A pat on the head for Texas

It's easy to deride Texas, they give us so much material. Whether it's their constant promotion and encouragement of institutionalized ignorance, their governor's low level insanity and penchant for using his office as a platform to execute innocent men and pander to teabaggers, or Colt McCoy getting injured and Alabama molesting the Longhorns on national TV, the state is funny. 'Trainwreck'/'finding humor in the horror' funny, but funny.

But when the state manages to do something good, it is our duty to point it out and praise them for it. You remember Don McElroy, right? He's the man that was spearheading the effort to rewrite Texas' textbooks to not only espouse unscientific creationist nonsense, but rewrite history book as some sort of conservative/Republican promotional tool and elevate Reagan and Jerry Falwell somewhere above George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in American historical importance. This essentially meant that textbooks would be rewritten for dozens of states. Well, he's going to have to look for a job.

Social conservatives on the State Board of Education suffered a setback with the primary loss of former board chairman Don McLeroy, but the group still aims to have its say on setting new curriculum standards.

Mount Pleasant Republican Thomas Ratliff edged out McLeroy in the GOP primary Tuesday for the board seat...Ratliff's campaign was based in part on reducing the influence of the board's social conservative bloc.
...
Ratliff, who got 50.5 percent of the vote, said his long-term goal is to help move the board back to a strong focus on education and remove politics from the process.

Good luck with that. Congrats Texas, you've moved one step away from what we all thought your societal future was: loinclothed, ten gallon hat wearing cavemen shrieking at the sun for cursing the cattle with ill omens.

We aren't going to thank you too hard, Ratliff won by 50.5%, McElroy still has seven fucking months to damage the brains of children, and let's not discount all the damage he's already done, but it seems you are dimly aware of the predicament you are putting yourselves into.

So, mild congratulations abounds.