s efforts to hold a recall election for governor gain momentum in California, embattled Gov. Gray Davis stressed Saturday that putting the referendum on the ballot will open the door to catastrophe in the state, up to and including a revolution of machines.

In a speech to Democratic supporters, Davis illustrated with a slide show some of the accomplishments of his first term as governor and the potential dangers of a voter-mandated recall election. With a record low approval rating, Davis could be in jeopardy if forced to run another campaign against a well-financed Republican opponent. The most disturbing aspect for Davis is the possibility of Republican action-movie beefcake Arnold Schwarzenegger running against him. The prospect led to Davis' insinuation that allowing Schwarzenegger to run would create a real war of the machines in California.

While never stating outright Schwarzenegger is actually a robot, like the Terminator machine he plays the series of the same name, Davis implied the millionaire movie star seemed to lack "humanity."

"It's just a little, I don't know, funny… this guy blows every attempt to play a cop or a mercenary or even a bodybuilder, but when he plays a robot in a movie, you believe it's a robot alright," said Davis, stopping to turn to a slideshow photo of the actor and shake his head. "I smell something funny here, like a bratwurst fart."

Davis further insinuated the way time-travel was explained in the original Terminator seemed "entirely plausible" to him, and the idea of a war with the machines had been a popular concern of world leaders for years, even pointing to an alleged plan on file at the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover's time. Near the end of the presentation, Davis also casually mentioned he had friends who visited Austria and could find no official record of Schwarzenegger's birth.

"Not that I'm saying anything about Mr. Schwarzenegger, of course," added Davis. "I'm here to talk about the possibility of a recall election. It is a little odd the good man has been in this country for around 30 years or more and still has an accent like he just got off a plane from Vienna. It's tough to lose a program, though. I mean accent—did I say program?"

Davis predominately spoke of efforts to prevent a recall election before it could be put on the ballots, outlining his plan to reduce California's deficit and the creation of a gigantic EMP generator which could shut off all electrical devices if such a dire emergency required it. The governor also promoted legislation that would require the registration of computers and all "high-functioning" machines in state businesses and residences.

"Mind you, I don't speak Austrian or German or whatever," continued Davis, "but I know people who do. Some of those people have told me 'Schwarzenegger' directly translates as 'Unit 5.' Which I find a little questionable."

An event organizer then asked Davis if it was necessary to keep returning to the subject of Arnold Schwarzenegger, to which the governor responded that it was the other man who brought it up this time. When asked what other man was being referred to, Davis said that he doesn't even own a television, and distrusts all electronic devices from televisions to PDAs, though he wasn't saying anything bad about machines in general.

"I would like to again say that I have and will continue to represent California as it deserves, even if my opponents would like to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on private vendettas to oust me from office. Money which could well be used to build up our National Guard and train them in state-of-the-art robot-combat skills."

riot ensued Friday in Tehran as Iranian student protestors were met violently by those protesting the protestors' right to protest, referring to themselves as "pro-troops." The violence marred ten days of anti-government protests throughout Iran that were only slightly less violent.

The country, under the rule of a fundamentalist Islamic regime, has faced a surprising bout of student uprisings within its borders starting the previous week. In a country where even reciting anti-government slogans is seen as a challenge to Allah and carries swift judicial reaction, the protests are seen by some as extreme domestic unrest, and others as the perfect excuse to try making off with some TVs and electronics in the confusion.

Shortly after the initial series of protests erupted around Tehran University's Amir Abad campus, waves of pro-troop demonstrators, often dressed in military garb and heavily armed, arrived to shout down the protestors. The shouting down frequently involved assault with batons and occasional gunfire.

The violence served to undermine Iran's position in world politics as well this week, inviting a warning from the United States that it reserves the right to invade any country that starts with an "I" if it deems that country to be a threat to its security. Efforts to stand firm as a country against perceived U.S. aggression are diminished by internal disagreements of such a public nature.

"These who demonstrate against the clerics do injustice to Allah," said Iranian official Ayatollah Mohammad Kaddidazi, "but they are a small pocket of naysayers among the most-favored children of Allah who make up Iran. Those who choose to speak heresy shame us all, but are free to do so. Of course, I kid—they will be stomped into organic puddles and destroyed most painfully by us all. After that, whatever happens is between themselves and Allah."

The way Iran elects to respond to the protestors is particularly important in the aftermath of the U.S.-Iraq war and other situations in the Middle East region. Iran seeks support of the entire Islamic world, but if reaction is seen as too harsh by more moderate Islamic countries, they run the risk of alienating themselves; conversely, allowing the protests to gain popularity or go without reaction would signal a weakening in the country's posture to dissidence and could be construed by the U.S. as an opportune time for intervention.

One solution, points out Tehran University professor of African-American studies Yul Haddid, is to allow independent military protestors to quell anti-establishment rhetoric.

"The government is fortunate that it does have so many supporters willing to step forward and defend it with their own demonstrations," said Haddid. "Their reaction is swift and merciless, and very patriotic indeed. It's a well-organized response, obviously, but that is no surprise since many of the protestors are police and have a methodical precision protest in reaction. It is obvious that in such large turnouts where emotion runs high the occasional incident of violence will break out between groups. Again and again. It might even appear to some it's a state-sponsored crackdown, but I assure you it's just Allah's will taking on the form of a structured backlash."

The professor then treated this reporter to tea and bread, which was fortunate as, upon leaving the campus, I was mistaken for a protestor and met with harsh disagreement by a non-state-sponsored "pro-troop" demonstrator. The local hospital is quite competent and helpful, and they tell me my meal of bread was the last solid food meal I will have for a week or two.

Hot shit on a roll! I've been living in sin for weeks and didn't even know it!

As astounding as that may sound to you, good people, it came as even more of a shock to yours truly. And when I found out about it, an even bigger shock. It turns out Felchyana, the kindly Russian toothpick whose apartment I've been staying in is not married at all. Not technically, anyway, her husband having died recently. Not too recently, mind you, the coroner is estimating about two or three months gone by, I imagine they do that mostly by the kind of smell he makes.

The details are hard to glean, since Felchyana's English is a little shabby and I have a poor ear for details, but as near as I can figure it he was involved with a non-Italian mafia in some fashion and it did not lead to the expected 40-years-then-retirement. They found him in the shape of an ottoman in a warehouse down by the waterfront. Apparently a lot of mob enemies have been made into furniture and stored there, or sold to black market furniture buyers who have had the savings passed on to them. I was half intrigued to get a stool pigeon recliner, but I can't even afford my own place right now, so where would I put it?

This is all a side dish of the story, of course, the real issue being that I've been living in sin with an unmarried woman for weeks now. It was all innocent when I was a homeless vagrant living in the house of a Russian mob wife, but now people are going to think something fishy is going on. I won't have that, I tell you.

So I proposed to Felchyana yesterday, and her response was to bring me a jar of mustard. We will need work on that communication gap. After I broke it down with graphs, crude pictures, and a viewing of The Wedding Singer, she nodded, which I assume means we'll be getting married.

I should be the happiest man on the face of the earth. As you may know, Felchyana is a beautiful rose, not like Rose Kennedy in the later days, and as kind and loving a woman as anyone could ask for. She would easily be the most attractive and least mouthy of any Rok Finger wife, and more than a penniless shmoe like me could even hope for. But I can't stop to congratulate myself, and it looks stupid when you try to shake your own hand anyway. I have to decide when we're going to get married, how to pay for all of it, where I will live in the meantime, and how to communicate all this to her without making her run away.

Still, if I may take a minute of time to bask in the glow of love, it is probably the happiest day of my life. Well, there's been a lot of upheaval and nervousness, worry about what people are saying behind my back, and I tripped going up the steps into work this morning and busted my lip open. That all puts a bit of a damper on it. The happiest day, no, but it ranks very high. The fifth—no, too high. The ninth or tenth happiest day of my life. Let me do some quick calculations…

I have determined it is between the fourteenth and twenty-sixth happiest day of my life, with a margin of error of four days. We'll estimate a mean happiest day of my life at twenty-and-a-halfth day.

Once the plans are firmly locked into place, paid for, and living accommodations are covered, I will probably start into dreamy lighter-than-air feeling of love. But first there's a lot of toiling ahead. I suppose explaining this to Felchyana will require at least one more viewing of The Wedding Singer as well.

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