The Berkeley riots confirm that anyone, from California to Greece, will go nuts if budgets are they're going to be pinched.

But the California rioters did get an audience with Governor Schwarzenegger this week. And it turns out Arnold had a brilliant line to them:

LA Times:

Schwarzenegger told the students about the proposal he'd made in January for a constitutional amendment to prevent California from spending more on prisons than universities. He blamed the prison guards' union for driving up costs at the state's lockups.

"They are a force," he said of the union. "They are very powerful."

Brilliant! He's telling the students that they should blame a union -- not the typical enemy of radical students.

Now the whole prisons vs. universities amendment sounds kind of arbitrary, but the prison guard unions are a major force in the state, and arguably are a huge reason the state drove itself off a cliff.

Here's a quick backgrounder.