aggienaut: (gavel)

   In my five years of involvement in ASUCD, I have seen a lot of extremely shady antics. As I’ve mentioned before, I do not believe power corrupts, I believe power allows the already-prone-to-corruption to show themselves. There are a lot of scandals in real government, and students love to point these out – but what most people don’t realize is that its not because the people involved in our government are more prone to corruption than your average person – its that they have much greater opportunities (and are under much much greater scrutiny, thus revealing every indiscretion).
   That said, I believe what ASUCD does is show us how badly your average ambitious person behaves when given a little bit of power. Or at least, when not behaving downright badly, it really exhibits how much their perspectives change to what is convenient for them.


The Good List
   Unfortunately, those with exemplary good ethical standards don’t necessarily stand out the way bad ethics do. I would like to start on a good note however, by mentioning those who have impressed me with their ethics:

Surprisingly Admirable:
(ii) Ari Kalfayan )


(i) Nafeh Malik )


Exemplary Nonstudents:
(ii) Don Dudley, SJA & CJB )
(i) Mark Champagne )


Actually Exemplary:
(5) Go Funai )
(4)
& (3) Justices Powers & Wheat )
(2) Jon Leathers )
(1) Aggie Editor-in-Chief Matty Jojola )



   It should be noted, that I cannot account for the most EFFECTIVE people in ASUCD, since I am not in a position to judge how well people are running the busses or running GASC etc etc. The above is a list of those who have had the opportunity to show exemplary ethics (or at least, for the group above that, have more value than people give them credit for). And below, below is a list of the most lacking in ethics.


ASUCD’s Most Ethically Misguided

Mildly Annoying:
(iv) Paul Harms )
(iii) Kalen Gallagher )
(ii-i) Sara Henry & Paloma Perez )

Ethically Dysfunctional:
(22) Thomas Lloyd )
(21) Anyone who, during their term, abandoned or defected from the platform they were elected on )
(20) Jamie Ackerman )
(19) Chris Goran )
(18) Mary Vasquez )
(17) Aggie Reporter Talia Kennedy )
(16) Aggie Reporter Aimee Theron )
(15-11) Aggie Editor-in-Chiefs Vo, Whelan, Fuller, Stone & Hamilton )
(10) Andrew Peake )
(9) Kai Savaree-Ruess )
(8-6) The Unqualified Candidates )
(5) Rob Roy )
(4) Kristen Birdsall )
(3) Chief Justice Turner )
(2) Vice President Beaman )
(1) Tiqula Bledsoe )
(BONUS) Bonus! )



   And now… I probably have significantly more enemies. It should be noted that I think many of the people mentioned above are very nice people in general. In particular I feel a bit torn about the “Unqualified Candidates” themselves because they all turned out to be pretty nice people and kept themselves out of any further shadiness that I know of, but it would be hard to justify not including them on the list.
   Anyway, my hope in posting this is that people who are just becoming involved in ASUCD will read it and keep in mind what NOT to do in the future.

aggienaut: (soldiers)

Highlights From the Case # 31 Hearing
   On Tuesday we had our hearing for Case # 31, Van Schoelandt v. ASUCD Senate. The Defence was represented by Greg "the big city lawyer" Russel, while Hanging Chad Van Shoelace represented the plaintiffs. I was taking the minutes, so of course they are excellently recorded. Due to my inability to properly prioratize however, my attention to the minutes probably had an inverse effect on justice in general.*
   Anyway, without giving away any secrets, I thought I'd share with you some highlights from the hearing.
Witness Thomas Lloyd: "Unfortunately [Senator Ari Kalfayan] had the floor, and was probably the most confused of all of us."
Witness Avi Singh: "[Senator Ari Kalfayan] has a demonstrated history of not doing things correctly"
Court: “Was anything damaging said [during the Closed Hearing?” Singh: "I don't remember. ...so my girlfriend, she had a job. We were very terrible for this association. She had to work at 6am. Got soup thrown on her while she was here, said she wasn't going to come anymore. But if she didn’t show up she’d get checkmark on her background. You gotta keep your head up. I have no idea where I’m going with this [pause] I'm going to Harvard law school!! [applause]"
   "...I feel bad because I told Greg I'd prepare for this but I don't really remember...
"

   Also of note was how other justices were going back and forth with Lloyd about what it means to be a co-author and then I read him our definition of co-author from Case 22 ... which was followed by Singh saying he thought our definition of co-author was completely bogus, to which I read him the conclusion of Case 22, which asked the Senate to redefine co-author.
   Then he pointed out that he was unlikely to know of a 2003 case since he wasn't involved in ASUCD back then. A good point which inspired me to write Judicial Directive 11 later that night. It lists the orders of the cases since Fall 2003 ... and establishes that all are responsible for knowing them.

See Also: Plaintiff witness Jonathon Leathers posted an account of the hearing. We of course take no responsibility for the views expressed by this plaintiff witness.

*Actually the minutes probably suck and it would be a compliment to justice if there was an inverse effect.


Wiki Adventures
   So I have to be ready to give a 5-7 minute informative speech on something cultural tomorrow for my introduction to public speaking class. I've chosen to do it on Daviswiki. I need at least three sources, one of which comes from something scholarly like a book or scholarly journal article (any suggestions?) and at least one visual aid. For the visual aid I'm thinking of trying to wrangle powerpoint into displaying a picture of the front page of Daviswiki or something.

   In related wiki news, Daviswiki's sister wiki, Rocwiki, which is hosted on the same machine and uses the same code, recently surpassed the 2,000 page mark.

   In more sordid wiki news (which don't worry I won't be covering in my speech), it seems just when we thought things had quieted down, contention has once again broken out on the Halema Buzayan page. Previously unknown user "NancyGrisby" has burst onto the page with guns blazing, vehemently defending Officer Ly. E-detectives have determined that the IP address of all NancyGrisby's edits has come from the Sac State campus, which interesting is where Officer Ly's brother goes.

   Also, curious as to the excessive amount of comments to "Charity Classic" I investigated and found there to be a raging debate about the water shortage in Africa. Interesting.


   On the subject of Africa, yesterday while I was marauding the Farmer's Market I was waylaid by someone who was going around handing out flyers for a protest of the genocide in Darfur. And not just passively handing out these flyers but very energetically seeking out everyone she could find to flyerize them.
   Now the thing is, the genocide in Darfur is caused by the ethnically Arab Janjaweed militia, not-very-secretly backed by the Sudanese government, trying to drive out the non-Arab native inhabitants of the region (which isn't to say there are no Arab native inhabitants). This conflict is of course intricately linked with the Chad/Sudan conflcit I've been covering. Pretty much everyone, the United States included, agrees that the Darfur conflict is a Bad Thing and put the utmost pressure on Sudan to behave itself. And so, my point, is that it is utterly useless to protest the situation here. No one here thinks its not a bad thing. There is NO chance that even the 7th cousin of someone who once was the roommate of someone who is responsible for whats going on there is EVER going to know there was a protest at UC Davis, much less care. And so this falls firmly into the category of things I find infuriatingly dumb.
   At least its not actively counter-productive like the movement to cause the UC Regents to divest from Sudan.

Picture of the Day


This is what AMPAC ESCWA 2006 might have looked like discussing water access in Africa
and its affect on the Darfur Conflict



   Mara recently got some pictures from our committee's Lebanon. As you can see, MUN is FUN. Note in this one the tall blonde guy -- he (Iraq) was totally on MTV's "Date My Mom." And Mara & I causing a ruckus at the dias.
   Also, it turns out Mara's friend Megan ended up falling madly in love with the lad she met when they visited Davis, or something, so she's coming up for picnic day & dragging Mara with her -- so Mara will be here for picnic day!

In Other News
   So Kristy works as a kitty technician at a feline nutritional research lab. Basically they feed cats stuff and observe the results. Nothing weaksauce. Anyway they were supposed to get a shipment of this raw meat cat food the other day ... only employee Olivia opens it to find LIVE LOBSTERS!!?! It was suspected that an order had gotten mixed up and somewhere a fancy restaurant was opening a box of Wild Kitty Cat Food.

aggienaut: (tea)

   Tuesday was Kristy's apartmentmates Becca and Eli's birthday, so they had themselves a party. I had meetings until late so I think I missed most of it (it was happening pretty early for a party as well... but then again, the hosts had midterms the next morning at 10am), but when I got there were still a lot of people there, and a number of people took body shots. Shortly after I arrived however everyone else piled off to go to the bars. After we dropped them off at their destination, Kristy and I returned to the apartment and Kristy went on a baking frenzy to whip up a delicious cake/brownie/thing for them.
   Shortly ASUCD Senator Ari Kalfayan and another guy showed up with Eli, heaved him onto the couch, and departed (documentation).
   Eli proceeded to remain totally passed out for the remainder of the evening. While holding his head over the trash-can Kristy discovered that his anime hair was soft like the fur of a cat.


Picture of the Day


Apartmentmates Kristy, roommates Eli & Becca, and Jadine
not pictured, Chrissy (center here, between MY apartmentmates Ben & Jason)



Previously on Emosnail
   2004-10-10:
Sashiepalooza 2004 - RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED: and gratuitous references to the early development of 35mm cameras
   2004-10-12: Political Speculation - polls indicate the majority of readers rate the mentality of this livejournal as either anarchist or communist, while no one thinks its green party (except former president Sara Henry apparently). Also among other things 64% of respondants would rather be a marmot than a narwhal.
   Year Ago Last Thursday: Running From Breakups - probably the last time I've gone for a run. Also, the first sign that the university is screwing with me again shows up when my bank account suddenly reads -$991.17
   Year Ago Last Friday: I Get Expelled From UC Davis - I find out that not only did the university cash my last check twice somehow, they then EXPELLED me! WTF. One of those things is bad enough but to do them both is really fucked up. After rampaging the bureaucracy like a viking berserker I get them to admit I was expelled due to a computer glitch and they fix it all up. They nonchalantly mention that happens sometimes, which I think is kinda scary. Also got the money thing fixed.. weird thing is I don't think these two mistakes were at all related. When all is said and done I find I've been bounced into a class I was previously number 30 something on the waitlist of. At least one glitch worked in my favour.
   Year Ago Last Saturday: Randomly Selected for More Screwing - I go to financial aid to find out whats kickin now that I'm undeleted, and am informed I've been "randomly selected for verification," which means they won't disburse financial aid to me until I get a whole new load of paperwork done. Seriously, why do you hate me UC Davis?

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