Being Human

It was dangerously irresponsible for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaking to a crowd of tax protesters, to suggest his state might want to consider secession from the United States, writes columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. Doesn't he know there are folks on the fringe who just might take him seriously? Those of us who do not live on that fringe can only mourn this new reality in which ideology supersedes country. [Or, maybe it's just beyond your comprehension, Lenny?]

There was almost no pomp and circumstance to welcome the 19 crew members of the Maersk Alabama to the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center yesterday morning -- at least none visible to the public. Instead, the courageous mariners who survived a pirate attack on the Indian Ocean last week spent their first full day on U.S. soil eating a buffet-style breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns -- and answering questions from the horde of reporters....

Thousands of people rallied at the state Capitol as part of a National Tax Day Tea Party to protest excessive government spending. Thousands Attend OKC 'Tea Party' OKC Tea Party Web Site Join Our u local Community Get Wireless Alerts! Capitol Patrol officers estimated close to 4,000 people gathered Wednesday on the south steps of the state Capitol. Similar events were held in communities across the state.

Holding signs bearing phrases such as "We the People, Not 'I' the Government" and "Obama, Pelosi, Reid, The Axis of Taxes," protesters gathered Wednesday at the Centennial Park in downtown Bartlesville as part of the nationwide National Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations — numbering nearly 800 across the country — protesting government spending, taxes and growth.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has thrown his support behind a growing movement to rein in the federal government by resurrecting the 10th Amendment, which reserves to states "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution." "I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state," Perry said. "That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states' rights affirmed by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...."

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered the rescue mission off the Somali coast that ended in tragedy when a young French yachtsman was killed as commandos stormed a vessel being held by pirates, releasing his wife and three-year-old son. For the first time yesterday, details emerged of an extraordinary rescue operation piloted from the Elysée Palace. It involved three French warships, a German frigate and the airdrop of dozens of French commandos some 400 miles off the African coast.

A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the September 11 attacks. In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled that there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. "It was probably her birth-control pill," she thought. She was right. Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal's office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.

An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.

It would require identification such as a driver's license or military identification prior to voting. The legislation would also give voters the option to show their free, county-issued voter identification at the polls. Senator Ford says it's critical to keep the integrity of our elections. Senator Ford, R-Bartlesville, says, "Is there evidence of widespread voter fraud in Oklahoma? No, there's not." He goes on to say, "We want to be proactive and not wait until there is a tainted election to make a change that's going to prevent that."

The first phase of the Pentagon's plan to regrow soldiers' limbs is complete; scientists managed to turn human skin into the equivalent of a blastema — a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into new body parts. Now, researchers are on to phase two: turning that cellular glop into a square inch of honest-to-goodness muscle tissue.

With the world swirling about it, the House took a moment Thursday to honor pi, the Greek letter symbolizing that great constant in mathematics representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Ten children at a day care center drank windshield wiper fluid after a staffer served it from a container mistaken for Kool-Aid and placed in a refrigerator, ... Doctors estimate the children, ages 2 to 7, drank about an ounce of the blue fluid ... Only one child remained hospitalized Friday morning, after blood samples showed "measurable levels" of methanol,...

The bill House Bill No. 246, Indiana State Legislature, 1897, reportedly set the value of pi to an incorrect rational approximation.