Walking up Channel Nine court after work this evening, I got within about 15 feet of a black creature with a white stripe snuffling in the grass beside the sidewalk.

I immediately backed off, but I was downwind of the varmint, and it didn't really notice me.

It didn't lock and load, unlike the last skunk I saw around there.

Not satisfied with lattes and frappuccinos, Starbucks is venturing ever further into selling cultural products.

Sting 'journalism' in India hit a new low when hidden cameras captured a fading Bollywood star trying to seduce a young female journo posing as an actress.

While the stings are considered a standard part of the Indian news media's tool kit, there is some push-back coming from the courts.

The NYT's Elizabeth Rubin spent some time in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region this summer. Her report in the NYT Magazine is very sobering stuff.

A round-up of headlines:

BBC: UN warns of Afghan food shortage

BBC: Taleban leader in new war threat

BBC: Twelve killed in Afghan fighting

BBC: 'Militants' kill Afghan workers (Oct. 20)

BBC: Two soldiers killed in Waziristan (Oct. 20)

An American diplomat who used some very undiplomatic language to describe U.S. missteps in Iraq is now saying he misspoke in the interview with al-Jazeera TV.

Once again, the CBC's Tony Burman waits until everyone else finishes prognosticating before regurgitating the conventional wisdom; however,this letter-from-the-editor-in-chief is a useful review on the impact of the forces buffeting the mainstream news media these days.

The Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom brings up an inconvenient fact about the Juliet O'Neill story on Maher Arar that brought the wrath of the RCMP on her -- it was wrong.

And he cautions this should be taken as a lesson about assigning credibility to sources, particularly ones journalists must cite anonymously.

The Beeb's David Loyd chats with a Taliban commander. This story argues that allowing corruption to flourish in Afghanistan is of immeasurable benefit to the Taliban.

Dubya held a video conference with his top generals today, says they talked tactics in Iraq. However, the overall "strategy," if that's the right word for it, remains the same.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri have cameos in a new Republican TV ad as the U.S. moves closer to its mid-term elections.

The Globe and Mail reconstructs how the firing of Toronto Star publisher Michael Goldbloom and editor-in-chief Giles Gherson went down -- and why it's not really Torstar's biggest problem.

From an AP story on CTV.ca:

An Austrian businessman has announced that he would get rid of urinals shaped like a woman's mouth from a public toilet near Vienna's national opera, after facing pressure from politicians who demanded their removal.

If someone in the blogosphere can help me find a copy of this CD, I would be forever grateful:

This is a story that didn't get much press. In Ramadi on Wednesday, al Qaeda-linked militants held a parade and announced that all of Iraq's Sunni states would be joining a new Islamic republic.

Sometimes, you can try and try and try, but you still don't get the results you want. The U.S. military feels like that in Baghdad, where attempts to control the violence have gone totally nowhere.

In throwing out search warrants used by the RCMP to search the home of Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill, a judge has truck down three sections of the Security of Information Act, a post-9/11 piece of legislation.

Heading south on the Bathurst St. car this morning, I went right to the back for a seat -- and the front row for observing some guy's TTC Hell experience.

BBC: Can a change in Afghan tactics bring peace?

BBC: Afghans killed in NATO strikes

CBC: Chretien government rejected military's advice on Afghan deployment: ex-Army chief

CBC: Afghanistan mission 'successful' but demanding on troops: Hillier

Globe and Mail: Typical Afghan mess ruins Canadians' day

G&M: Afghanistan won't be revolving door for troops, minister says

G&M: Pay attention to this voice in the Afghan wilderness (Jeffrey Simpson column)

A BBC World poll asked 27,000 people in 25 countries about using torture under certain circumstances. Twenty-nine per cent would support it versus 59 per cent who wouldn't.

As you may have heard, Tory MP Garth Turner from the Halton riding west of Toronto got indefinitely suspended from the Conservative caucus, ostensibly for blabbing about the contents of caucus meeting. However, it's more probable his views about some of his colleagues may have really triggered this event.

I did some poking through his blog. Here's a feature I wrote on what I found. Here's the CTV.ca news story on the affair.

If you're in Taranna and a vota, check out Campaign Bubble, by Marc Weisblott for globeandmail.com.

From the blog:

A fresh and sometimes irreverent look at political behaviour leading up to the Nov. 13 Ontario-wide municipal elections. Marc Weisblott blogs the local races, focusing on the Toronto area.

If you're not in sub-Saharan Africa but are interested in what's what there, check out The Sub Saharan African Round Table, Canadian expat Blake Lambert is one of the contributors and principals.

He explains in one post why Robert Kabushenga is bad news for Ugandans (Mr. K is a former government spokesman who now heads the state-owned New Vision newspaper. Former managing director William Pike "left" the paper after running a story that enraged the gov't. More from this BBC story).

Lambert himself was forced from Uganda for doing, er, journalism.

And who commented on his expulsion on behalf of the Ugandan government? Robert Kabushenga!

Some young Saudis are getting to like this freedom of expression thing.

The kidnappers of Italian national and Muslim convert Gabriel Torsello say they will release him if Italy turns over an Afghan man who converted to Christianity and obtained asylum in that country.

Well, not all of it, but much of it. However, BBC World's Richard Porter says for the French, that's just a reality.

Gen. David Richards, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters Tuesday that big mistakes were made in Afghanistan, and the coalition has about six months to fix them.

Out are editor-in-chief Giles Gherson and publisher Michael Goldbloom.

In are new editor-in-chief Fred Kuntz and publisher Jagoda Pike, both veteran TorStar types (Gherson and Goldbloom were brought in from outside).

Here's the CP story on CTV.ca.

And here's this morning's Toronto Star take on the change, and The Globe and Mail's.

Paul Wells had this to say at Inkless Wells.

Here's the N-P story, posted to Free Republic.

At 10 p.m. Tuesday, the Globe filed this story to its website. An excerpt:

Shareholder discontent is said to be behind the changes as the controlling families at the newspaper company grow increasingly unhappy with its deteriorating financial performance.

Torstar will report its third-quarter earnings in two weeks. In August, the company reported a 29-per-cent drop in profit.

Chief executive officer Rob Prichard said the company is trying to reduce costs at a time when Torstar shares have hit their lowest point in nearly five years.

“Torstar continues to take every available step to improve the performance of the business,” Mr. Prichard said. “We are acting like all other companies in our industry that make changes in response to industry conditions.”

The company's debt was downgraded by Moody's Investors Service Inc. Tuesday to low investment-grade status, and the bond rating agency said it was dropping coverage of Torstar.

That development came several weeks after a similar downgrade from Dominion Bond Rating Service Ltd., which said it is concerned by the amount of debt Torstar has added to its books by buying a 20-per-cent stake in Bell Globemedia Inc.

Disclosure: I work for CTV.ca News, which is ultimately owned by Bell Globemedia Inc.

Eric Reguly, a business columnist for the Globe, opined on Tuesday that Rob Prichard, CEO of TorStar Corp., could be next. An excerpt (sorry, behind a firewall):

If the rumours are correct, he is at war with some or all of the five families that control TorStar through multiple-share votes. They fear Torstar properties, notably the Star, are shedding value at an alarming rate. Mostly, they fear Torstar's dividend stream, the primary source of their income, and the income of their children and grandchildren, is at risk. Unless the dividend is secure, they will become fall media moguls.

Moments after regaining consciousness this morning, I went into a Second Cup.

I ordered a tall Carmelo.

"What size?" asked the barista, a balding, middle-aged Lebanese fellow with a bushy mustache (I throw that information in to help you narrow down the location of the coffee shop).

I repeated: A tall Carmelo.

"What size?!?!" he asked again, his voice noticeably more on edge.

The enormity of my error then dawned on me.

"A small Carmelo, please," I said.

He then proceeded to serve me.