It must be sad and hard to be a textbook in Texas.

Last year, the school board was trying to cut evolution out of them.

The year before, they were removing references to pollution, global warming, and overpopulation.

Oh, and now the phrase "married partners" is not to be used, because it's too general and could include gay couples.

And health/sex ed books contain no mention of contraception. At all. Did you know that Texas is the #1 ranked state for teen pregnancy? I guess it's like football: they're going to hang onto that championship.

There's a name that keeps coming up in all of these dreary efforts to send Texas spiralling back in time to the Middle Ages, as if it were Bruce Campbell, only without the cool, and this time he's fighting on the side of the Deadites. The name is Terri Leo. She's a real piece of work. She's been working like a maniac to gut textbooks; she's even tried to get publishers to add little "facts", like "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use, and suicide." She's a perfect example of anti-science, anti-intellectual, intolerant bigotry, and yet there she is, on the state board of education. That's like hearing that Richard Dawkins has been elected by the College of Cardinals to the papacy, or that the new head of the NIH is Bluto Blutarski. She just doesn't belong there.

Her web page is weirdly dishonest by omission. She doesn't mention her jihad against evolution, or her desperate desire to pretend that teenagers will obey her rather than their hormones, or how much she despises gay people, which seem to be the key elements of her reputation. Instead, it looks like an exercise in subtle irony.

During my tenure on the state board, I have resisted efforts to lower the academic expectations of high school students in Texas…

Yeah, honey, and the Discovery Institute is a scientific research organization. Here, pull the other one. Tell me how much Brian Leiter loves you.

The real tragedy is that this ghastly dim harridan is guarding the gateway to the second largest textbook market in the country, and she's leading the publishers around by the dingus. They're trying to put up a fight, but money is a persuasive argument, and no one can afford to just throw away a customer that big. So I have a suggestion: how about if every other state in the union agreed that if a textbook were watered down enough to meet the standards of Texas, it was then inadequate for use in their school systems? It's getting to the point where publishers need to put out two editions of every book, one with reasonable academic standards for markets like California and Minnesota, and a "for dummies" version for Texas.

Sorry, sensible residents of Texas. Nothing personal, but that (brain)deadweight you're carrying is just dragging the rest of us down. And it's hard to be sympathetic after you inflicted GW Bush on the country. (Hey, I just realized…we're not at the bottom of the pillar of scorn. The way the rest of the world looks at America is the way many of us Americans look at Texas! And just as we hope the world doesn't see all of us as idiots, have no fear, I know that not all Texans are knuckle-draggers.)

Also: Gen. JC Christian has a few criticisms for Mrs Leo.