Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor had a worthy-but-unworkable idea the other day: Station some Canadian troops in Pakistan, and some Pakistani counterparts in Afghanistan.

Here's the Globe story on that (O'Connor made his remarks to The Associated Press).

Update: O'Connor clarified his remarks Saturday, saying he didn't mean stand-alone troops but a few liaison officers.

And here's a feature by The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith giving some background:

On the home stretch of my eight-day swing through the north interior of B.C., I saw not one but four instances of young boys taking public wizzes -- and in one case, abetted by their mother.

Three of the cases were at highway's edge, a traditional place for male bladicular relief. I'm presuming the parents were watching because the kids weren't old enough to drive.

Call me old-fashioned in this matter, but I remember a day when it was considered polite to walk off the road and into the bush to provide a bit of cover for one's self -- and visual relief for passing motorists, who might find inadvertently witnessing someone else's bodily waste disposal ritual to be distasteful.

In one case, however, a toddler let loose at roadside while his mom held his free hand.

In another, some kid was walking his dog at the Mount Robson interpretive centre (plenty o' fresh snow on that 14,000-foot-high slab o' rock), halted by a stop sign (not a 'pee here' sign) and relieved himself.

A public washroom was a few seconds' away.

However, maybe I'm out of touch on this. Maybe urinational mores are changing, and the act has become a public affair (with some exceptions).

If so, what does this mean for public transit?

Personally, while trackside urination at subway and SRT stations is bad enough, what happens if people start letting it flow in subway cars? I'm back in Toronto on Thursday. I guess I get to find out! :)