THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And McClatchy has a report on the currently known results.

"There is absolutely no U.S. government plan for a NAFTA Superhighway of any sort," said David Bohigian, an assistant secretary of commerce. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a powerful member of committees that would authorize and pay for a NAFTA Superhighway, if one were being planned, dismissed the notion as "unfounded theories" with "no credence."

And yet: A pending congressional resolution condemns it. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks darkly of "secret funding" for it. Nativist commentators fulminate against the four-football-field-wide behemoth as a threat to private property, national security and "a major lifeline of the plan to merge the United States into a North American Community," as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote.

Responding to denials, Rep Virgil Goode, R-Va., the chief sponsor of the House of Representatives resolution opposing the NAFTA Superhighway, scoffed: "I've heard that line before. They're just calling it something else. ... It's a decrease in our security and an erasing of our borders."

Goode is hardly alone: His resolution has attracted 21 co-sponsors, from both parties....

.... Here's what Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, told a New Hampshire audience: "They already have a plan for a highway running from Mexico up to Canada, a 12-lane highway with trains running in the middle. It's going to be an international highway. And there's been some secret funding already into our budgets to start this program moving. There's going to be eminent domain powers used to confiscate tens of thousands of acres to build this."

Variations on the theme abound.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan says it will be a 10-lane highway, not 12, but adds that it will include oil and gas pipelines.

Life was so much easier when they just put flouride in the water.