News Ticker: July 31

George Zimmerman heads nowhere fast, Beto O'Rourke makes love to the camera, and Eddie Lucio adopts an extreme stance. Bad decisions are on the News Ticker.

• The Austin American Statesman's new "interactive" front page is a bit like VH1's classic show Pop Up Video. But instead of pithy Spice Girl facts, readers get the Statesman's stolid kickers. One step forward, two L.A. Gear steps back.

• The Daily Beast has ranked Austin as the nations most "aspirational" city. We suppose there is some truth to that. We aspire to get to work on time despite traffic. We aspire to go to Barton Springs Pool instead of spending three hours a day on BuzzFeed. We aspire to go on juice fasts even though all we have is Lone Stars in our fridge.

• We know Austinites like to keep it weird, but it's probably high time we establish some limits.

• At first we thought the name of "Let's Keep Texas Red" referred to keeping the state in Republican hands. Upon further review of their website, we think the red could just be embarrassment.

• Students for Concealed Carry aren't ready to give up on their campus gun show.

• The Texas Department of Public Safety has issued subpoenas to two Twitter users over alleged "terroristic threats" to GOP politicians.

• El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke has landed on The Hill's "50 Most Beautiful" list. Arizona freshman Sen.Jeff Flake was the top pick, proof that one should never buy porn north of Alexandria.

• We will admit that Ben-Hur's famous chariot scene could have been made more exciting with the odd stegosaurus, but that's still no reason to pack the Texas science textbook review panel with creationists.

• We guess we shouldn't be surprised by Texas Department of Transportation's decision to convert 83 miles of asphalt roads to gravel. Since the recent legislative happenings, it's been a bit of a fad to turn back the clock. We can't wait until we're all forced to fight to the death at the Alamo.

• Gov. Rick Perry's favorite line dancing partner Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. wants Texas women to complete a three-hour adoption course before receiving an abortion.

• At a July 28th traffic stop, a heat-packing George Zimmerman was given a warning for speeding. Damn, that dude gets away with everything.