Jay Leno Doesn't Want To Go

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According to three gossips who spoke to the Los Angeles Times, he's upset about NBC's plan to hand his job over to Conan O'Brien in 2009.

He agreed to the plan three years ago as part of a compromise to keep Conan, who now goes on after Leno, from bolting to another network. But now that the moment is nearly upon him, the long-faced comedian doesn't want to go.

And he's got something of a case. His rating remain strong at 5.8 viewers per night, and he's beaten his longtime rival David Letterman for 12 years.

But too many of those 5.8 million viewers are too old to suit the suits in Burbank. They're gambling that O'Brien's frat-boy humor will bring more of those coveted, ad revenue-generating 18- to 49-year-olds.

You can hear the problem when experts give Leno "compliments" like this one: "He's familiar, he's comfortable, he's safe and he's trusted when you are home late at night and in your jammies, feeling vulnerable," said TV historian Tim Brooks. "There's friendly 'ole Jay. A lot of people may not want to trade him for new and edgy."

Is Al Qaeda In Iraq Down For The Count?

Al Qaeda in Iraq has taken some "devastating and perhaps irreversible blows" in recent months, the Washington Post reports. And now the military is bickering about what to make of it. Dare they declare victory?

Considering how well things went the last time the military staged a press conference in Iraq underneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner, it's understandable there's a bit of disagreement.

Some generals are advocating we do a victory dance based on the widespread agreement that AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) has suffered major blows over the past three months. Suicide bombings - the group's "signature attack" - are down from more than 60 in January to around 30 a month since July. (Is 30 bombings a months really grounds for gloating?)

Captures and interrogations of AQI leaders over the summer had what one official called a "cascade effect," leading to other killings and captures. Fewer fighters are coming through Syria to Iraq, and greater troop deployments in AQI strongholds like Anbar province have helped deprive the militants of a secure base of operations, military officials said.

But others, including Gen. David Petraeus, are urging restraint. Their reasons for so doing ranged from the reasonable (fear of looking like idiots) to the cynical (fear of losing the kind of clear, scary enemy that makes it easy to get public support for wars).

In the first camp, one White House official worried about what would happen if the military declared victory, and then suicide bombings spiked again. "How would that play out in public opinion?" the official rhetorically asked the Post.

No one offered a quote for the second camp, so the Post had to supply the words: "Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved."

American Bloggers Rebroadcast Al-Qaeda's Messages

Whatever penetration al Qaeda may be losing in Iraq, it's gaining on the web, the New York Times reports, thanks in part to a 21-year-old American blogging from the basement of his parents' home in North Carolina.

Samir Kahn, who was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in Queens, serves as a "kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups," according to the Times. Some of his recent posts include "glad tidings" from a North African militant leader whose group killed 31 Algerian troops, a scholarly treatise arguing for violent jihad translated into English and links to secret sites where readers can check out the latest blood-drenched insurgent videos from Iraq.

The Times points out that he's not doing anything illegal and doesn't seem to have any ties to militant leaders. And he's not alone. Terrorism experts at West Point say there are as many as 100 English language sites offering militant Islamic views. Kahn's, which has about 500 regular readers, is just one of the more active.

The phenomenon is turning out to be the lasting legacy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who was killed in June 2006 by American bombs. Zarqawi learned the power of the Internet in prison, the Times reports. Then in Iraq, he embraced the video camera as a weapon of war.

"He made the decision that every group should have a video camera with them," said a Palestinian militant who went to Iraq in 2005 to teach foreign fighters. "And every operation should be taped."

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