WASHINGTON - Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.

Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department’s Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS’ analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

Snow and Ice Storm Moves Through Midwest

The storm snarled air travel, made roads treacherous and cut power to tens of thousands of homes.

While debate in Washington has turned away from President Bush’s call to stay, even Democrats have dropped talk of an immediate departure.

In an interview this month, Reyes said he will insist on more information about the Bush administration's most classified programs and how they are working.  …  He also wants to look at the role of intelligence three years after the war in Iraq and the state of traditional spycraft, known in spook lingo as ''human intelligence.''

''We haven't required or haven't had the administration give us the details, evaluation or plan of how these classic programs are functioning,'' he said. ''There is plenty to do on the role of intelligence, the programs that are vital and critical to our national defense, and certainly to our war fighters.''

WHEN the former K.G.B. agent Alexander V. Litvinenko was found to have been poisoned by radioactive polonium 210 last week, there was one group that must have been particularly horrified: the tobacco industry.

The industry has been aware at least since the 1960s that cigarettes contain significant levels of polonium. Exactly how it gets into tobacco is not entirely understood, but uranium “daughter products” naturally present in soils seem to be selectively absorbed by the tobacco plant, where they decay into radioactive polonium. High-phosphate fertilizers may worsen the problem, since uranium tends to associate with phosphates. In 1975, Philip Morris scientists wondered whether the secret to tobacco growers’ longevity in the Caucasus might be that farmers there avoided phosphate fertilizers.

How much polonium is in tobacco? In 1968, the American Tobacco Company began a secret research effort to find out. Using precision analytic techniques, the researchers found that smokers inhale an average of about .04 picocuries of polonium 210 per cigarette.

…people smoke a lot of cigarettes — about 5.7 trillion worldwide every year, enough to make a continuous chain from the earth to the sun and back, with enough left over for a few side-trips to Mars.  …  Pack-and-a-half smokers are dosed to the tune of about 300 chest X-rays.

What few experts will dispute is the magnitude of the hazard: the World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 — a third of these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century, could claim close to a billion in the present century.

Rose Mattus, who launched Haagen-Dazs ice cream with her husband, peddling the super-premium treat in grocery stores, has died. She was 90.

Mattus died Tuesday, according to Gutterman-Musicant Funeral Directors in Hackensack.

Mattus, who lived in Cresskill, N.J., had been the controller of Haagen-Dazs Inc. Her husband, Reuben Mattus, died in 1994.

The company was formed around 1960, having morphed from her husband’s family’s decades-old business in New York City’s Bronx borough. Reuben Mattus concocted the nonsensical name Haagen-Dazs, which means nothing in any language, for the brand that became famous for its super-rich recipes.

Yesterday, in response to reports that there is now incontrovertible evidence that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq, I wrote "so this means war, right?" I was attempting to commit irony. A properly functioning world power might well treat this sort of intervention, that so clearly undermines its military interests, by a lesser power as an act of war, and respond accordingly. Such a properly functioning power would be particularly inclined to do so given further incontrovertible evidence that the lesser power is developing nuclear weapons and has said that it favors the destruction of a major ally of the world power.

But the U.S. is not a properly functioning world power, primarily because many members of one of its two political parties don't want it to be a world power at all. Thus, the most that "news" of Iran's intervention in Iraq might do is cause us not to enlist Iran as our partner in the process of withdrawing from Iraq.

John Podhoretz has contributed greatly to my anger management therapy this week with his New York Post column on the Baker-Hamilton crew:

As one of the study group's members told the Times yesterday, "We had to move the national debate from 'whether to stay the course' to 'how do we start down the path out'."

This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.

Its members also reached a consensus view that Depends is a really fine brand of adult diaper, and that they love reruns of "Murder, She Wrote."

In his next column, I hope that John can help me out by turning his attention to pending developments in Bush administration Mideast policy.

Audrey Hudson follows up her two Washington Times stories on the flying imams with an interview of ringleader Omar Shahin: "Imam disputes ties to Hamas." It's an oddly muted interview by contrast, for example, with this AP report. Shahin does not claim that the imams were mistreated by authorities. No handcuffs. No barking dogs. He speaks up for US Airways: "We love US Airways, and we want to fly with them," he said, which I'm sure is a great comfort to all involved.

Shahin disputes his knowledge that the KindHearts charity he supported was a Hamas front. Although KindHearts was established as a successor to the Global Relief Foundation shuttered by the feds after 9/11, his involvement was an innocent mistake.

But where did all those reports imams in handcuffs come from? According to this AP report, they came from none other than Shahin himself:

"They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way," said Omar Shahin, of Phoenix.  "I never felt bad in my life like that," he said. "I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

McCain has a conservative voting record, but is widely mistrusted by the Republican base because of his support for restrictions on citizen political activity, his occasional squishiness on issues like tax cuts, and his general willingness to sell out the party when it suits his purposes.

I still think that if there is a credible mainstream conservative candidate in the primaries, there is a good chance that he will emerge as the nominee. But is there such a candidate? The mantle now seems to have fallen on Newt Gingrich. I admire Newt greatly, but he carries more baggage than Northwest Airlines. And as a national candidate, I'm afraid Gingrich would be an accident waiting to happen. As someone memorably said, Newt's flaw is that he has never in his life had an unspoken thought.

The other day, Nancy Pelosi was asked about President Bush's statement that al Qaeda is responsible for the surge of violence in Iraq. Pelosi responded that "the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the President is resorting to it again." But of course the 9/11 Commission said nothing about al Qaeda's involvement in post-invasion Iraq. Its findings pertained only to the situation under Saddam Hussein.

Had a Republican leader been this confused, the MSM would have pounced. But since it was Pelosi, the MSM did not.  To the contrary, NBC's David Gregory, who takes obnoxious exception to Bush administration comments at the drop of a hat, passed along Pelosi's claim as if it were true…

Panel Urges Pullout of Iraq Troops by 2008

The call to pull out combat brigades by early 2008 would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it…

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis.

…their other recommendation is some sort of massive diplomatic meeting of countries in the area including Iran and Syria.

"Yeah, like Iran is suddenly going to say, 'Oops, I guess we shouldn't have been supporting al-Sadr's militia operation in Baghdad, and we're going to tell him to play nice now.' And Syria will say, 'Ya know, you're right and we shouldn't have been helping the Sunnis out and letting terrorists cross our border to go into Iraq. We just don't know what we were thinking, but now that we've all talked nicey-nice like this, we'll stop.' What leverage do we have to get Syria and Iran to help us out? Hmmmm. Let me think. Oh, I know. We can pressure Israel to do whatever it is that Syria and Iran are demanding from Israel this week."

I thought this was some sort of Onion-like prank, but here's the story, in the New Haven Advocate:

"A collective 'I told you so' will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse's study gets out.

"Lohse, a social work master's student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

"Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse's study . . . found a correlation between the severity of a person's psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush."

So half the nation is psychotic, and only the Kerry voters are sane?

Conservatives (such as George Will) are applled by the way that Jim Webb mouthed off to Bush when the president asked about his son at a White House reception, but many on the left, including Nation Editor Katrina van den Heuvel, are saying right on:

"Will considers the incident on the White House reception line and concludes that Webb is a 'boor' and has shown a 'patent disrespect for the presidency.'

"I'd argue that Webb--as Senator Chuck Schumer put it the other day (perhaps failing to understand the irony of his statement)--is 'not a typical politician. He really has deep convictions.'

"And conviction and courage and, yes, a maverick Senator who's willing to upend the false civility of inside-the-beltway rituals are what's needed in these times.

"President Bush's war of choice has put Webb's son's in harm's way. Why shouldn't Webb refuse to shake that man's hand--or seek to be used in a photo-op?"

Andrew Sullivan has a fervent plea for Hillary Clinton:

"She really shouldn't run. It would divide and polarize the country; she's dreadful on the stump; she has very high negatives; most Democrats only like her; almost no-one loves her; and do we really want 20 years of two families in the White House? Besides: what do you do with Bill? . . . I think she'd make a great Supreme Court Justice or Senate Majority Leader. I had a chat recently with a senior Republican and former presidential candidate. We were discussing how deeply divided the Republicans are. I asked him: what could unite them again at this point? He answered in one word: Hillary. She's the last hope for the far right. Please, Senator Clinton. Don't do it."

Finally, Adam Nagourney uncovers a devastating statistic:

"Google now estimates that the average blog is read by one person.

"One person.

"Hello? Is anyone out there? Mom?"

I'm sure I'm in double digits.

Now that the "realists" have ridden into town gleefully consigning the Bush doctrine to the ash heap of history, everyone has discovered the notion of interests, as if it were some new idea thought up by James Baker and the Iraq Study Group.

What do people think we've been doing for the past five years? True, the president's rhetoric has a tendency to go soaringly Wilsonian, e.g. the banishing-tyranny stuff in his second inaugural address. But our policies of democratization in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon have been deeply rooted in the most concrete of American interests.

If we really had been in the grip of "idealism," we'd be deep in Chad and Burma and Darfur. We are not. We are instead trying to sustain fragile democracies in three strategically important countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon -- that form the geographic parentheses arround the principal threat to Western interests in the region, the Syria-Iran axis.

We are trying to bring democracy to Iraq in particular because a pro-Western government enjoying legitimacy and popular support would have been the most enduring means of securing our interests there. Deposing Saddam & Sons was essential because they posed a permanent strategic threat to the region and to U.S. interests.

The key to progress is political change within Iraq. The newest fashion, however, is to go "regional," engaging Iran and Syria in order to have them pull our chestnuts out of the fire. This idea rests on the notion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq.

Very hardheaded realist terms: interest, stability, regional powers. But stringing them together to suggest that Iran and Syria share our interests in stability is the height of fantasy. In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq -- which is precisely why they each have bbeen abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

Perhaps in some long-term future they will want a stable Iraq as a tame client state of the Syria-Iran axis. For now they want chaos. What in God's name will a negotiation with them yield?

Are the ranches in Guanacaste and the Turrialba dairy farms worse for the environment than the spewing vehicles in San José traffic jams?

The United Nations thinks so.

Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed, according to a new United Nations report released this week.

“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” said Henning Steinfeld, a senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official. Steinfeld said “Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” 

Cattle-rearing is also a major source of land and water degradation, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization report, "Livestock’s Long Shadow – Environmental Issues and Options," of which Steinfeld is the senior author.

“The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it warns, adding:

When emissions from land use and land-use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential  of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
 
And it accounts for 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year, the report notes. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons in 1999/2001 to 465 million tons in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tons.

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural subsector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 per cent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
 
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 per cent of pastures considered degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies  contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used to spray feed crops.

Beyond improving animal diets, proposed remedies to the multiple problems include soil conservation methods together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure; improving efficiency of irrigation systems; and introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities, the report said.

In the United States, senior policy-makers and commentators have been slow to recognize both the extent of animosity between Shi'ites and Sunnis and its significance for events in the Middle East. The hatred between Sunnis and Muslims goes back to 632 CE and the death of prophet Muhammad. The most critical issue following Muhammad's death was his succession. The forbearers of the Sunnis followed the tribal tradition of having a council of elders select as the head of the Islamic community the individual most qualified to lead. The forbearers of the Shi'ites on the other hand believed that Muhammad heirs should rule the Islamic community.
    The conflict came to a head in the battle of Karbala in 680 CE when the Sunnis forbearers massacred the prophet's grandson Husayn and his followers. Gleefully, the victors carried Husayn's head to Damascus and paraded it there. Is it any wonder that for the next 1,300 years, there has been hatred and recurring warfare between these two sects within Islam who differ radically in their religious practices.
    Iran is a Persian, not Arab country. Its people are almost entirely Shi'ite. With the fall of the shah and the Islamic revolution, a Shi'ite government was installed in Tehran. This was a marked contrast to the ruling powers in the Arab Islamic nations where the Sunnis exert tight control, even though there are large, and often impoverished, Shi'ite populations. What the mullahs have done from their base in Iran is to stir up Shi'ite communities throughout the Middle East and encourage them to take control of their governments. This is what is happening in Lebanon and in Bahrain and will happen at some time in the near future in Saudi Arabia and other countries.
    The United States did not create this conflict, which has spanned 13 centuries, with our invasion in Iraq. Unwittingly, however, with our emphasis on democracy in the Middle East we have provided the means for Shi'ites to seize control in their countries. At the ballot box. In elections.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20061130-084530-9774r.htm