From the Oct. 29 Globe and Mail:

Talking to the Taliban – long dismissed as unthinkable – was endorsed Tuesday by senior envoys from the embattled governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By that, I mean the British public broadcaster displayed breathtakingly bad judgment in airing an episode broadcast by two of its comedy stars.

From Reuters via globeandmail.com:

The Earth's natural resources are being depleted so quickly that "two planets" would be required to sustain current lifestyles within a generation, the conservation group WWF said on Wednesday.

The Swiss-based WWF, also known as the World Wildlife Fund, said in its latest Living Planet Report that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.

Its Living Planet Report concluded that reckless consumption of "natural capital" was endangering the world's future prosperity, with clear economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.

"If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles," said WWF International Director-General James Leape.

Jonathan Loh of the Zoological Society of London said the dramatic ecological losses from pollution, deforestation, over-fishing and land conversion were having serious impacts.

Here's the report link.

The report also likes to liken the situation to a looming ecological credit crunch.

Scientists are worried about the fate of killer whale populations off the coasts of southern B.C. and northern Washington state. Some of the whales are disappearing. This has the scientists tossing around words like "extinction."