In fact, looks to me from the above quote that the whole article is just an excuse to use what is a neat example of Trek continuing to have an effect on the myt

In fact, looks to me from the above quote that the whole article is just an excuse to use what is a neat example of Trek continuing to have an effect on the mythos of our age as a stick to beat on Texans, probably because most of them don't see eye-to-eye with the author. I think his point was that here is a cool geeky thing, preceded by a paragraph about how he feels about Texas government, which I agree isn't really relevant.