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Foreign Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson has criticised the proposed exercise of the Russian military in Icelandic aerospace, calling it “unacceptable”. The Russians announced on Saturday that they would be starting extensive military exercises, involving missiles, today. The exercises would have put a stop to all Icelandic air traffic for the next five days. Ásgrímsson called a meeting with a representative from the Russian Embassy on Sunday but received a very vague response. “It is outrageous to announce a military rehearsal two days before it is meant to take place,“ said Ásgrímsson to the press. “I am worried about this matter and ...

Sen. Orrin Hatch wants the American Bar Association to explain why a new study says it gives Republicans much worse ratings than similarly qualified Democrats. "This study raises serious questions about the neutrality and fairness of the ABA evaluation process," Hatch wrote Thursday to ABA President Robert E. Hirshon. Hatch, R-Utah, is the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The letter, which Hatch released Friday, came after Northwestern University Professor James Lindgren studied ABA ratings of Bush and Clinton nominees who had similar qualifications ? and found Bush nominees were given worse ratings. Hatch complained that the study ...

GOP state leaders expect legal challenges from Democrats over this year's redrawing of Utah legislative and U.S. House seats. Democratic lawmakers may have some big money guns in their legal corner. "We've been told by local and national Democrats that the Democratic National Committee has a fund out of which they will help pay" for federal court challenges to state legislature redistricting, said Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West. "In states where Democrats are in the minority (in the state legislatures and so didn't draw the plans) the DNC feels it has nothing to lose, and so will ...

(KSDK) -- It's been four years since Doctor Tom Sell, a Town and Country Dentist, was arrested for Medicaid Fraud. Since then, no trial, only long periods of solitary confinement at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Sell was a successful dentist for more than 20 years. But in May of 1997, his world came crashing down outside his Town and Country office. FBI agents forcibly arrested Sell in the parking lot and records show he had to be treated at St. John's Mercy Medical Center before being locked up. Sell has been indicted by a ...

An apparent mix-up has left the final $12.7 million in federal money needed to cover security costs for the 2002 Winter Games off Congress' budget next year.       And while Games organizers are confident the misunderstanding can be fixed, they've sent some of Utah's Olympic heavy hitters to Washington to make sure the last chunk of money they've been counting on for the past several months doesn't slip away.       Utah Olympic Public Safety Command Chairman Robert Flowers just returned from a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney ...

NOT ONLY are the economic sanctions on Iraq not achieving any of their stated goals, they are working in perverse ways. Let's count. 1) A decade ago, Iraq was totally isolated by the 33-nation Gulf War coalition led by the United States; today it is the U.S. that is isolated. The credit, or blame, for such a spectacular turnaround is not attributable to the wicked genius of Saddam Hussein but rather the peculiarities of American politics. Only Washington could have managed to so alienate its partners that Saudi Arabia, its staunchest Arab ally, and Turkey, a member of NATO, and ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Bruce BartlettQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comBruce Bartlett (back to story)September 11, 2001The elusive quest for growth In July, World Bank economist William Easterly published a widely praised new book, "The Elusive Quest for Growth" (MIT Press). In it, he is highly critical of both economic theorists and foreign-aid providers, including his employer, for failing to come up with a workable theory of economic growth or a means of implementing it. The fact that many developing countries are worse off today, by any measure, than they were 40 years ...

Howard Phillips: U.S. Builds China's War Machine Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 WASHINGTON - The Chinese military is growing in strength "month by month and year by year,” according to a prominent conservative leader who just returned from a visit to that communist nation. Furthermore, U.S. trade with China is, in his words, a "horrendous mistake,” and too many U.S. policy-makers refuse to believe the clearly announced hostile intentions of the communists. In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Howard Phillips, president of The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF), stopped just short of predicting outright war between the United States ...

For more than 20 years, people from Argentina to Zambia have conducted mass protests against the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Because those demonstrations have occurred in developing countries, to which the IMF and World Bank are not accountable, the institutions have largely ignored them. Americans knew little of the protests and little about the policies of the institutions. That is now changing as a worldwide global justice movement is increasingly linking citizen movements in industrialized and developing countries. In Washington, Mobilization for Global Justice has presented to the IMF and World Bank four interrelated ...

Howard Phillips: U.S. Builds China's War Machine Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 WASHINGTON - The Chinese military is growing in strength "month by month and year by year,” according to a prominent conservative leader who just returned from a visit to that communist nation. Furthermore, U.S. trade with China is, in his words, a "horrendous mistake,” and too many U.S. policy-makers refuse to believe the clearly announced hostile intentions of the communists. In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Howard Phillips, president of The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF), stopped just short of predicting outright war between the United States ...

(Washington) U.S. representatives and senators who strongly pushed for federally subsidized embryonic stem cell research have received more than $4 million in contributions from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which stand to benefit from that research, according to a Public i review of campaign donations in the last three election cycles. Members of Congress who are opposed to such government support also collected money from these industries, but not nearly as much as those who are now backing the experiments. The opponents also received several thousand dollars from groups fighting embryonic stem cell research -- but again, these amounts do ...

Did anybody see that anti-American, anti-gun, pro-Communist, propaganda show put on by the SeeBS called "Family Law"? This was the most hateful anti-American show I have ever watched in years!The show's basic premise was that a mother who had lost one son to suicide by gun was under court trial for having her other child removed from her because she bought another gun. The mother's lawyer's firm was trying to deny her representation because she had a gun and the law firm was anti-gun. A reluctant lawyer in the firm took the case, but the entire show spouted the usual ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Bill MurchisonQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comBill Murchison (back to story)September 11, 2001The politics of immigration The immigration question becomes more politicized than ever before in American history: which is a rotten shame, because if there's anything Americans should avoid, that thing is casting their country's future in terms of how Republicans or Democrats can pick up some votes. Instead of political advantage, the proper topic is the conciliation of two objectives that rub up against each other more and more abrasively. They are cultural coherence and economic freedom. ...

THERE ARE many good ways the world's leaders could respond to the concern about world poverty that underpins the anti-globalization protests. They could increase aid budgets, which have stagnated shamefully over the past decade. They could open their markets for agricultural goods and textiles, so boosting poor-country exports and blunting the suspicion that international trade rules are rigged in favor of the rich. But recently European leaders have shown more interest in reopening the debate on the structure of global finance, and in particular in a proposal first advanced 30 years ago by Nobel laureate James Tobin for a tax ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Jacob SullumQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comJacob Sullum (back to story)September 11, 2001End of the rainbow Despite what pot smokers say, it's not true that marijuana never killed anybody. It killed Grover Crosslin and Rolland Rohm. Crosslin and Rohm were shot to death during a five-day standoff with police at the Rainbow Farm Campground in Vandalia, Mich. Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood Jr. said the men, who lived at the campground together and were free on bail after being arrested in May on drug charges, had both aimed guns ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Marvin OlaskyQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comMarvin Olasky (back to story)September 11, 2001Remembering a President who practiced what he preached One hundred years ago this week, on Sept. 14, 1901, one of the greatest American presidents took the oath of office. When President William McKinley died at an assassin's hand, Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him. But "T.R." never would have been in that position had he not followed through on a different pledge three years earlier. In 1898 Roosevelt, as assistant secretary of the Navy, had pushed hard for the ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Debra SaundersQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comDebra Saunders (back to story)September 11, 2001You can't clone ethics Billionaire Jim Clark expects the world to applaud his decision to withhold $60 million of a $150 million pledge to Stanford as his protest against federal stem-cell and cloning policies. Children often think that when they throw a selfish tantrum others will understand and applaud. But the world rarely applauds. In this instance, Clark is a rich guy using his millions to make others bow to his will and squeezing innocents in the ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Linda BowlesQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comLinda Bowles (back to story)September 11, 2001Governor Reno: Lord help Florida If the rule of law were not more honored in the breach than in the observance, that hulking creature now paddling around Florida would not be running for governor; she would be in jail. That Janet Reno is considered a "viable" candidate to become the chief executive of the state of Florida is scary testimony to how far we have fallen. The American standard for public office has been set so low, ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: John LeoQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comJohn Leo (back to story)September 11, 2001Stealth language at the U.N. is dangerously undemocraticThe United Nations has another September problem now, smaller but in many ways more interesting than the race conference disaster in Durban, South Africa. The U.N. is wondering whether it should tinker with some abortion language to keep President Bush from boycotting next week's conference in New York on the rights of children. A roomful of diplomats stayed up half the night last Thursday scratching their heads about whether to ...

Jerry’s Kids I just took some time off. Not from my day job mind you, but from the word processing program, and that annoying, thin black line, blinking at the corner of an empty screen. During my sabbatical, I was far from surprised, but nevertheless delighted at the expected; a most talented treatise from a most talented man made my absence barely noticeable. He calls me his friend, which is a treasure I hold dear, then he proceeds to tell the whole world every intimate detail that I’ve ever confessed to him about my life in order to get some ...