I had dinner with well-known global economist David Hale the other night, and investment guru James Dale Davidson. The conversation was literally all over the map, settling on Ukraine and Romania as two of the brightest prospects for locating brand-new investment opportunities. And Iraq.David was particularly excited about a small company that has just made a large deal in Iraq - more precisely, the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan. “I know the company’s principals and have been watching it for some time” David explained. “It’s selling for $7. This thing is an easy quadruple.”

As Tony explains here, the just-passed intelligence reform bill is a dog’s breakfast. The best news about its passage is that Duncan Hunter (House Armed Forces Committee Chairman) managed to neuter it at the last moment. By inserting the wording that the NID - the new National Intelligence Director or Intelligence “Czar” -- in carrying out his duties "shall respect and not abrogate the statutory responsibilities of the heads of the departments," Duncan made sure that a good General Counsel from a subordinateAgency/Department can drive a Humvee through an NID directive if need be. --JWSo it is to be a Czar of all the Intelligence Services. All the president's men have engulfed the remaining opposition to the intelligence reform bill and seen it passed with strong bipartisan support. Like its namesake, The Czar of all the Russias, our new czar is likely to begin what will become a very mixed record.

While the focus of the world is on Ukraine, Putin’s Russia, Iraq, nukes in Iran, et al, it has become obvious to a small number of folks in Washington that the world’s most dangerous man is not in any of these places and is off most everyone’s radar scope: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.Imagine Fidel Castro in the prime of his life with billions of dollars of oil money. Given his pathological hatred of America, what do you think he would spend his money on? Suppose he thought the President of the United States was trying to knock him off - how do you think he would respond?

This is the transcribed text of a speech Newt gave to a private meeting of conservative leaders I attended in Washington last week. --JW Thank you very much. This is a very important group which is a big part of how we ended up beginning to be - I emphasize beginning to be - the natural governing majority of the country and so it’s a thrill for me to be here.I want to give you a very brief outline and then I’m going to take questions for most of my time because just looking around the room I know how many interesting personalities are sitting out here. It’ll be more fun to interact with all of you.Here’s my outline. I have a book that’ll be coming out next month called Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America It makes the following core argument: that we are entering the fourth cycle of a growing conservative movement. The first cycle was Reagan defining the majority. The second cycle was the Contract With America creating the majority. The third cycle was President George W. Bush deepening and reaffirming the majority. The challenge now is to have this fourth phase growing the majority out so it becomes a more natural governing majority.

[Marc Sageman, M.D., was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987-89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. He is the author ofUnderstanding Terror Networks(University of Pennsylvania Press:2004), and is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Dr. Sageman’s research, based on 400 psychiatric case histories of Moslem terrorists provides a fascinating insight into the cause of Islamofascist terror. -JW]Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority—90 percent—came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that’s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect. A few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.Far from having no family or job responsibilities, 73 percent were married and the vast majority had children.At the time they joined jihad, the terrorists were not very religious. They only became religious once they joined the jihad.