The NYT posed the following question to some individuals with expertise in security and terrorism issues: What is one major reason the United States has not suffered a major attack since 2001, and what is the one thing you would recommend the nation do in order to avoid attacks in the future?

You can find their responses here.

This BBC analysis argues no, and NATO is asking member countries to pony up more troops for the fun and games in southern Afghanistan.

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In a small diner in Stewart, B.C., some locals were holding forth on how repelled they were by cities.

"I always park with my vehicle facing out (of town) so I can get away faster," cackled one old fellow, prompting commiseratory chuckles from his buds.

"Well, the problem with Vancouver is you got a stop sign every 500 hundred feet. Here, you haven't got but three in the whole town!" offered another.

Freedom!! :)

During breakfast at a restaurant in Smithers, B.C. recently, a waitress asked two men if they wanted more coffee.

"Oui," one of them replied.

The waitress kept walking.

"No, no," the other one hurriedly said. "We're from Quebec. 'Oui' is French for 'yes'."

Embarrassed chuckles all around as the waitress refilled their coffees. "I can tell you we don't hear a lot of French around here," she said, with a bit of a defensive grin frozen on her face.

I would have thought every Canadian would understand 'oui,' which isn't exactly like asking people to memorize passages of Moliere, but perhaps not.

A few thoughts about spending time in the city where I was born and raised -- and a few comparisons with T.O., my home for the past six years.

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The Iraqi government accuses the Al-Arabiya satellite TV network of fomenting violence and sectarianism in Iraq, and has ordered it to stop broadcasting from Baghdad for a one-month period.

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The Information newspaper in Denmark has reprinted six cartoons currently on display in Tehran as part of a Holocaust cartoon contest sparked by the publishing of some satirical cartoons about Islam's Prophet Muhammad last fall by a Danish newspaper.

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Caught Fido at TIFF on Thursday, and it's definitely worth a look whenever it hits the commercial theatres in the coming months (it screens once more on Saturday at 3:45 p.m. at the Paramount).

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The U.S. Senate intelligence committee has released a report saying Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn't sit down to chat about how they could work together -- actually, Saddam didn't have much time for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

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Google wants to build an online news index that will go back. Way back. However, you'll have to access the stories at the originating websites, which means you'll have to pay.

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As Canadian soldiers continue slugging it out with the Taliban in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, the country's defence minister and top general admit the Islamist insurgents can't be defeated by force alone.

However, Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, said the plan all along has been to defeat the Taliban through nation-building.

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At least 10 Florida-based journalists received payments from the U.S. government to contribute to anti-Cuba propaganda broadcasts, the Miami Herald reports.

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In announcing he was sending 14 high-value militants to Guantanamo Bay for trial, Dubya admitted for the first time that the CIA did operate secret prisons.

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President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan met today to discuss the scourge of terror -- one day after Pakistan signed a deal with pro-Taliban tribal leaders.

And the NYT looks at the decline of Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province in Afghanistan -- and once nicknamed "Little America."

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Former Iraqi doctor-turned-journalist Ali Fadhil says that if the Iraq government is left to its devices, the news media in Iraq will be as free as their counterparts in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

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I note that on today's Cross Country Check-up, Gen. Rick Hillier admitted they underestimated the strength of the Taliban and related insurgents in southern Afghanistan (the show is archived here).

Oopsie.

This pronouncement came on a day where Canada had four soldiers killed and nine more wounded in fighting in the Panjwai district southwest of Kandahar City in Afghanistan.

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:

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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! :)

Why on earth do motels still trumpet that they have "colour TV"? Why not "flush toilets"?

FWIW, wireless Internet access appears to be the new colour TV.