Vote For Me!

California Governor Gray Davis, shown here saying the Pledge of Allegiance while heiling Hitler.

California. When most people think about this famous state, they imagine lavish swimming pools, famous movie stars, and Jethro Clampett flabbergasting Mrs. Drysdale with his zany bumpkin antics like in that one episode where the Beverly Hillbillies were invited to the lavish social event and he ended up raping the chandelier. California is the land of fruits and nuts, sun and fun, hugs and drugs, guns and ammo, and illegal Mexican immigrants who always hang out at the mall even though they never actually buy anything. Unfortunately, this great state has recently fallen into economic despair, a drought many claim was spurred by the election of Governor Gray Davis. Governor Davis is responsible for many dastardly bumbling actions which include (but are not limited to) the following:

He decided to make the California taxpayers pay to send illegal Mexican immigrants to public school (Proposition 187), supported discrimination based on race, sex, color, and ethnicity (Proposition 209), sold most of southern California to the Japanese in exchange for a steak knife set and free access to the pay-per-view cable channels (Proposition 409), and once killed a man in Tucson just to watch him bleed (Proposition 666).

He spent around $40 million of taxpayers' money on Oracle software that they didn't need, which is to say "any and all Oracle software available." Ha ha, that's just a little joke at the expense of our buddies in the database industry! Thanks for playing along!

When California ran out of energy back in early 2001, Governor Gray Davis opted to "not solve the problem" instead of doing what many industry analysts suggested, which was "solve the problem." The state was under nonstop blackouts, brownouts, and shutouts, yet he refused to build more power plants and ultimately decided to spend all the state's budget on ceramic pig figurines.

He did something to something else and that resulted in a $40 billion deficit which he proposes to solve by putting a tax on breathing and forcibly ejecting all smokers into the Pacific Ocean.

After murdering a room full of babies, he proceeded to inject a newborn puppy with heroin and light it on fire while chanting Satanic mantras and Electric Light Orchestra tunes.

As a result of these aforementioned events, most people in California tend to not like Governor Gray Davis, as you can see by this poll which takes the form of a line graph that was converted to a pie chart by the magic computer gnomes who live in my attic and tell me which one of my cats conspire against me:

NOTE TO SELF: BEFORE PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE, POST A PIE CHART HERE. ALSO, DON'T FORGET TO TAPE "SEX AND THE CITY" BECAUSE YOU'RE A TREMENDOUS FAG, RICH "LOWTAX" KYANKA

I just realized that I lack both a poll or pie chart, so let me just throw out a few numbers to support my point: 47, 2018, 12%, 92-23, G-34, 9. After a few years in office, many California voters realized what a colossal mess Davis was converting their colossal mess of a state into, so they decided to recall him and dethrone the Governor from his position of King Hotpants. When I write "many California voters," I am naturally referring to the 19 frenzied conservatives of the state who have taken to creating hundreds of thousands of rabid Republican websites by using pseudonyms such as Jake "FREEDOM SHOULD BE FREE" Kingston and Reginald "CITIZENS FOR A UNITED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" Q. Freedom III, Esquire. Somehow they convinced the higher authorities that they had 1.3 million signatures, mostly from people named "Moe Lester" and "Reginald 'CITIZENS FOR A UNITED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA' Q. Freedom III, Esquire," thereby allowing them to hold a special recall election which could possibly usurp Davis and install a new Governor who will continue to make empty promises and wave at crowds of people even if they don't wave back. Hopefully he'll work the word "usurp" into his victory speech because that sounds like really cool alien lingo.

This cartoon is a poignant political message, although I'm not exactly sure why or how.

Now the prospect of firing the guy who ran up a $38 billion deficit may sound good on paper, but there are a few key flaws in this battle plan, the main one revolving around the fact that California is currently the state of California and will probably continue to be at least for the foreseeable future. Having lived in California for a good few years of my life, I can honestly vouch for the fact that many people living there aren't exactly sane. I would claim many of them are insane, but I've never seen any insane people who are as grotesquely tan as the average California citizen. Did you know that nobody in the entire state has gotten a job since 1979? It's true; the government pays 86% of the state to sit in traffic on the I-405 from 3:00 AM until 2:58 AM of the following day, and the only reason they disband at 2:58 is because the California State Department of Tearing Shit Up reserves the subsequent two minutes so they can drill holes through the middle of the road with diamond-tipped laser cannons in order to prove their scientific theory, "Is the Earth Filled With Delicious Chewy Nougat?" Don't take my word for it though; let me offer up a brief list of Californians who are running for Governor and you can decide for yourself:

Larry Flynt - Flynt is a crippled fat man who makes pornography (that doesn't feature himself, praise the Lord) and has a lot of money and naked women at his disposal. This makes me hate him because I am jealous and would like either a lot of money or a lot of naked women, although I would politely decline the opportunity to become crippled if presented the offer. Flynt was shot in 1978 while protecting Ronald Regan from the infamous DC sniper Lee Harvey Oswauld, resulting in his paralyzation from the third chin down. He claims that he "took a bullet for the First Amendment," which loosely translated, means he's nuts.

Representative Darrell Issa - Nothing much is know about this man besides the fact that he has a large, football-shaped head. He's either a Republican or Democrat. Oh yeah, he's a white male too. I don't want to forget that key fact.

Mary Carey - Porn actress whose political experience includes "fucking men" in addition to "fucking women too."

Gary Coleman - The big surprise here is not that the washed up midget from "Diff'rent Strokes" decided to run, but that he was able to scrape up the required $3,500 needed to apply for governor. What does this guy spend all day doing? Did his buddies Alf and Carrot Top manage to get him a deal with 1-800-CALL-ATT or something? If so, can all three of them contract SARS and be banished to Monster Island for the rest of eternity?

Arianna Huffington - Bird / woman hybrid with red hair and a fiery disposition... in bed.

Michael Huffington - Gay former Republican who was married to Arianna Huffington. I once dated a woman in college who, after we broke up, promptly became a lesbian. I keep telling myself this happened because I was so good in bed that she knew no other man could possibly compare to me, so she gave up our entire gender and decided to begin dating women who resembled pit bulls with crewcuts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger - Star of countless box-office smash movies such as "Terminator," "The Running Man," "Hercules in New York," and "The Jayne Mansfield Story," Schwarzenegger has the most recognition of any candidate in the race. This is because if you try to forget his name, he will come over to your house and threaten to bodyslam your children into the coffee table. Then he'll make some clever play on words like "tables turned," even though there were clearly no tables turned and that phrase makes little to no sense. Nobody knows his views on any political issues because scientists have so far failed to invent an English-to-Schwarzenegger translation machine.

How ABS-olutely charming! Ha ha! Because he has big abs, that's the joke you see.

What a motley crew of political candidates! You'd think with such a dynamic cross-section of people that the race would be tight and exciting, like a 16 year old's vagina crammed full of Pop Rocks, but it's just a crazy zoo of political animals! And just like in any zoo, the assistance of a zookeeper is required to stop the monkeys from throwing poop at each other and trying to run for Governor. I, my friends, believe I can be this zookeeper, and therefore would like to announce my plans to run for Governor of California. Before my political rivals like Gary Coleman and the son of the guy who played the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz" try to denounce me and begin a smear campaign, I would like to admit a few facts. First of all, I do not live in California, nor would I move there if elected. Secondly, anything negative that anybody has ever said about me or will ever say about me is untrue and the only reason they're saying bad things is to cover up the fact that they molest children. Finally, I would like to point out that my father's name is "Richard Kyanka" as well, so if you do a search and come up with some incriminating arrest warrants, they could probably be for him, particularly the indecent exposure at the Jack In the Box restaurant last October. With that out of the way, let me tell you what I stand for and what I will do if elected Governor of California, unless of course if I forget, which is a very distinct possibility at this point:

I will legalize all guns, from assault rifles to automatics to those WWII mortars that can only be transported via train and are used to blow up entire mountain ranges. To offset this, I will enact a "murder tax" and charge anybody caught killing somebody a penalty fee of $10,000 plus tax. This money will go to finance schools for retarded children that also double as long distance target ranges.

I will lower the price of a carton of cigarettes to $5.00, but one in every 15 cartons will contain a clown who leaps out and stabs you in the throat with a straight razor while shrieking "better luck next time, Jacko!"

Electricity will be cheap and bountiful after I pass a law to hook a particularly thick extension cord into the center of the sun. Any Sun People attempting to stop me will find themselves banished to Monster Island with Gary Coleman and that puppet from Melmac.

State revenue will be generated by beating up nerds and taking their lunch money.

Anybody who attempts to run against me in any election will be charged a "loser's tax," which will apply to every purchase they make anywhere. Not only will this cut down on an unnecessary amount of people running for election, but it will also raise money which I will use to irradiate ostrich farms and turn them into 200-foot tall mutants who will take over surrounding "enemy" states like Nevada and Italy.

The California state bird will become "a lobster." I figure this will be an excellent conversation starter for any native Californians at parties. They'll be able to walk up to a particularly attractive member of the opposite sex and casually say, "hey baby, my state bird is the lobster" and that raw animal magnetism will cause the member of the opposite sex to start swooning so hard that their love juices will instantly flood the entire room.

Volcanoes, earthquakes, and mudslides will become illegal. I don't know why anybody hasn't done this before. It's about time we put a stop to these economy-crushing menaces.

I will enforce racial quotas on all violent street gangs so they can better reflect the gangs featured in Disney Channel specials. This will require each gang to consist of at least 50% white people with gigantic poofy hair and jean jackets, 10% "really really fat men who eat all the time and provide the comic relief," and one computer-savvy Internet user who hacks into rival gangs' computers and places viruses on them which cause an animated skull and crossbones to appear whenever they try to check their Hotmail account.

I will force Rush Limbaugh to fight Michael Moore on Thanksgiving of every year, televised on live TV. The state will earn money through product placement ads on both contestants' asses.

All homeless people will be forced to become butlers for low-income housing residents. A state-approved inspector will visit them once a month to check up on them and shout, "you got a damn house now, how do you like it?" in their ears.

These are just a few of the many, many exciting political issues I plan to lobby for once I become Governor of California. I'm sure there are a whole bunch of other positively super ideas I had earlier in the day, but I seem to have forgotten them around the time I ate all the frozen custard at lunch today. It's this kind of proactive attitude and "can-do" American spirit which makes me the obvious choice for Governor. My motto is: "in a world of porno kings, gay former Republicans, kindergarten cops, and professional sluts, isn't it the wise choice to elect an acne-prone webmaster?" Kinko's said this slogan is too long to put on a button, so once I'm elected to office I'll be sure to tax the hell out of them first. Then comes the furries.

Holy Shit: A Good Star Wars Game!

Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons here with breaking news! BioWare in conjunction with LucasArts has just released the first good Star Wars game in more than a hundred years! Okay, maybe not quite a hundred years, and maybe this isn't breaking news, but "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" is really good and you should probably read my review of it.

Assuming you're not a girl or a homosexual you probably made a male character, which means Bastilla is your character's potential love interest. Play your cards right and you'll be professing your love for one another after only about fifty awkward conversations about the Jedi code. She can be pretty annoying with all of her talk of rules but I've got to admit that her Elizabeth Hurly-like English voice gives me a serious boner.

I command you with the power of Force Domination that this IS the review that you're looking for.

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)