Props to Schwarzenegger? Yikes, let's hope not.

For those of you unaware of the goings-on a few time zones to the West, an explication: Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a "special election" in California for November 8th in a $50 million endeavor to pass a number of propositions. Specifically, those numbers are Propositions 73 - 80, and could conceivably have been put on the table during his bid for reelection in 2006, except that they weren't, because they are much more useful to him and his conservative base if they pass now. Why? Because they include curtailing the political activism of unionized employees, Tom DeLay-style redistricting, implementing a five-year probationary period for teachers (it's currently 2 years) and granting the Governator the ability to slash funding willy-nilly, which is unacceptable no matter how funny that phrase would sound in his goofy Austrian accent. Oh, there's also Prop 73, which would require parents or guardians to be notified before girls 17 and younger could get abortions (obviously there are cases where that would be untenable, to put it lightly).

There's a lot at stake in this election; Arnold's popularity is tanking and voters are fed up (did we mention that it's costing taxpayers $50 million?), but let's not forget that is a state that voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first place. So who knows what will happen. Either way, "Weekly Review" will probably write a song about it, if we can find something catchy to rhyme with "Schwarzenegger."

In the meantime, check out this handy primer for the gist of the issues, and watch "The Daily Show" mock the Governator here, along with the guy who wrote that handy primer, because let's face it, in order to be in politics in California you gotta be in pictures.

Disclosure: "Weekly Review" is friends with the primer-author-and-Daily-Show-Arnold-fighter mentioned above, insofar as one can be friends with a crazy California vegetarian.