In The Girls From Planet 5, published in 1955, the United States elects a female president by 1988, and soon enough, women are running the whole country! The novel's main character, Dave, doesn't mind too much — until his girlfriend gets the job he was in line for, and becomes his boss! So Dave moves to Texas, the only part of the country where men are still men. You can't vote unless you can rope a steer, and they'd never let someone like Ann Richards be in charge. (Oops.)

Anyway, in 1998, a group of female aliens from Planet 5 land on Earth, accidentally killing a bunch of people in Alexandria. Despite that little misunderstanding, the aliens appear friendly, and the citizens of "Biddyland" (which is what Texans call the rest of the U.S.) welcome them with open arms. Only the Texans, who are nominally still part of the U.S., view these visitors with suspicion and ask pertinent questions like, "What happened to their menfolk?" Turns out the young sexy aliens are really being controlled by older, ugly aliens. And are therefore evil. Only the independent-minded Texans can save us!

Over at Crooked Timber, John Holbo has a fantastic review/summary of this prophetic novel. He even typed in some paragraphs of breathless prose, including the part where a woman says "I spunkily made myself a drink." And then she insists that women actually can vote in Texas, and she was roping and branding steers long before most of these dudes. Anyway, in the end, Texas hero Sam Buckskin rounds up a posse, and they go to rescue the rest of the country from these nasty femaliens, before it's Too Late. [Crooked Timber, thanks Gregory]

The Texas Board of Education voted on Friday to remove the universe's age from the state's educational standards, used as source material for the state's school textbooks. According to Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, this decision is a backdoor entrance for creationists and fans of intelligent design:

The goal here was to make science more tentative and vague so that teachers have room to tell students, 'This is only one explanation and the scientists are not even sure about it themselves' – which is, of course, utter nonsense.

The decision was only one of many made on Friday, and sadly, only one of many that suggested an anti-science agenda (Other decisions included specific language requiring scientific explanations on evolution to be "evaluated" by students and teachers, ominously enough). Chair of the Board Don McLeroy testified to the reason why that may be the case at the meeting:

I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts.

That's right! Standing up to experts and facts is exactly what the chair of an educational board's job is supposed to be! Well, at least there's always the internet to fill in gaps in these kids' education...

Texas vote leaves loopholes for teaching creationism [New Scientist]

The road signs, which normally warn drivers about traffic conditions, displayed these warnings: "Zombies ahead . . . the end is near . . . run for cold climates!" Some signs also warned of Nazi zombies. While city officials claimed to FOX News that the tampering could lead to jail time, nobody is going to get in trouble for warning the world about zombies. The company that owns the signs, Sterling Construction, would have to file a complaint with police for any legal action to be taken. Sterling owner Wayne Haggard told local KVUE-TV, "It's Austin. We have a sense of humor. Let it go."

Though Austin officials claim that an act of direst hacking was required to tamper with the signs, sign-hackers say that isn't true. Most of these signs, including the ones owned by Sterling, have a default password. Anyone can walk up to the sign, type the default into the control panel, and reprogram it.

There is a reason why some say default passwords are a hacker's best friend. However, I would argue that our pranksters haven't really done an impressive hack until they've either brute forced a non-default password, or figured out a way to route internet traffic through the signs. Come back to me with your "sign hacking" when you've turned one of these road signs into a zombie computer, OK? That way, instead of flashing "Zombies ahead!" the sign would flash its normal message but send the "Zombies ahead" warning to your iPhone.

Not that I am advocating anything unlawful. I am just trying to suggest a better zombie warning system.

SOURCES:

Dallas News (with clip from KVUE-TV of the signs)

FOX News

Local geologists think drilling activities could've caused the hole, which was still growing as of Thursday, and threatening to consume a main highway nearby. Turns out, Daisetta is sitting on top of a giant salt dome, which is great for trapping oil. But drillers have a tendency to circulate salt water back down the holes the bore, which scientists think might've dissolved the dome and caused the collapse. Here is a photo of a shallower portion of the sinkhole, with barrels floating in it.

That's just a theory, though — how sinkholes form is a bit of a mystery of science. Some people think unusual groundwater percolation can carve out an underground cavern that suddenly collapses. Either that or the angry Earth could've sent giant Sarlacc worm-plants to eat all humans and digest us in excruciating pain over thousands of years.

Source: Associated Press

Non-Sarlacc images via AP.