ABC News reports:

Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil. …

Sources tell ABC News that the plot may have involved moving between 10 and 20 suspects believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq into the United States with student visas — the same method used by the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who struck American targets on Sept. 11. …

The plot was discovered six months ago, roughly the same time that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by coalition forces. Sources tell ABC News that the suspects involved in the effort to launch the U.S. attack were closely associated with Zarqawi.

The plan also came only months after Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2, had requested that Zarqawi attempt an attack inside the United States.

“This appears to be the first hard evidence al Qaeda in Iraq was trying to attack us here at home,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, former chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council.

The plan was uncovered in its early stages, and sources say there is no indication that the suspects made it into the United States. Officials also emphasize that there is no evidence of an imminent attack.

Cue the arguments from both sides: This proves that the war in Iraq has made us less safe. This proves that Iraq was always a threat to our interests. This proves that we need to get out of Iraq. This proves that we need to win in Iraq. Et cetera, et cetera.

Have scientists oversold global warming?

Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world’s appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.

Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.

Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.

Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer’s heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.

In their efforts to capture the public’s attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It’s probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

“Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster,” says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected “tension” among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn’t been fully communicated to the public.

The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.

For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: “I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. … In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history.”

Vranes says, “When I hear things like that, I go crazy.”

Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.

But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. …

[E]nvironmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes’ at the University of Colorado … says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to “dampen” the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.

“The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming,” Pielke says. “But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake.”

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here’s Brian Neudorff’s take, which also goes into the controversy recently stoked by The Weather Channel’s Dr. Heidi Cullen.

Every last person in the entire town of Fago, Spain, is a suspect in the mayor’s murder.

(Hat tip: Dave Barry.)

All hail SBA! :)

Andy Katz has a nice column about USC’s surprising surge in the Pac-10. It’s actually on the college basketball front page right now. Screenshot here. Nice. (Hat tip: cdbavg400.) But will USC be ranked when the Week 12 polls come out later today? [UPDATE: Yup! #25 in the AP poll. And just barely unranked in the coaches poll: #26, four votes behind #25 Kentucky.]

Speaking of ESPN and college hoops… I just noticed that they’ve got a very early Bubble Watch column up. It’s already almost a week old, but for what it’s worth: Notre Dame is listed as a “lock” (though that was before the loss at Villanova — which, incidentally, the Irish recovered from nicely with a 82-58 win over last-place South Florida on Sunday), USC “should be in” (and that was before the weekend sweep of the Arizona teams), Gonzaga is on the bubble… and so is UConn. “If the season ended today, you would have a very hard time defending putting UConn into the bracket,” Andy Glockner writs. “They haven’t done anything on the court to deserve an at-large.” Mid-major teams that are listed as locks: Southern Illinois, Missouri State, Air Force, Butler, Nevada and Memphis (if you consider Memphis a mid-major). The next update is due Wednesday.

This region (if the greater Indianapolis/Chicago area can be described as a “region” of which South Bend is a part) will be wrapped up in football hysteria for the next two weeks, as the Colts and Bears are going to Super Bowl XLI!

The Colts did it in dramatic fashion, as Peyton Manning finally got over the hump, beat the Patriots and earned a spot in the promised land with a 38-34 victory after trailing 21-3 late in the first half. The 18-point comeback was the largest ever in a conference championship game or Super Bowl.

The Bears earned their spot in somewhat more ho-hum fashion, pulling away from the Saints for a 39-14 win.

For both teams’ fan bases, this is a long time coming. The Bears haven’t been to the Super Bowl since 1985-86; the Colts haven’t been since 1970-71, back when they were Baltimore Colts.

So…

P.S. Anybody going? Want to be a BrendanLoy.com Super Bowl Correspondent?

Will it be the first black president, the first female president, or the first Hispanic president? Man, it’s going to be damn boring when we end up electing another white guy. :) Although, hey… first Mormon president?

I don’t normally post “open threads,” a la Daily Kos, but given that there are two rather important NFL games today (Reggie Bush vs. Da Bears for the NFC championship, underway now; Peyton Manning vs. Da Patriots for the AFC championship at 6:30pm), and I don’t feel like blogging in detail about them, but I suspect some folks might want to comment… well, here you go.

Who will win? Who do you want to win? Will there be any more profane t-shirts? Etc.

In case you can’t tell from the way I framed the matchups, I’m rooting for the Saints and the Colts. Go Reggie & Peyton!

I mentioned last week that Comet McNaught was putting on quite a show in the skies over the Northern hemisphere. Well, now it’s in the skies over the Southern hemisphere — and it’s putting on an even better show:

Those photos are by Robert McNaught (the comet’s discoverer) and Jamie Newman, respectively.

According to SpaceWeather.com, “The tail curves so much and stretches so far that it actually leads all the way back to the northern hemisphere where streamers can be seen glowing faintly in the western sky after sundown.” Here’s an example. “Find the darkest sky you can and look west between one and two hours after sunset. A site where you can see zodiacal light would be best.”

SpaceWeather.com has a full photo gallery (12 pages and counting) with lots of amazing shots.

AOL has a photo gallery of its favorite quirky landmarks in each of the 50 states. (Hat tip: my mom.)

Surprisingly — indeed, disappointingly, given Becky’s and my numerous cross-country drives and my affinity for these sort of odd attractions — I’ve only been to two of them: South of the Border in South Carolina (when I was a little kid) and of course the World’s Largest Cow in North Dakota (during Becky’s and my Buffalo-to-L.A.-via-Seattle road trip in summer 2002).

Personally, I thought the World’s Largest Buffalo (also in North Dakota) was cooler than the World’s Largest Cow, but whatever. :) It should be noted, by the way, that in addition to Becky and me, Toby has also been to the World’s Largest Cow — while Hugh Manatee has been to the World’s Largest Buffalo.

Anyway, about those other 48 attractions… despite numerous trips to L.L. Bean with my parents (we always stop there on the way back from our trips to Atlantic Canada), I’ve never seen the Bean Boot because it was built in 2002 and we haven’t been there since 2001. I initially thought I could claim the House of Voodoo in New Orleans, but upon further review, I went to the Voodoo Museum during my 2002 train trip from L.A. to Hartford, which is a different place than the House of Voodoo. And while I’ve seen the Luxor from a distance while passing through Las Vegas, I don’t think I can fairly claim that I’ve “been to” it. As for the others, even the ones in the states I’ve lived in, I’ve never been to ‘em.

So… 2 out of 50? Not very impressive, not very impressive at all. I may just need to make this AOL page a life’s to-do list. :)

Here, though, are a few quirky attractions not on the list (in addition to the World’s Largest Buffalo) that Becky and I have been to during the course of our road trips:

• Big Tree, Drive-Thru Tree, and, uh, some sort of hollowed-out tree trunk thing, Avenue of the Giants, California
• Hobbittown U.S.A., Phillipsville, California
• Big Gus (the world’s largest running chain saw) and Big Ernie (the world’s largest working rifle), both at Da Yoopers Tourist Trap in Ishpeming, Michigan, “one of the seven wonders of Yooperland”
• Hiawatha, The World’s Tallest Indian, Ironwood, Michigan
• Sea Shell City, Mackinaw City, Michigan
• The source of the Mississippi River, Bemidji, Minnesota
• Oregon Sand Dunes, Coos Bay, Oregon
• Monument Rocks, Gove County, Kansas
• Five-legged and six-legged cow and the World’s Largest Prairie Dog at Prairie Dog Town, Oakley, Kansas
• World’s Highest Suspension Bridge (Royal Gorge), Cañon City, Colorado

So there. :)

In the most shocking news since… oh nevermind, I can’t even sarcastically pretend that this is shocking: Hillary Clinton is running for president.

If she wins, she’ll be the first female president, of course — but also, we won’t have had a president not named Bush or Clinton since January 1989, and that streak will last until at least January 2013.

“The Clinton, Obama, Edwards chain match will be hard to avert my eyes from, speaking as a pure spectator, of course,” McCain adviser John Weaver told the New York Times. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Thirteen people were killed when a U.S. forces helicopter they were riding in went down northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Visit CNN for the latest.

I just noticed — today is January 20. That means there are exactly two years left in the Bush Administration. We’re 75% done!

I’m not a Bush-hater, but I do tend to think this is a good thing. Though it will ultimately depend on who replaces him.

Not good. (Hat tip: Insty.)

The Shark says, take me out to the ballgame:

Jeff Samardzija decided to give up football and stay with baseball.

The former Notre Dame receiver, projected as a first-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft, agreed Friday to a $10 million, five-year contract to pitch for the Chicago Cubs.

“Baseball is my first love. I played it my whole life,” Samardzija said.

Meanwhile, Steve Sarkisian is staying at USC:

In a strange twist that left the Oakland Raiders jilted by their first choice to succeed Art Shell, Southern California quarterbacks coach Steve Sarkisian on Friday evening rejected the team’s offer to become its next head coach. …

“I thank them for their interest in me,” Sarkisian said. “While the job was never offered to me, at this time in my career, I’ve told them I want to stay at USC. I strongly believe that the Raiders’ job is a great opportunity for whomever their next head coach is going to be.”

P.S. Meanwhile, in major Notre Dame news that I haven’t blogged about yet, Rick Minter is out and Corwin Brown is in as defensive coordinator. The Domersphere is happy. Also, Ron Powlus is the new quarterbacks coach, replacing Peter Vaas.