News Ticker: October 9

Greg Abbott romances the ladies, Todd Staples enters the ring, and Dowser Dan falls in with the wrong crowd. Conservation is on the News Ticker.

• On Tuesday, Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott told an El Paso crowd that "there is nobody in the state of Texas who has done more to fight to help women than I have in the past decade.” Without wascally Abbott, Texas women might have never known the joys of mandatory ultrasounds. Women love those things, right?

• In other Abbott news, his gubernatorial campaign is pushing limited edition "Don't Tread on Me" bumper stickers. Thank goodness that politicians are now imitating the Beanie Baby business model. We were afraid they were out of touch.

• Meanwhile, Pat Robertson's glue factory CBN News has a fawning portrait of the Republican frontrunner. Maybe it's the clothes he wears or the way he combs his hair. Like an ethical lapse, he's just their style.

• Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples debuted his first ad, which shows the Lite Guv candidate fighting against gun control, environmentalism, Democrats, immigration reform, and a particularly troublesome length of barbed wire.

• Clemson University has apparently dedicated a study to Lance Armstrong's lack of Twitter strategy following his confession to Oprah Winfrey that he had (surprise!) used performance-enhancing drugs. The data gleaned will be useful to every American when they inevitably gain fame through by cheating and subsequently fall from grace in the most public way imaginable. It's a wonder the "God particle" physicists were even considered for the Nobel Prize.

• With the shortage of pentobarbital, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is stockpiling propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, pixie sticks, baby aspirin, viagra, spanish fly, and anything else that will keep that ole death machine rattling.

• U.S. Rep. Al Green was among those arrested for blocking a street during an immigration protest. Apparently, there are limits to "Let's Stay Together."

• Much like the Disney movie that shares his name, Rep. John Carter suffers from incomprehensible plotting.

• Sen. Barbara Boxer says that the investigation into the West tragedy is being delayed due to the federal government shutdown.

• Texas gubernatorial candidate Lisa Fritsch is not your lover, she's not your friend. She is something that you'll never comprehend.

• Can we call for a moratorium on cow puns being used to describe Texas politics. We think journalists have milked that for all it's worth.

• Despite Gov. Rick Perry's bullying tactics, Travis County Commissioners are planning to bill the state for Public Integrity Unit expenses. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg also billed Perry for a wonderful steak dinner she had recently, but we think that was just to mess with him.

• Now that former Sen. Rick Santorum is heading Flower Mound's holy cinema enterprise EchoLight, don't expect "cheesy Christian film." No, no, they'll give you stories about magical candles starring Susan Boyle – just the sort of stuff Scorcese would make if he wasn't afraid of the Hollywood mafia.

• Houston attorney Robert Miller is alleging that Democratic superfans Steve and Amber Mostyn are behind a plot to get Tea Party activist Debra Medina to run for governor. Less plausibly, he also theorized that the Mostyns were probably behind the Voynich manuscript as well.

• Neiman Marcus has released its annual love-letter to the 1%. Gifts this year include an overnight stay in architect Philip Johnson's Glass House, a whirlwind trip through blood diamond country, and the weird space travel device used in Jodie Foster's opus Contact.

• We're not sure about Dowser Dan's new friend Barry Breakwater. Wasn't he the one who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964?