A Primer on California Politics

Despite all the high-minded rhetoric and the giddy expectations when he was elected, the governor has let us down.

I think I speak for all of us here in California when I say we are bitterly disappointed that Sarah Conner is still alive and is destined to change the destiny of mankind when she gives birth to famed future resistance leader John Conner.

Also, I fully expected I would have received my state-issued Hummer by now.

All Arnold Schwarzenegger has really done of consequence since he was elected is hang around the Encino shopping mall, assuring citizens they need not worry about Sarah Conner anymore.

He also performs some other government-related functions, such as distributing cigars to political allies, issuing pronouncements against his enemies and releasing complicated documents that government analysts have identified as "state budgets."

As it turns out, these state budgets are very important items in the operations of government.

During the next several months, Schwarzenegger will be involved in a rigorous campaign known as the "budget process."

While important and instructive, the budget process is not quite as exciting as the time Arnold managed to massacre an entire tribe of warlords while wearing nothing but a loincloth made of animal pelts.

Unfortunately, we didn't elect Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was younger and still capable of swinging through the trees, at a point in his life where he could really help California.

Arnold is getting old. And nothing infuriates an old person more than rising taxes.

As a bonafide old person, Schwarzenegger no longer has the energy to worry about cold-blooded tribal warlords or the pending insurrection against Skynet, not while thieving politicians threaten to levy more taxes.

(Note to self: Include provision in living will allowing physicians to pull the plug when I become so infirm and useless and white that all I do is babble madly about taxes.)

Schwarzenegger's budget was released earlier this week, unleashing a torrent of boring newspaper stories that never once mentioned the word "groping."

Almost immediately, savvy Californians became aware that radical changes were afoot. For instance, they were shocked to see the governor's budget includes provisions in which Schwarzenegger will no longer be making appearances in Encino but instead will be showing up at the megamall in Azusa.

Nevertheless, Schwarzenegger's nagging political enemies in state government — known variously as "Democrats" or "girlie men" — are whining up a storm about his budget.

These girlie men, many of whom have never appeared in public in an animal pelt loincloth, are already whining about provisions in the governor's budget that will replace city libraries with Bavarian-style beer halls.

They are also howling about Schwarzenegger's proposal to consolidate the state's prisons with the state's school system. The newly-formed Department of Prisons and Education would be privatized, contracted out to the lowest bidder, to ensure the best value for California taxpayers.

The whiners have also questioned why Schwarzenegger's budget is mute on the question of Sarah Conner.