That must be what it is, Tom, that makes you so dismissive. Kansas isn't on either Coast, neither the Right Coast nor the Right-leaning Left Coast.

You also have been -- it seems to me -- studiously, intentionally ignoring the posts on this subject, in which the details of the hearings and the history of the makeup of the Kansas State School Board have been clearly delineated.

In 1999, a majority of the state school board voted to downplay evolution. They were voted out in the next election, and the teaching of evolution was restored.

This year, a subcommittee reviewing the state's science standards wrote a report calling for no changes in the way evolution is taught. But eight of 26 members wrote a report critical of the teaching of evolution, and the conservative majority on the school board set up the hearings to investigate the accusations in the so-called minority report.

That's from this article, to which I linked last week.

In 1999 the Kansas Board of Education caught the nation's attention when it voted 6-4 to downplay the teaching of evolution. The board removed many references to evolution from the state standards, which allowed local districts to decide whether they wanted to teach it.

A leader for the evolution supporters declared that day that “Kansas just embarrassed itself on the national stage.”

The vote that year (reversed two years later) was fueled by young-earth creationists. They believe that God created the universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days, according to the Genesis account, and that the Earth isn't more than 10,000 years old.

But among those who were lobbying before the state board were three early proponents of intelligent design: Harris, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a lipid researcher at St. Luke's Hospital; John Calvert of Lake Quivira, a lawyer with a degree in geology; and Jody Sjogren, a former area resident with a master's in science.

The three met and soon founded the Intelligent Design Network Inc. The grass-roots group holds conferences and works with supporters in other states.

In 2002, Calvert traveled to Ohio. He and other design supporters persuaded the state board there to adopt language that required students to analyze certain aspects of evolution.

Calvert said the Kansas changes would go further because they were laced throughout the standards. He is serving as the attorney for the group of eight.

The proposal in Kansas is supported by the Discovery Institute, a think tank based in Seattle.

That's from this article, which I also linked to last week.

See also: tonight's NBC Evening News.

You rely too readily on "percentages" for a sense of comfort, Tom -- as if what you perceive to be a lunatic fringe group, even farther to the Right than you, will never grow -- so there's no reason to oppose them, or even be concerned about their existence. Interesting, that you indulge in this particularly unfortunate hand-waving on the 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

There was a time in Germany, you know, when only one in a hundred was a Brown Shirt...

The only reason this is news now is because the Left wants to paint all conservatives as psychotic troglodytes.

No -- it is news because it is happening Now, and whether or not you consider it worthy of notice, it's right next door to me, and smack in the middle of dtb's lap. If they win in Kansas, who's next? California?

Don't make it so easy to be painted as a troglodyte, Tom -- come out of your cave.