Back in 1984, if you had bet Bulgaria would in 2004 host a convention of European free market think tanks including many from what were then communist countries, you probably would have been given very good odds.

Yet during the last days of October, a remarkable conference -- the First European Resource Bank -- was held in the pleasant ski resort of Borovets, Bulgaria. This "Resource Bank" essentially was a convention of European free market think tanks. Representatives from organizations in 20 countries came together for mutual support, communication and cooperation.

How do you think the sanctimonious people at TV's "60 Minutes" would portray a company charged by the FCC with "serious indecency violations," that made expensive settlements with employees and others because of injuries related to asbestos and other hazardous material exposures, underfunded its employee pension, is legally accused of securities violations, employs those who widely distributed forged documents in an effort to destroy political opponents, failed to dismiss or discipline employees who violated the company code of conduct, owned offshore enterprises that paid little or no U.S. corporate tax, and operated in and/or dealt with countries harboring terrorists?

The company that engaged in all of these practices is Viacom, parent company of CBS, which produces "60 Minutes."

The folks at "60 Minutes" remind me of the preacher who damns the sinners every Sunday, but then is caught in the brothel.

This is a letter to his friends from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq. To The Point has determined its authenticity and updated its factual claims, verifying them with USAID and the Pentagon:

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home.

And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently:

The Kerry Democrats have in reality proposed the platform most contrary to economic growth and jobs creation in U.S. history. They are betting the news media will be too dumb or willfully blind to notice and the Republicans too incompetent to explain the reality of the Democrats' proposals to the American people.

The Democrats have handed the Republicans a golden opportunity to set forth a true economic growth and jobs creation plan. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear the Bush administration and the Republicans have the skills and bold thinking to take advantage of the opportunity presented.

The Democrats are good at selling falsehoods, and the Republicans are lousy at selling the truth.

Comparing U.S. President George Bush with Winston Churchill may seem a stretch. Yet there's a parallel -- not with Churchill of the war years, when he was the "free" world's most admired leader, but with Churchill of the 1930s when he stood alone, warning about the rise of Nazism.

Then, pacifism was rampant in Britain and Europe. Hitler's aggression was rationalized by wishful thinking. Peace at any price.

Except for Churchill. He began warning that the Nazis must be stopped when they occupied the Rhineland in 1936. He urged an alliance of Britain, France and the Soviet Union to stop Hitler's expansion. He was called a warmonger, an enemy of peace, reviled in print and in speeches. Few stood with him.

History has proven Churchill right.

Despite enormous and continuing denial on the part of left and liberal ideologues and the media, we are facing an exceedingly pathological strain of Islamofascist terrorism. So a crucial question must be asked: from a psychological and anthropological point of view, what kind of culture produces human bombs, glorifies mass murderers, and supports humiliation-based revenge?

According to Minnesota based psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, it is a culture in which shame and honor play decisive roles and in which the debasement of women is paramount.

In Moslem culture, during the Daheyah (Sacrifice) feast, Moslems bring a lamb into the home for a ritual slaughter accompanied by the invocation Allahu Akbar, “God is great,” in the presence of the family and the children. Now we see the Daheyah of radical Islam to be Jews such as Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, who were beheaded with no mercy, accompanied by the same pious invocation. This is a perversion of Islam, but don’t expect an apology.

To expect the Arab and Moslem leadership to apologize for the barbaric murder of Nick Berg is a reflection of the West’s naive and wrong expectations of Arab culture. In the Arab world to take responsibility and say “sorry” is taken as an unmanly sign of weakness that may get one into more trouble.

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.