks food riots and weaker growth if leaders fail to act.
• The Pope has bless social networking. Says virtual friends can't replace real ones and warns of parallel existence, depersonalisation, alienation.
• I know that China has a bagillion more people than the United States, but it still seems odd that they'd out sell the US in sales of General Motors vehicles. They have. We lose.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Check out our giant space bubbles. They're in the center of the Milky Way and they're 25,000 light years wide. Scientists have no idea what the eff they are.

Now there's a streak in the NYC skyline -- WHICH I MISSED!!!!! I'm calling shenanigans. It's a contrail for sure.

Oil prices are now nearly $90/barrel. There's 40 billion barrels of untapped oil that was just discovered in Brazil. The biggest reason Brazil elected Dilma Rousseff was because she was the former Chief of Energy. She ran all that energy stuff, and now that there's $3,600,000,000,000 (did i do that math right?) in Brazil's land, shit is gonna be huge. I suggest you pick up Portuguese for Dummies asap.

Hollywood and Bollywood are working on becoming bff. I knew "Outsourced" was a great show.

Lastly, there's been a Polio outbreak in Africa. I didn't realize that's still around!