In Texas, we caught a great idea.  Let the Texas Board of Education appoint 140 people to textbook approval committees but only let three of them be current faculty members at Texas colleges and universities.

TFN has identified more than a dozen other Texas academics — including the chair of the History Department at Southern Methodist University as well as faculty at the University of Texas at Austin — who applied to serve but did not get appointments to the panels.

But the TFN analysis found that political activists and individuals without social studies degrees or teaching experience got places on the panels. One reviewer, Mark Keough, a Republican nominee for the Texas House District 15 seat, got an appointment to a U.S. History panel after being nominated by SBOE chair Barbara Cargill. Keough, a pastor with degrees in theology, has no teaching experience listed on his application form. Keough recently retired from a career in car sales to run a ministry in Cargill’s hometown of The Woodlands and to run for office.

Yep.  Pass up an SMU professor for a used car salesman.  Them used car salesman, they know stuff.  Plus, he’s read the Bible, the only textbook you’ll ever need.

Not shocking, a group of academics studied the textbooks written by by the Committee of Perpetual Ignorance and found a boatload of mistakes.

Here’s one —

Text mentions Moses and claims that the “biblical idea of a covenant, an ancient Jewish term meaning a special kind of agreement between the people and God, influenced the formation of colonial governments and contributed to our constitutional structure.”

Well, I’ll be John Locke’s monkey’s uncle.  The opposite is true.

They are real big on Moses and the Ten Commandments being the basis of all our laws.  Yeah, and that’s why not honoring your parents is a felony offense.  And that saying Good Lord will cost me a fine.  I also need to mention that we could pretty much empty the House of Representatives if adultery laws were properly enforced.  Does anybody know how many states have coveting laws?

Of course “thou shalt not bear false witness” is only against the law if you’re under oath, not producing a teevee ad for your reelection.

And, the Second Amendment and the NRA pretty much try to undo Thou Shalt Not Kill.

So we’re left with not stealing.  Oh hell, that only counts if you’re poor.  If you’re stealing banks accounts, mortgages, and the stock market you’re exempt.

Moses plan didn’t work out too well with the Founding Fathers.

They need to put me and slingshot on that committee.

Thanks to Tina for the heads up.