There is no better description of this week's Article of the Week than the article's title itself: A Long War In a Nutshell by Victor Davis Hanson.

A long read, but worth your time.

Views on the war in Iraq now transcend reasonable discussion. The war rests in the realm of emotion, warped by the hysteria of partisan bickering.

The result is that we have forgotten why we invaded Iraq in long-ago 2003. We cannot agree why we had problems after the stunning removal of Saddam Hussein. And we are not sure either whether we are winning — or why we even should.

As I've discussed in the past, the current environmental movement - led by Al Gore - is becoming more of a religion than anything else.

French scientist Claude Allegre agrees.

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, "Ma Verite Sur la Planete" ("My Truth About the Planet"), doesn't mince words.

He calls Gore a "crook" presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

Allegre doesn't deny that the climate has changed or that extreme weather has become more common. He instead emphasizes the local character of these phenomena.

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre.

As the US military surpasses 3,900 brave lives lost in Iraq since March 2003, do not allow the number to distract us from remembering that each individual life was precious; and their cause noble.

Perhaps those on the left are clinging to the hysteria of global warming because deep down, they agree with Dave Lindorff that global warming will save America from the Right... eventually.

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

...

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

...

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

I don't know about you, but this guy (co-author of the book The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office) gives me that warm and tingly feeling inside. Or perhaps that's just residual hot cocoa left in my belly after spending one of the coldest Decembers/snowiest Christmas day with my family in Minnesota.

Regardless, Lindorff's article makes one thing clear: some global warming hysterics on the left are now officially borderline psychotic.

Hat tip: Hot Air

Last night I caught a showing of Charlie Wilson's War.

A drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.

Aside from the annoying (and always unnecessary) nudity, I was surprised at the amount of laughs this based-on-a-true-story peculiar political flick provides. I was obviously curious to see this production, as I'm interested in politics.

But even if you don't follow politics (which would be strange, considering you're reading my political blog!), see this movie solely for the phenomenal on-screen duet between Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, check out Charlie Wilson's War.

Three stars (out of five) for Charlie Wilson's War.

After multiple failed attempts, today Islamic militants finally succeeded in the high-profile murder of Pakistan's former two-time prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack. Her death threw the campaign for critical Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and stoked fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

At least 20 others were also killed in the attack on a campaign rally where the 54-year-old Bhutto had just spoken.

Sadly, just two months after Bhutto returned from her 1998 self-imposed exile to shake up the political scene once again, this was hardly unexpected.

A woman... who did not wear a burkha... who rose to become the first female prime minister of a Muslim state.

This obviously wouldn't fly for long in - unless I'm wrong - the only country specifically set up (from the pre-partitioned British India) to exist as an Islamic Republic.

What else were we to expect?

CNN is reporting a new Iowa poll that shows Hillary with a double-digit lead over her closest rival.

Call it an early Christmas gift for Hillary Clinton’s campaign: A new Iowa poll seems to show the New York senator with a stunning double-digit lead over her nearest rival among likely Democratic caucus-goers.

Clinton and Obama were neck-and-neck in last week’s American Research Group poll. But in the new survey, conducted December 20-23, she leads the Illinois senator by 15 percentage points, 34 to 19 percent. Obama is now in a statistical tie for second place with former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who has 20 percent of the vote.

Good!

I actually want Hillary to secure the Democrat nomination. Call it the fighter in me, but I want a Hillary nod... so we can defeat Hillary.

I certainly don't want to spend the years following a Democrat defeat listening to the Left complain that "If we would have nominated Hillary, we would have won the White House."

To my liberal readers, please nominate this woman.

To my conservative readers, please imagine with me how incredibly fun it will be to watch Hillary give her concession speech next November.

My family has a tradition of movie-going on Christmas day. My wife and I were able to scoot over to beautifully snowy Minnesota this past weekend to spend the celebration of Christ's (and my wife's) birth yesterday; and to partake in this sacred family tradition.

This year, our movie of choice was easy.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets is a fun, fun, fun movie!

Treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, by uncovering the mystery within the 18 pages missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth's diary.

Perhaps even better than the first National Treasure, Book of Secrets is a terrifically entertaining (PG) flick the whole family can enjoy.

Three and a half stars (out of five) for National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Sometimes history hurts.

There are few holidays we can actually attribute to one man's vision. Kwanzaa is such a holiday – coined by Ron Karenga in 1966.

Who was Ron Karenga?

Glad you asked.

He is a convicted felon – sentenced five years after inventing Kwanzaa for torturing two black women by whipping them with electrical cords and beating them with a karate baton after stripping them naked. He placed in the mouth of one of the victims a hot soldering iron, also scarring her face with the device. He put one of her big toes in a vise, and detergent and running water in both of their mouths.

But that wasn't the beginning of the bizarre and violent behavior of Karenga, the patron saint of Kwanzaa – not by a long shot.

Just about the time he was dreaming up this new holiday, he was also inventing a new political movement on the campus of UCLA. That movement was called "black cultural nationalism." His group was called United Slaves. And it was defined mainly by violent confrontations with the Black Panthers at UCLA. Two of his followers shot dead two members of the Panthers in 1969.

But no sooner did Karenga get out of prison on the torture charges in 1975 than all was forgotten about his criminal and violent past. He was proclaimed Saint Karenga. Four years later, he was running the Black Studies Department at California State University in Long Beach.

How did he get that job in academia with his record?

Glad you asked again.

Paul Mulshine, who has done an admirable job of chronicling Karenga's history for FrontPagemag.com, has a theory.

Karenga had a jailhouse conversion.

No, he did not become a born-again Christian. He did not renounce violence. He did not even repudiate his past. But he did become a Marxist.

And, while becoming a Christian might have disqualified him for a role in the world of the modern U.S. university, a conversion to Marxism was perceived as a sign of rehabilitation. The one-time psychopath had seen the light.

In conclusion, I hope this little cultural and history lesson helps you see the light – about Kwanzaa. It's being taught to your kids in your government schools. It's become a commercial bonanza in black communities through the United States. And, now, even the president of the United States is praising it as a legitimate holiday.

With the media following its "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality in Iraq, let us not forget to report progress of all kinds from my generation's forgotten war - Afghanistan.

Airmen in a medical mentoring team here have been working hard to ensure the successful opening of an Afghan National Army hospital for the past several months.

The team’s original mission was to mentor their Afghan counterparts and teach them medical skills to treat Afghan military and police members, said Air Force Col. Mike Skidmore, the team’s senior mentor officer and administrator.

All that changed when the team arrived several months ago, he said. The hospital was 500 days behind schedule, and instead of finding equipment and eager ANA medical personnel, the team found an empty, incomplete facility.

"We had to move from a mentoring mission to a new mindset of equipping the hospital, opening it and then mentoring," said Air Force Col. (Dr.) Thomas Seay, the senior medical mentor and chief radiologist.

Most of the state-of-the-art equipment, to include a digital X-ray and digital ultrasound machines, were purchased by the United States, with some items – such as wheelchairs -- donated by a nonprofit organization based in Canada, he said.

The hospital is one of the most advanced of its kind in the southern region of Afghanistan.

"This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq."

- Harry Reid, April 19, 2007

"We sent other troops over there, and there are a lot of reasons the surge certainly hasn't hurt. It's helped. I recognize that."

- Harry Reid, December 21, 2007

Hat tip: Drudge Report

Of course, as I blogged earlier this month, Reid was denying the success of the surge as recent as December 3, 2007:

"The surge hasn't accomplished its goals," Reid said. "... We're involved, still, in an intractable civil war."

When top Defeatists like Harry Reid are finally admitting what most of us have recognized for awhile now, you know something is going - and continues to go - terribly right in Iraq.

In full disclosure, I was never a fan of the Wheel of Fortune. However, I am a fan of Pat Sajak's latest column and, in honor of the recent US Senate Report, have decided to make it this week's article of the week.

Man-Made Global Warming: 10 Questions by Pat Sajak.

1. What is the perfect temperature?

If we are to embark on a lifestyle-altering quest to lower the temperature (or at least minimize its rise), what is our goal? I don’t ask this flippantly. Can we demonstrate that one setting on the global thermostat is preferable over another? If so, what is it, and how do we get there? And, once there, how do we maintain it? Will we ever have to "heat things up" again if it drops below that point?

2. Just what is the average temperature of the earth? ...

3. What factors have led to global warming in the past, and how do we know they aren’t the causes of the current warming trend? ...

4. Why is there such a strong effort to stifle discussion and dissent? ...

5. Why are there such dramatically different warnings about the effects of man-made global warming? ...

6. Are there potential benefits to global warming? ...

7. Should such drastic changes in public policy be based on a "what if?" proposition? ...

8. What will be the impact on the people of the world if we change the way we live based on man-made global warming concerns? ...

9. How will we measure our successes? ...

10. How has this movement gained such momentum? ...

I think we can all agree, it was definitely time for GOP presidential nominee hopeful Rep. Tom Tancredo to abandon his presidential ambitions.

Rep. Tom Tancredo abandoned his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination Thursday and endorsed Mitt Romney's candidacy, saying the Massachusetts Republican "can go the distance."

...

After announcing he was dropping out of the race, Tancredo endorsed Romney's presidential bid, saying that Romney supported his stance on illegal immigration and national security and that the former Massachusetts governor could win the presidency.

I first heard about this gruesome discovery yesterday.

Blood-splotches on walls, chains hanging from a ceiling and swords on the killing floor — the artifacts left a disturbing tale of brutalities inside a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq torture chamber. But there was yet another chilling fact outside the dirt-floor dungeon. Villagers say they knew about the torment but were too intimidated by extremists to tell authorities until now.

...

The reports and tips now pouring in build a harrowing portrait of rule under al-Qaida and its backers: mass graves, ruthless punishments, self-styled Islamic courts ordering summary executions.

Such a lead brought soldiers earlier this month to the hidden room in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday. Graffiti on the building proclaimed "Long Live the Islamic State" — a reference to the Islamic governance, or caliphate, sought in Iraq by Sunni extremist groups that include al-Qaida.

Scrawled in white paint above a bed in the torture area was a Quranic phrase in Arabic normally used to welcome a guest. But the context suggested only sadistic mockery: "Come in, you are safe."

The floor was littered with food wrappers, plastic soda bottles and electric cables that snaked to a metal bed frame, presumably where detainees were shocked, according to the U.S. account of the discovery during a Dec. 8-11 mission.

The rooms "had chains, a bed — an iron bed that was still connected to a battery — knives and swords that were still covered in blood," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.

Nearby were nine mass graves containing the remains of 26 people, he said.

This sort of brutal reality should serve to remind us what true torture looks like. A far cry from the controlled interrogation techniques used by our intelligence services and exploited by the Left for political gain.