California's favorite killer cyborg from the future cum governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, will run for a second term, guaranteeing those of us in the comedy business with jokes for seven more years.

"I'm going to follow through with this here. I'm not in here for three years. We're going to finish the job. I'm in here for seven years," he told crowds. Then he said, "And after that, I'm going to stay for seven more years. And seven years after that!" Smoke began to pour from Arnold's ears, and aides whisked him away from the stage. In a statement made later today by Arnold's spokesman, Miles Bennett Dyson, the governor was said to be "just fine. Couldn't be better. There was a short in one of his quadritonic optical subprocessors . . . I mean, he had a cold. Oh boy, I hope no one heard that."

Analysts had long theorized that Arnold actually was a cyborg from the future who had been reprogrammed to terminate -- via the electoral process -- bad government. "Of course he's a robot," said Dr. Raymond R. Pinchbeck of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. "I've been saying that for years. Ever since he made Jingle All the Way and his career didn't suffer, I said, 'Boy, he must be bulletproof.' Of course, I didn't mean it literally, but it turns out that, due to his metal endoskeleton, Arnold is bulletproof. But in theoretical physics terminology, he's gone totally bonkers."

But what could have caused Arnold's approval ratings to hit rock-bottom? Dr. Matilda M. Pyle of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign believes she has an answer. "Part of the way into his term, Arnold's positronic matrix suffered a minor failure at this redundancy checkpoint," she said, pointing to a diagram of what she believes Arnold's positronic brain looks like. "This particular failure, though minor, caused a checksum error that made him do strange things like cut benefits for teachers and veto gay marriage legislation. In computer engineering terminology, he's gone totally bonkers."

While President Bush could order the Army to come in and destroy the robotic governor for the safety of Californians, an unnamed aide said that was unlikely. "Since when did Californians do anything for Bush? You know how he loves loyalty. More than logic, more than reason, more than fiscal responsibility and a nice Christmas ham, he loves loyalty. Californians weren't loyal, so they can get what's coming to them for being with the terrorists. And besides, Arnold supported him in his second presidential bid. Who rewards supporters by calling in the Army to blow them up? Not this president, that's who."