Good morning Hank, it's Friday, October 26th. Today I'm going to discuss the political situation in Nepal while eating five sheets of toilet paper.

Our story begins in 2001. Nepal is a constitutional monarchy. It's in the middle of a lot of political crises, the biggest one of which is that there are all of these Maoist rebels who are trying to take over the country.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Maoist rebels? Maoist rebels are the contemporary insurgency, what like Friendster is to contemporary social networks. Nobody has Maoist rebels anymore. I mean, someone needs to phone Nepal, tell them that it's 2007, that they need to get some, like, Islamic insurgencies, or some small random ethnic group that wants independence.

The country's in the middle of this civil war with all these Maoist rebels, and uh, the crown prince wants to marry a girl. Now, it happens the girl the crown prince wants to marry is in the wrong clan, and so his parents are opposed to this. And so the crown prince reacts the way, you know with the sort of, like uh, calm, thoughtful, reaction that you would expect from a crown prince, which is that he gets a machine gun and proceeds to kill pretty much his entire family. He kills his mom, he kills his dad, he kills a brother, he kills a sister, he kills like two of his aunts and two of his uncles, I think he killed some cousins. And then he shoots himself in the head, which is a little bit suspicious. But anyway, when you're in a constitutional monarchy, Hank, you need a king or a queen, and the guy just killed like pretty much the entire family, right? So they've got a problem.

Hold on, I've got to swallow.

And then like one of his uncles who didn't get shot somehow, uh, became king. Now, there's a longstanding theory that the uncle might have in fact done the shooting, uh, to become king. Although, as it worked out, being king of Nepal--not that great of a gig.

Eventually twelve thousand people are killed in this civil war, and then finally in 2005, the king announces, "I am going to be God! There will be no more constitutional monarchy!" He dissolves the Parliament. But of course that's like really hard to do, it doesn't go that well, and there are pro-democracy protests in 2006. So eventually the king brings back the Parliament.

In late 2006, the Maoist rebels, uh, and the Parliament kind of have a talk and they agree, no more fighting. Eventually, the Maoist rebels come into the government and take some seats in Parliament. There's relative peace, even earlier this year they said that there were going to be elections in June, everyone's like, "Yes! Elections in June!" They were totally psyched, the king had become just a figurehead king.

*cough*

Hold on.

I just swallowed a lot of toilet paper all at once.

So then at the last possible second, they decide, no. No, no elections in June of 2007. We're going to have the elections in November of 2007. And then about a week ago, Hank, you know what they announced? They announced that they didn't want to have elections after all.

And the Maoist rebels, having left the government now, are now threatening to start a civil war again. So things are very perilous right now, and what we need is serious international intervention. A few days ago, the security counsel announced that they were really, strongly opposed to Nepal not having elections.

I just swallowed my fifth piece of toilet paper! Yes! I am the toilet-paper-eating king of the world!

Hank, as a quick P.S., the first thing that comes up when you Google 'how to eat toilet paper' is a woman asking the following question: "I just caught my husband eating toilet paper? I asked him why he was eating it and when I asked him about it again, he said, 'Moisture reduces volume.'"

It's true that moisture does reduce volume. Anyway, Hank, if that woman happens to be a nerdfighter, it just so happens that I know what's wrong with her husband. He has pica (pee-ka), or pica, I don't know you pronounce it. Pica or pica is a disease in which you eat things that aren't food. It's a little bit weird, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. I mean this stuff is kind of delicious. I'll see you Monday.