The Agrinautica

Time Limitations
   First day of the quarter and I made the front page -- or at least our current case did, but I was mentioned.

   While I was on the Third Floor, Senator Thomas "Llord of the Sith" Lloyd enformed me that he'd be "writing legislation so the Court can't delay cases anymore." I informed him that we were handling the case as swiftly as constitutionally possible (Hearing is on Tuesday, the first day since the case was filed for which we could provide the required three academic days of notice). He really ought to learn to be a little more diplomatic, there's a million ways he could have said that without sounding accusatory and misinformed. "I want to set a time limit for how long you can take to decide a case" he continues. Me: "There currently is one, its ten academic days and we've always had a hard time staying within that" "well it should be seven calender days then." This of course was all thoroughly discussed two years ago, and it was intentionally set at academic days to prevent the event of a case being unaddressable through being filed on the last day of a quarter such as this one was.


Elections Committee to Run in Election + a hamster
   The current case (#28, Harney v. Leathers) addresses the fact that allegedly candidates in the recent ASUCD election were not in fact qualified to run for office. This quarter we will have another ASUCD election, and in brilliant act of parody the Elections Committee itself (seen massacring the previous elections committee in this picture from the archives) has been said to be running for office.
   The slate consists of the Elections Committee members, an alumni, and a hamster. The official statement of the slate, parodying a hypothetical argument of the currently disputed candidates, is that while it may come to be realized that the alumni is not eligible for office, he will have by then been voted in, and if he had been told he was ineligible in the beginning he could have enrolled and become eligible. This closely parallels the current situation where it is disputed as to whose fault it was that the candidates were on the ballot and what they would have done had they known they were ineligible, if indeed they were unaware.
   The slate's platform includes "Transform ASUCD into an explicit Kleptocracy, and purchase an Elections Committee Kleptoc-mobile," and " A huge raise for Alex Park and the rest of Creative Media, because "its not who votes that counts, it who counts the votes," and " Replace Sword and Sandals with Freemasonry as the official secret society of ASUCD. There were at least 15 US Presidents who were Masons; how many were in Sword and Sandals?"
   The staff here at Emosnail would like to recognize that this ingenius act of satire brilliantly combines parallels to current events with extreme hilarity. We therefore would like to award this satire with the highest honours, The Sacred Order of Trogdor (seen here being awarded to Daviswiki founder Philip Neustrom in a traditional Order of Trogdor ceremony). This of course does not in any way constitute an endorsement of the intended political implications of the satire or the political goals of persons associated with it. Emosnail would, however, like to suggest that the Stonecutters be made the official secret society of UC Davis.


Jesus: ineligible as well?.
   In other news, whether Jesus Christ ever existed is set to be determined by a court in Italy. The plaintiff --a former priest, and author of a book asserting Jesus never existed-- is suing the church for "abuse of popular belief" and impersonation. Plaintiff asserts that Jesus did not exist even as a historic figure, but instead is based on one John of Gamala. Under Italian law, as plaintiff Cascioli has made a prima facie case that Jesus did not exist, the burden of proof is now on the church to prove that he did in fact exist. (source: CNN)
   Now I want to read his book. I've heard it said before by other former priests as well, that most of the bible is just synthesis of other myths and legends from other religions which were extent at the time of its compilation.


Picture of the Day

Kristy got new kitty pajama pants for Christmas

   Today the ASUCD Elections Committee had to answer to two complaints lodged against them before a Student Judicial Affairs board. There were two hearings, with a ten minute recess between them. The board consisted of approximately several students from the SJA board. The Plaintiffs were “the Orwellians.”
   The first hearing was regarding the disadvantage the Elections Committee caused numerous candidates by saying that it was forbidden to campaign before candidates had been verified as eligible by the Elections Committee. It turns out such a rule does not exist, and moreover only one Certain Party campaigned during the effected week, gaining an arguably significant advantage thereby. What I thought was most significant about the arguments raised during this hearing was when the Elections Committee stated that the Certain Party in question could do so because they “verify their own candidates.”
   Even if it were a rule, and this Certain Party could reliably verify its own candidates ahead of time, in the interest of fairness one would have to constrain them to the same time constraints as everyone else, even if it meant that their verified candidates had to wait for everyone else to be verified – in effect the Elections Committee admitted in this that they consciously gave a huge advantage to a specific party.

   The second hearing was regarding the Elections Committee’s deletion of certain parts of the official Orwellian statement. While the Elections Committee had claimed they had taken the action to avoid a potential libel issue, the Orwellians began with an absolutely amazing barrage of evidence. revchad, speaking for the Orwellians, defined libel using two law books (one by an expert on contracts and torts, the other by the American Bar Assn), a quote from the ASUCD attorney, and a quote from none other than Mr Igor Birman (!!); and then, as one of the principal defenses against libel is that a statement is true, they provided no less than nine newspaper articles detailing the factual nature of the claims against former senator James Ackerman. To top all this off they cited the official United States Supreme Court opinion in Times v Sullivan, that “debate on public issues should be uninhabited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
   Also quoted, as evidence of the inequal application of the Elections Committee’s policy, was the official statement of former candidate Dana Davies-Shaw, in which quotes deriding the slates had been permitted to remain. This was significant and amusing because Dana is a member of the JSA judicial board. Though Dana had sat out from this case, it was still amusing to see the judicial board served up a quote from one of their own.
   I’m hard pressed to make an analogy for the awesome devastation of this attack, but I think one might say it was like the attack on Pearl Harbour, if the Americans had had it coming, and the Japanese caught all the American aircraft carriers at dock… and maybe even the Japanese and dropped their own nuclear bomb at that time for good measure.
   In response the Elections Committee tried to be illusive and argue circularly to the point that the judicial board sounded visibly irritated at them several times. I think my nomination for the “worst argument ever” award goes to the Elections Committee for saying that because the Orwellians could have said anything they wanted in publicity produced with their own money, it didn’t matter that the Elections Committee edited the statements submitted through them.

   The Opinion of the judicial board will apparently be submitted to their SJA keepers no later than three days from now, from whence it will be submitted to the ASUCD Advisor, from whence it will probably be edited and/or missfiled. Call me crazy but I'd rather it simulteniously be released to the Parties and (maybe) the ASUCD Advisor, as the advisor step is unnecessary, and frankly I don't trust her even with so weighty a matter. It will be arriving on her very last day here, which will mean (A) less motivation for her not to "accidently" shred it, (B) on her very last day here she'll probably recieve a document detailing the grievious error of the policies she personally caused - a pleasant parting gift from the multicephalous justice organs of UC Davis.


   Anyway, other than that, I spent the whole day in the library once again. I happened to casually glance out the window I was sitting near at one point when who should I see riding his bike across a park bench directly below, but roommate Jason. Silly Jason.
   And then the laptop directly behind me was stolen when its operator ran off for two minutes to use the restroom. Worse still, it wasn’t her computer, but her friend’s, who had also been sitting nearby. As the desks in this area have little walls around them for maximum hermitage, no one, not even the computer’s unfortunate owner who had been about two feet from it at the time, noticed the theft. Upon realization of this crime the previously militantly antisocial students in the area, all of whom would have risked their very lives to avoid interaction, suddenly became a united community of mutually alarmed and concerned students – actually talking to eachother.

   During my dinner break I consulted with Miss Kristy Heidenberger over the phone as to where I should eat. She ended up reading through the list of eating establishments in the daviswiki, which I found amusing. Eventually I gave in to the call of big juicy hamburgers and ate at Ali Baba’s again.
   I ended my day in Café Roma, which was open with free refills on coffee till one or two (we left around 12:40) with Kritsy. There we had the unique priviledge of sitting next to (Dare I say sharing a power socket with even!) the creator himself of Daviswiki.org, Mr Philip Neustrom. Also present in the café at the time were ASUCD Senator Donnie Cohen-Cutler, former KDVS (90.3FM) director Miss Teresa Kenny, and recent US Congress candidate Mr Mike Dugas.


Life as a Library Refugee
   Now that the weekend is over I must contend with the persecution of Davis parking enforcement, as there is nowhere within several miles of campus where one can park for free for more than two hours. Additionally I had to be here at 9am this morning since the book I am using is on reserve and hence turns into a pumpkin if I wander away from the library for too long with it. So it looks like today I am going to spend the day as an itinerate Davis parking refugee, scurrying about to avoid the persecution of Davis Parking Enforcement.
   To make matters worse, neither food nor drink is permitted in the library and this is enforced in with truncheon and jackboot rigor. And the University hasn't even had the merciful conscience to locate an eatery or even small coffee dispensery anywhere near the library. And, the coup de grace of making the library an unpleasant place to spend your time -- the bathrooms are ill maintained, and lacking in toilet seat covers. I don't know about the ladies, but few males indeed will dare to sit upon a public toilet (particularly an ill maintained one!) without holy protection of a toilet seat cover.


Previously on EMOSNAIL
   Year Ago Yesterday: Blogological Experimentation - Curious about page hites, I'd monitered the hits (as registered by the pictures) in the entry the day before and determined it got 513 hits in 24 hours. If I wasn't so busy I'd do a similar study asap to get the data at exactly a year interval.. maybe in the next few days if I get a chance. Also I declare the theories of jurist Donald Dworkin to be crap.

(last edited, 1348hrs)

DAVIS - After closed deliberations, four ASUCD officials have decided to print 800+ pages of computer data for no clear reason. The 800+ pages will be available for public viewing in room 348 of the UC Davis Memorial Union during regular business hours. Admission will be free and open to the public beginning at a time still to be announced.

ASUCD staff members ordered the print job after students requested an electronic version of the data from a recent ASUCD election. The officials opted against using a contemporary digital format and chose instead the more primitive, more costly, and maximally inconvenient format known simply as "paper".

The unusual decision was made by a committee of veteran staff members including ASUCD Student Government Advisor Vicki Swett, ASUCD Business Manager Mark Champagne, ASUCD creative Media Director Alex Park, and ASUCD Elections Committee Chair Mary Ball. This is not the first time their preference for paper has shown.

According to Ball, the 800+ pages will be "bound and kept in SGAO." This is similar to the manner in which the ASUCD Constitution, Codes and Bylaws are stored. Apparently the document will have no say in the matter, for Ball has stated definitively that "it will not be allowed to leave SGAO." The public security risk of the pages, if any, could not be determined at press time.

Students had simply wanted to tally the data for evaluation purposes, a constitutional right guaranteed by the ASUCD Constitution. But by converting the data from digital into paper format, officials preempted that possibility. Any analysis would now require a Herculean grassroots effort on a scale never before achieved.

The data would first need to be converted painstakingly by hand from paper back into its original machine-readable format. At 30 words per minute on a laptop, students would need to type inside room 348 for approximately two and a half months straight -- provided they are present during all regular business hours.

Volunteer typists with good data-entry experience are actively being sought. It was not clear at press time whether the SGAO will allow typists to use chairs, ergonomic or otherwise.

Says one student, "I have to hand it to them. The committee's decision is a bureaucratic stroke of genius -- a classic stonewall. The waste of paper is equally impressive."

Says another, "It's brilliant. The data was electronic to begin with. So by printing it onto paper they effectively made it impossible to analyze. It's almost as if ASUCD has made things less convenient for students. The customer service is amazing, a tour de force -- a true model of efficient, responsive, and just plain old good government."