The best satire works because it has a ring of truth to it; it goes just a little further than the truth. The Pi=3 April Fool's joke was funny because a fundamentalist-inspired legislative attempt to redefine Pi to its Biblical value in a southern state is implausible, but not very implausible. After all, requiring that pi be 3, because the Bible says it is, is only slightly worse than requiring the earth be 6000 years old, because the Bible says it is. I wish it were a joke that the Louisiana and Arkansas legislatures legislated the teaching of Young-Earth Creationism in the last quarter of the twentieth century, but it's not a joke.
And again, because it's not so far from the truth, I really can't be too harsh with people who were taken in by the Alabama pi=3 story.
I would like to know which alleged "group" advocated for the redefinition of pi to pi=3. I tend to think it is a rumor as well. What is the documentation for that statement in the book? Does the author have any? I suspect his source is as reliable as donh's?
Did you get your T-Shirt yet?