The Agrinautica

pseudomonas me scripsit anno 2005

   Yesterday we had the long-awaited hearing for Case # 28, to resolve the Unqualified Candidates Scandal. We should have had 6 out of five necessary justices present, but Justice Konz unexpectedly resigned the previous day, and then Justice Johnson didn't show up... I got ahold of him minutes before the Hearing was to start only to be informed that he had neglected to tell me he apparently no longer goes here. We therefore had four justices, whereas five are needed for quorum. This was the subject of yesterday's document, which most of you probably dismissed as TL;DR.
   Basically the solution I opted for is to have Senate evaluate the legitimacy of the hearing and take a vote to settle the matter BEFORE we will release the final opinion (the first draft of which is written and has been approved by three of the four justices). Two noteworthy things about this opinion (subopinion?): (1) I was very pleased to have an opportunity to take a knock at Chief Justice "the Judicial Hammer" Vest's solution; (2) interestingly we are basically giving ourselves a court order in the first of the two orders at the end of the document.
   Today ASUCD Advisor Michael Tucker thanked me for rescuing him from "Hanging Chad" van Shoelace. Then Mark Champagne congratulated me on the handling of the quorum problem.
   Prior to the hearing, we received an amicus brief from a fraternity, among other sources. I was very pleased to find entities other than ASUCD officials taking enough interest to file amicus briefs -- and will attempt to avoid finding out that its probably the fraternity of someoen involved and thus being disillusioned.
   The final opinion is of course set to be announced tomorrow during Senate. Unfortunately I am to have my wisdom teeth out tomorrow morning, so if I make it to senate at all I will likely look like a chipmunk. Vice Chief Coady may have to present our manila envelope of power.


   I was just about to trek down to Newsbeat today since its the nearest source of any beverage worth consuming (namely, Jones' Soda), when what should I see in the MU but a table where some mad scientists were having people taste test different energy drinks and give them feedback. So of course I immediately volunteerinated myself. I wonder if they were weirded out by the fact that I knew what each of the unlabelled cups contained. When they asked what my favourite energy drink was I couldn't remember what "Wired" was called, the pleasant lady mad scientist told me to drop by tomorrow if I remember. I'm thinking of bringing a copy of my own thorough review of energy drinks with me.

   I'd like to add that since then (my initial review) I've tried this "Kabbalah" energy drink which is starting to show up around here, and I give it pretty high marks.


Forgotten Minutia - Things I was going to put in LJ entries awhile ago but forgot
(1) During his farewell speech Senator Eric Fox thanked Sara Henry and I for getting him involved in ASUCD -- coverage of our epic battles in the paper apparently alerted him to ASUCD's need for some Foxiness.
(2) The day after shaving my mohawk, I was saddened to walk past some punks who were loitering in front of a coffee shop in Berkeley without so much as a glance from them -- normally they would have immediately invited me to sit and talk with them. )=
(3) Moreover, while in San Diego for New Years a Navy enlistee mistook me for another Navy enlistee!
(4) Kristy and I saw the movie The Patriot (AKA Braveheart II) when she visited, and man, it was terrible. I love the part where he kills all 22 members of a British platoon one by one (while the rest wait patiently just off screen for their turn) in close combat. Its seriously worse than those Rambo movies people make fun of.
(5) I was very panicked when I learned that for my wisdom tooth removal they would be putting me out via an IV (as I have an incredible fear of needles). Kristy took it upon herself to cure me of this fear through positive reenforcement -- by prodding me in the arm with an addi turbo steel needle and then kissing me. Eventually I'd get her attention, poke myself in the arm with the needle, and look at her expectently.


In Other News
   I just realized that I'd resized all the pictures from The Grad in bicubic mode by accident -- thats why they look kinda shitty. )=
   I went to turn in the Aggie's "Best Of Davis" survey at the MU information desk, and the person working there, having just been alerted to the existence of the survey, responded with "oh, its like Daviswiki." So yeah, now when the Aggie does something particularly clever its lucky to be compared to Daviswiki, the tides have turned!


Article of the Day: Zombies - "There is also the theoretical possibility of an entity that wanders the net but has no blog, which may be called a zombie. Nobody but n00bs actually believe in them. The only evidence is anonymous comments, but it's common knowledge that anonymous comments are made by people (with blogs) too scared to identify themselves, and not some preposterous fantasy creature from n00b folklore."

Picture of the Day

From the trip up from So. Cal.

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