Check out the Al Jazeera cartoon, Al Qaida credit card.

It's a short flash that tells a story of how Al Qaida was born, beginning with the conquest of Afganistan, first by Russia, then by us. It references the lack of money the U.S. has provided for rebuilding the country and includes an animated version of the 9/11 attacks.

It's always interesting to see how others view us.

Update: The New Yorker profiled al-Zawahri in September, 2002--it is available here [thanks to the commenter who pointed this out.]

The media is calling Ayman al-Zawahri the brains behind Osama bin Laden. Who is he? Here's a profile from Al Jazeera:

Decades ago he gave up the affluent life of a Cairo doctor to dedicate himself to the Islamist underground, a choice that would eventually take him, like bin Ladin, to the mountains of Afghanistan. In December 2001 his wife and several children were reported to have been blown to pieces by American bombing in Afghanistan, but the bespectacled al-Qaida leader managed to escape the US dragnet and went on the run.

Born in 1951, Zawahri espoused his cause from an early age. In the 1960s he joined Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's oldest Islamist group. He was tried, along with many others, for links to the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He served a three-year jail term for illegal arms possession but was acquitted of the main charges. In 1985, Zawahri left Egypt for Pakistan, where he worked as a doctor treating fighters wounded in battles against Soviet forces occupying neighbouring Afghanistan.

He took over in 1993 the leadership of Jihad, Egypt's second largest Islamic armed group. A military court in Egypt sentenced Zawahri to death in absentia in 1999 for militant activities. Zawahri joined forces with bin Ladin in 1998. He has been indicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

John Kerry is on a mission to raise $10 million in 10 days. Atrios and Daily Kos readers have given a bunch. We're asking TalkLeft readers to chip in too.

Frank Newport is the editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. In an LA Times op-ed (free subscription required), he writes that based on what the polling data shows now, things don't look too hot for Bush. The two key points of his analysis are:

Bush's 50% approval rating on job performance: It's lower than that of recent successful candidates during March of election year--including Clinton, Reagan and Nixon.

Point two is the "trial heat factor:" Newport says it's unusual for Bush to be losing to Kerry in the polls during the election year:

Since 1956, of eight presidents who sought a new term, five won. Two of these eventual winners started their reelection years on somewhat shaky ground but quickly recovered. Reagan was tied with Walter Mondale in a Gallup poll survey taken in January 1984. Clinton was behind Bob Dole in two Gallup polls conducted in January 1996. But from February 1984 on, Reagan was ahead of Mondale in every trial-heat ballot that Gallup conducted. And, in similar fashion, Clinton was ahead of Dole in every trial-heat ballot Gallup did from February on in 1996. The other three incumbent presidents who won a new term in the second half of the 20th century — Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon — never once fell behind their opponents in the election year.

What's the bottom line?

If Bush is reelected, he will become the only president out of the last eight incumbents to win after having been behind a challenger in Gallup polling conducted after January of his election year. And, if his job approval ratings don't rise above 50% in April and May, his reelection would mark the first of those eight to win with less than majority approval in the late spring of their election year.

Eric Alterman was on Dennis Miller's CNBC show yesterday. We didn't see it, but Eric has some choice words for Mr. Miller today. Walter at Idols of the Marketplace saw some of it and says:

Eric Alterman couldn't couldn't see the show but I caught about three minute of Miller's juvenile behavior before I had to turn the channel. I actually felt like getting in my car, driving to the studio and punching him out. What's the point of inviting an author on a show to discuss issues and then pretend as if you are bored to death with his every word? Miller's act is just a mask for a man who really has no idea what he is doing and doesn't possess brain enough to realize it.

Update: You can watch the segment here. Eric writes today that Miller called and apologized to him.

We've never heard Howard Stern's radio show, so we were surprised to read he's been a Bush supporter....until now:

Stern had essentially backed Bush on most issues (including the war in Iraq) and talked him up as a capable leader. Those days, however, are officially gone. He lately attacks the president as a "maniac" and an "arrogant bast*rd" while whipping up opposition to what he contends is a dangerous Christian-right shift in Washington. In short, Stern as of this month has become the anti-Rush Limbaugh. If the Republicans ever wondered what it might be like to have a left-leaning version of Limbaugh hacking them to bits, they're now finding out daily.

If you're wondering whether Stern's view could have an impact, the answer is maybe, yes:

Stern has an estimated 8.5 million weekly listeners to his morning program. These multitudes very much worship at the altar of Howard -- buying what he tells them to buy, calling whom he tells them to call, supporting what he tells them to support and (yes) voting how he tells them to vote.

....Michael Harrison, founder and publisher of Talkers magazine -- a monthly that covers the radio news / talk industry -- believes that "in the case of a close election, a guy like Howard Stern could tip the scales. ... A generation of Americans has grown up listening to him and are now in their 30s and 40s," Harrison says. "The one thing they all have in common is they love Howard Stern. And they trust him. When he tells them to be critical of Bush, they listen and respond."

Maybe we'll tune him in after all, [link via Last One Speaks]

Opposition to the military's rules for trying enemy combatents and detainees is coming from an unusual source: Military lawyers. The Wall Street Journal reports (paid subscription required):

In November 2001, when President Bush authorized the first U.S. military tribunals since World War II, the process drew fire from human-rights groups and some legal experts. Now the critics have an unexpected set of allies: the detainees' five military lawyers, who have launched a surprisingly vigorous assault on the system that hired them.

The five JAGs -- as members of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the military's legal arm, are known -- have attacked the tribunals as inherently unfair, contrary to international law and susceptible to political influence. In a brief they submitted to the Supreme Court, Cmdr. Swift wrote a section comparing the president with King George III and likening the treatment of tribunal defendants to the injustices that helped spark the American Revolution.

Here's how the tribunals will stack the deck against the detainees. Here are some concerns we all should have about Guantanamo.

[WSJ link via Patriot Watch and reader Cliff.]

Pakistani officials say they have cornered Ayman al-Zawabi, whom they describe as "al Qaida No. 2."

Pakistani troops believe they have surrounded al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri in an operation near the Afghan border, three senior Pakistani officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The officials, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, said intelligence indicated the Egyptian-born al-Zawahri has been cornered in an operation that began Tuesday in South Waziristan involving hundreds of troops and paramilitary rangers.

We have doubts he'd allow himself to be captured alive. Stay tuned.

It's a war that isn't ending. More explosions in Iraq. This just developing--two more hotels that house foreigners have been hit. With the one year anniversary of the Iraq invasion coming up, Al-Jazeera reports:

Explosions and shootings have racked Iraq in what appears to be an intensification of anti-occupation resistance ahead of the first anniversary of the US-led invasion.

Your help is needed.

Please Tell Congress To Identify Impaired Drivers, Not Marijuana Smokers. Urge Your Congressman To Reject H.R. 3907 And H.R. 3922

NORML needs your help convincing Congress to reject a pair of bills that would criminally punish marijuana smokers for "drugged driving" simply if inactive marijuana metabolites are detected in their bodily fluids - even if the individual is neither under the influence nor impaired to drive.

H.R. 3907, sponsored by Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), demands that state legislatures amend their DUID (driving under the influence of drugs) to enact mandatory minimum penalties for anyone convicted of driving under the influence of illegal drugs. Under the proposal, states have until 2006 to pass and enforce DUID laws "approved by the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," or lose portions of their federal highway funding.

H.R. 3922, sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of legislators including Reps. Robert Portman (R-OH), Sander Levin (D-MI), Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Mark Souder (R-IN) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN), seeks to impose so-called "model" DUID legislation upon all 50 states - demanding they enact statutes sanctioning anyone who operates a motor vehicle "while any detectable amount of a controlled substance is present in the person's body, as measured in the person's blood, urine, saliva, or other bodily substance."

These bills represent an all out federal assault on the marijuana smoking community. Because inactive marijuana metabolites (inert compounds indicative of past drug use) remain detectable in the blood, and particularly urine, for days and sometimes weeks after past use, this legislation seeks to define sober drivers as if they were intoxicated. Someone who smokes marijuana is impaired as a driver at most for a few hours; certainly not for days or weeks. To treat all marijuana smokers as if they are impaired, even when the drug's effects have long worn off, is illogical and unfair.

The media is making a big deal out of a letter Martha Stewart's lawyers have sent to her friends asking them to write a supportive letter to the Judge in hopes of getting a lesser sentence.

First, letters of reference are routine. The decision of the Judge and recommendation of the probation officer can be affected somewhat by their subjective impressions of the character of the individual. A well-written, detailed letter of reference that reflects positively upon the individual about to be sentenced can influence the final outcome of a sentencing hearing.

Second, and here's the rub-- because of the federal sentencing guidelines, letters have limited value. In an extraordinary case, they might contribute to a Judge's decision to depart below the guidelines, but usually, the most they can do is influence a a judge to sentence someone to the bottom of the guideline range, rather than the top. For example, if Martha's range is 10 to 16 months as expected, the letters could sway the judge to impose a sentence of 10 rather than 16 months--and to allow her to serve half of it on home arrest rather than all of it at a federal prison camp. That's likely the best scenario at this point.

In Martha's case, letters showing her to be a giving person who contributes her time and money to those less fortunate, and except for this single instance of misjudgment, a moral and honest person, could help her get the lowest sentence possible under the guidelines.

Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia refused to recuse himself from hearing a case involving VP Cheney's energy task force records--despite his spending a weekend hunting with Cheney. The Sierra Club had petitioned for his recusal. Supreme Court rules direct that the judge whose recusal is being sought is the judge who rules on the motion.

In an unusual response, Scalia said he will recuse himself when "on the basis of established principles and practices, I have said or done something which requires this course." He said the hunting trip to Louisiana was planned before the energy case reached the court. Those "established principles and practices" do not require or even permit him to step aside in the Cheney case, Scalia wrote.

Newsday says Scalia is wrong.

Scalia should reconsider. The court should urge him to do so. And if not-so-gentle persuasion fails, his court colleagues should decide for him. Unchecked, Scalia's intransigence will undermine public trust in the court's impartiality. That's too high a price for the nation's court of last resort to pay for one man's stubborn bad judgment....The Supreme Court has traditionally left recusal decisions to the justices involved. But if Scalia doesn't see the light, the full court should shine it in his eyes.

Here are more newspaper editorials calling for Scalia to step down from the case.