Free Republic

Road plans in Texas have conspiracy theorists in an uproar I am driving along a mostly empty road in rural Fayette County, Texas, about an hour east of Austin, looking for the NAFTA superhighway -- the one that Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón mocked as a conspiracy theory when they were asked about it at their trilateral meeting in Montebello, Que., in August. Critics, who say that behind the leaders' denials lurks a larger, nefarious plan to unite North America, fear that such a roadway will eventually be a four-football-stadium-wide artery connecting Mexico, the U.S. and Canada,...

St. Mark's Hospital, a brand new facility which opened in June of 2005 in La Grange, TX with state-of-the-art facilities, is already running a $2 million deficit due to "indigent care" (read illegal immigrant care). A member of the La Grange Lions Club has told South Texas News correspondent Mene Upharsin that hospital administration officials visited the local La Grange Lions Club and reported that the healthcare facility, which features the latest technological advances in x-ray, sonogram and MRI equipment, has the huge funding disparity due to primarily illegal immigrant care and Medicare changes by the government leading to a...

Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow over whose medical care a family tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case has been raging, has been transported from the hospice in LaGrange, Ga., to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, according to her nephew, where "she is receiving food, fluids, cardiac care and neurological help." This morning, Magourik's nephew Ken Mullinax, who had been fighting to have his aunt removed from Hospice-LaGrange in LaGrange, Ga., where, he said, she had not been properly fed or hydrated, contacted WorldNetDaily with this phone message: Because of your articles and all of the friends of...

LaGrange has its own feeding tube controversy, with family members at odds over medical care for an 81-year-old woman at Hospice LaGrange. Ora Mae Magouirk has been in hospice since March 22, suffering from what granddaughter Beth Gaddy described in court papers as dementia, an aortic aneurysm and a blood clot. ...cont on link

Probe to 'look inside' asteroids By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff in Paris, France Studies of asteroids would aid Earth-protection strategies A new space mission concept unveiled at a Paris conference aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved. The perceived threat of asteroids colliding with our planet has renewed interest in space missions to understand these...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 24 Our Busy Solar System Credit & Copyright: MPC, CBAT, Harvard CfA, IAU Explanation: Our Solar System is a busy place. Although the major planets get the most press, a swarm of rocks, comets, and asteroids also exist. The above plot shows the placement of known inner Solar System objects on 2002 July 20. The light blue lines indicate the orbits of planets. The green dots...