The Agrinautica

   I ventured up to the Third Floor today, and ran into Kristen Birdsall. She informed me that it is her belief that the four justices OTHER than me on the Court were not properly selected, and thusly should not be considered to be currently in office. Specifically, the interviewing committee which was to forward nominees to Senate was incomplete, and some justices may not have been administered the oath of office.

   I am currently investigating these assertions, and will seek the advice of the 22 Chief Justices of other universities with whom I am in contact. I intend to take Birdsall's concerns seriously and maintain an unbiased position regarding this issue. As such, I will leave advocating for the involved justices up to them -- however, I must say that as a matter of universal policy, they are to be considered duly appointed until proven otherwise in some legitimate and official fashion.

   Since people are always eager to blame things on me, let me say also that the two procedures that were allegedly done incorrectly, composition of the interviewing committee and administration of the oath of office, are the responsibility of the President and the presiding officer of the senate, respectively.


Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Today: I am Appointed to the ASUCD Supreme Court - Sometime later I'd realize I hadn't been sworn in and go make someone administer it to me just to cover my ass. Also I meet Amy Zimmerman's twin sister Sharon and hang out with them. Also, good times as a Coffee House cashier. I was like, a CoHo cashier before it was even cool.

   Not only is this the three year anniversery of this livejournal, but I happened to check how many entries had been made heretofor, and this will be the 801st. See more under Previously on Emosnail.

Yesterday's Impeachment
   Yesterday the Senate was to consider my removal for the third time. Unfortunately, they failed to call the removal hearing in the spirit of the brown act and protections given by the ASUCD bylaws for accused individuals, so the removal hearing couldn't go though.
   So it turns out the strongest charge against me was that Senator Kristen Birdsall thought it was suspicious and "against the spirit of the brown act" that when Elections Committee member Van Schoelandt pulled her into the ASUCD Conference room on the evening of the 12th the Court was there, along with the case plaintiff and defendant and Van Schoelandt, while meanwhile the Senate was meetings against the spirit of the brown act in a closed session that was not allowed by any of the provisions of the Brown Act OR any of the provisions of ASUCD standing rules.
   It is in fact a pretty farcical charge. The fact of the matter is that, "in the spirit of the brown act" we were variously having open meeting and mostly sitting around informally. Numerous people freely stopped by, including President Caliph Assagai, Senator Ari Kalfayan, Commission Chair Gregory Russel, and Commission Chair Genna Carnes (who will recall commenting on how small the keys on my phone are .. they're pretty ridiculously small in fact). And then there's the time I walked down the hall and announced "hey if anyone else wants to join us in the conference room we have more chairs in there" to the people sitting on the floor. I don't know who was witness to that since I wasn't paying attention to whom I was near at the time. The fact is the only person excluded from the room at any point was Plaintiff Joe Harney, when we discussed matters related to his case.
   And lets not forget that Kristen Birdsall and Chad Van Schoelandt burst into the room relatively unexpectedly for those of us in there. And while they were in there Caliph Assagai popped in and commented prophetically "well this looks shady." If it was a secret meeting, it was one really really badly kept secret. Fact is, it would have been "against the spirit of the brown act" for us to exclude these people, and we did not.
   And while this was ongoing the Senate was meeting behind closed doors for undisclosed purposes, CLEARLY against the Brown Act (the proverbial crickets were chirping when I asked if any of the senators could explain under which allowable circumstance the Senate had met), so I don't see how you can even begin to challenge ME while you have that hanging over your head. Word of advise, it'll help your case if you bite the bullet, admit you were wrong about at least that, and formally make those minutes available to the public. The Elections Committee admitted when they were wrong. I once notified the media 2 days rather than 3 days before a hearing, and despite the fact that the media was in fact present, I had the integrity to admit I was wrong, declare a mistrial, and schedule a new hearing which was done correctly.
   In summary: I am charged for violating the Brown Act by enforcing the Brown Act during a time when the Senate was in violation of the Brown Act.

Justice Dies In Silence - The Myth of Non-News
   But actually most alarming of all is the fact that the Aggie decided it wasn't noteworthy to report that the head of one branch of govenment, the head of an important committee, and two other important officers were up for impeachment. A representative of the Aggie said that they couldn't confirm whether or not the Senate intended to remove us. Let there be no question, you don't call removal hearings if you don't intend to remove someone. You don't impeach a chief justice just to ask him questions. They didn't impeach Clinton because they wanted the juicy details of his illicit sex life. On top of this, Van Schoelandt had offered to Senator Birdsall that she schedule the matter under presentations and thus not hold any of us liable for removal -- Birdsall obliquely rejected this. As such, she has quite clearly reserved for herself the right to remove any of the persons she attempted to remove.
   I mean, why make it needlessly contentious and hostile by notifying people that they are considering their removal if you are not in fact considering their removal. If we are not in fact being considered for removal, and Birdsall for some reason just loves impeachment hearings, I would ask that she officially waive her right to dismiss us pursuant of the upcoming removal hearing which will doubtlessly occur. I ask the media when she tells you she doesn't intend to remove us to ask if she waives her right to remove us. I believe this will cut through her equivication to the dark heart of the matter: she wishes to remove us without setting off bothersome warning flags first.
   While we're on that subject, aside from the fact that none of us were conclusively notified, the notification that some of us got didn't even include our names nor any other information that Birdsall thoguht she could get away with not divulging. I would like to state that its my firm belief that the names of the accused are critical (they were all blind-CCed -- their EMAIL address didn't even appear on the inbox -- and I didn't get an email at all), and I would like to ask that all other Senators make a pledge to not endeavour to keep people in the dark until the last minute if you plan to try to remove them -- tell them what the basic nature of your charge is at the time you notify them of it. I've had to ask the Senate to consider the removal of justices who weren't coming to meetings before, and at the time I notified them I forwarded them all documents related to Court attendance keeping, and what I intended to say -- its really not that hard and furthermore keeps people from feeling like its personal.


The Governator is Watching
   Justice Reed works in Governor Schwarzenegger's office. According to her, she was talking to him the other day, and mentioned she is on the ASUCD Supreme Court. To this he responded "ASUCD, they're the ones with the scandal right?"
   omgwtf! I can't believe I heard that right. I suppose its not so shocking to hear that they read the paper from the nearest University over there (Sacremento being just 11 miles away). But yeah so, The Governator is watching. I submit that he probably reads this livejournal.* =D


See Also: 72% of respondants to Aggie poll disagree with Senate's recent action.


*I fear some readers are dense enough to believe I'm serious. I'm not. About him reading this livejournal I mean. The interchange with Justice Reed is true.


Random Fact of the Day
   The name of the State of Idaho originated from a hoax?!?!

Picture of the Day
I saw a car in the Colleges parking lot with a boot on the wheel and a big notice on the front from TAPS. I didn't know they did that -- I'd have taken a picture for the wiki but like I said, my camera is kaput. Its in the corner by the domes if someone wants to photo it.


Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Today: E.M.O.S.N.A.I.L. CREATED - After a Glam Rock party in which my bike, peacoat, pocketwatch, and gloves were stolen, I crash with a bunch of other people at Amie Gutierrez', meet Amy Zimmerman. Come home to my freezing apartment (heater was totally broken) and create this livejournal. I'm told the poloroid picture Amy took of me for her wall o' people is still there.
   Two Years Ago Yesterday: Limp-Wristed Fist Shaking - Kristy and I make an expedition into Sacramento, arrive late for a party at the Loyola House. George Andrews, famous for "saying daffy things," gives me another funny quote. The next day Little Christie has her birthday and I get sick from eating most of a large pizza myself and then drinking. For her birthday this year we went to the bar at Sophia's, and Rob Roy and I had a much needed friendly chat. Most importantly though, this entry initiated a serious debate about the proper way to shake one's fist.
   Two Years Ago Today: One Year - After one year I'd posted 332 entries (.91 / day). Since then I've really been slacking, with .64 per day since then for a total average of .73 per day. At this moment I've received 7.0 comments per entry and 1.221 comments to every comment I've made (4,606 / 5,625). Also, I pwn Professor Siverson. But most importantly this entry included the first "year ago today."
   Year Ago Wednesday: Entertainment Council Tahoe Retreat - ASUCD Entertainment Council goes on a retreat to Tahoe. In the spirit of the Brown Act, I record our adventures in a thorough photo essay. AND
   Year Ago Wednesday: Jesus Love Me, Not Ian Watson - Jesus himself tells the Bob Jones Institute that I'm cooler than them, and Aggie columnist Ian Watson gets butthurt over my aeroflot t-shirt. I write a letter to the editor in response to Watson, he makes some vague reference to it later, then plagiarizes my idea to talk shit on the "Ban Taco Bell" protestors, then gets fired for plagiarism.
   Year Ago Today: Phone Post: Internet's Out - Despite living in a freaking freezer due to a broken heater (compare to two years previous), and lacking internet access, I make a phone post to commemorate the Emosnail livejournal birthday.


Related
Chairman Leathers' Account

   Just two more things on the ASUCD situation: (1) Its not democracy if you don't know important details about what you're voting for. I mentioned this passingly the other day, but since then its occured to me that its actually pretty important, considering that the rallying cry of the Senate is "this is the democratic way" and "they were elected!" (2) (i) senatorroy says "Kareem was sent to SJA due to a grammatical error within an essay. He forgot to put quotation marks around a quote but he still sited the source giving the website where he got it word for word. But the professor was a hardass and sent him to SJA. Natalia was caught drinking in the dorms." (ii) in response, Elections Committee Chairman Leathers says "Because of an agreement I made with Kareem and Natalia, I'm not going to publicly state what exactly they were put on probation with SJA for, but the reasons listed above are not the reasons given by SJA." (iii) SJA in my experience has always been extremely lenient. Of cases I have known to go there, they've always resulted in the most minimal / understanding arrangement that could have been expected; (iv) in conclusion, we still don't know the full story. I don't want to hear it really, but (v) the student body clearly showed in the Ackerman case that they did not want a senator who had committed an unethical act, so (vi) I think one can pretty reliably say that if people had known the full story, these individuals would not have been elected. (vii) which once again isn't to say I'm against them specifically being placed into office, but I'm seeking to deflate another ridiculous misconception that is being bandied about.


And Now For Something Completely Different - The Dishwashing Deficit
   I always do dishes by hand because the dishwasher doesn't do the best of jobs. As such I tend to ignore the dishwasher completely. My two roommates, like normal people, like to let the dishes pile up until they can run the dishwasher. Possibly because whenever I do my dishes I try to do one or two more than I made dirty, so as to ensure I'm not running a net cleaning debt, and because I'll just start doing dishes if the pile in the sink has gotten so large I can't use it anymore, I have a feeling I'm doing most of the dishes around here and the other two are growing just to rely on me cleaning the dishes they leave in the sink.
   Some people (mostly on TV it seems) allegedly have jars in which they put a small amount of money every time they do something they're trying not to do, like curse. Phi Alpha Delta has begun collecting money from people who come to meetings late. It occured to me that theoretically one could require that persons depositing dishes into the sink to deposit something like 10 cents per dish into a nearby jar, and persons cleaning dishes could extract the equal amount. This way there's at least a slight motivation to do as many dishes as one makes dirty, or at least one is more aware of their net impact.

Picture of the Day
My camera appears broken -- has refused to open the lense for several days. )=

   So yesterday I missed the Jason Webley show at the hippie cafe because I am a frat boy. (I'd link here to Alvin saying we're all big ass nerds (BANs) in Phi Alpha Delta or something along those lines but its in a comment somewhere deep in my lj). Anyway, we were having our weekly meeting yesterday and everything was going smoothly until a certain member brought up some previously resolved drama (we'll call him The Appellant) and started trying to stick it to the officers. What was really weird about this was for the first time in a very long time someone was having an organizational judicial drama debate and I wasn't involved at all! But I certainly have a lot of experience in the area so I thought I'd at least review it.

   Now I have absolutely nothing personal against The Appellant, and despite my opinions on how the drama went down, I still have no personal opinion about him.
   So basically what went down is he kept asking the officers questions he intended to implicate them in wrongdoing and wrack them with guilt. And this went on for quite some time. The incident had already been resolved through an agreement between the officers and the member who had been found liable, but The Appellant, uninvolved in the incident, felt that he should demand recourse for the member. Anyway, through his questioning he changed what his actual complaint was to varied other things such as alleged check fraud, failure of officers to adhere to their own duties, lying to the national office, and a variety of other things all of which I believe are completely unfounded. But the point is, I think the act of changing his complaint to whatever it looked like might stick at the moment is really the hallmark of someone whose concern isn't about the original issue but just has beef with The Man and wants to try to stick it to them through any manner possible.
   Also the argument went round and round and round, often returning to things already discussed and answered. It was quite tedious. Now I've been in The Appellant's approximate position before, of alleging wrongdoing of an organizations officers (ie Secretary-General Myung's reign of terror in MUN), but I'm proud to say unlike The Appellant in the instant case, I usually kept the discussion down to about two interchanges before I made a motion or stated the action that I was going to take lest they resolve it. This was just messy.

   As to our officers, they did a pretty good job considering. My only advise would be (A) try not to get flustered and defensive (they did a good job in this really, but remaining unflustered and undefensive is really the key to making a renegade naysayer look like a nutjob¹), and also (B) making a diagram of the situation on the blackboard would of made it harder for him to run around in circles with the issue and would have been delightfully patronizing.

   So thats that. Altogether our officers have handled the situation very well, and I know that they had all tried very hard to come to the best solution to the original problem. But hey we're a pre-law fraternity so you have to expect a member to get litigious every now and then.

¹_{But in the event the renegade naysayer is not a nutjob, or the likely circumstance the renegade naysayer is myself (take note, new MUN leadership), it still makes things easier for everyone involved if you try to give the individual the most thought out and serious answers possible. On any account, if the complaintant is myself, it could lessen the enthusiasm with which I make you look like a nutjob to everyone else.}

Picture of the Day

I try to be artistic while the professional photographer takes pictures of Kristy's relatives. See also.
Note there will be no

   Yesterday (Saturday) Alex and Oi Kelly (known collectively as Kaelex) came down to pick me up, and waited at Diedrichs off La Paz for me to return from the wilderness creek-bed I was in at the time (true story). Unfortunately I was about an hour's hike from civilization.
   Anyway, then we headed up to see their friends in The Something play at Corona Showcase (33.5 miles north by mapquest, up in "the 909"). Show was good, I really liked The Something even though apparently the sound guy did a terrible job. I'd like to try to get them up to Davis, I'm gonna try to get a demo and float it around the entertainment council. Y'all should check them out.
   Anyway, so thing is this girl up front starts mad heckling the lead singer, Ryan. And seriously I don't know what her deal is cause she's front and center and was taking pictures of him earlier but she thinks she needs to heckle him? So he puts the mike in front of her so everyone can hear her stream of profanity.. but she yanks the cord out and breaks the mike! Sound guy pulls then pulls their plug and the band gets kicked out.
   Sound guy is convinced THEY broke it by throwing it at the floor, even though we have mad witnesses and cords don't get pulled out by throwing things at floors anyway. Ryan and Sound Guy almost get in a fight, Sound Guy saying "you don't know who I am!! Ryan: "well who the hell are you then?" Sound Guy: "I don't have time for this shit" and storms off.
   So then Oi Kelly hunts down the girl that pulled the plug, and finds her; in the boys restroom smoking pot with her boyfriend and girliefriends. So Oi Kelly confronts her and of course she's utterly unsympathetic and remorseless - so Oi Kelly hella bitchslaps her, and a fight ensues. Girl mad scratches Kelly, and the boyfriend gets involved, and then the bouncer breaks it up.
   But man did that girl scratch. What a biatch. Kelly got a good kick in at the girl's crotch -- if she were a boy she's be done.

   Then Kaelex, Ryan the lead singer and I went back to Diedrichs off La Paz. There we got ice for Kelly's scratches, and her neck was hurting from whiplash or something. Kaelex and Ryan the lead singer bonded with Ryan the Diedrichs employee, and I went to get alcohol for Ryan (RtLS); "what do you want?" "I don't know, a 40 of something cheap" "Steel reserve it is then - its the house drink."
   And I got myself another bottle of cisco. Man, that stuff tastes aweful - but it gets you drunk MAD fast, and doesn't make you sick. Drunk off steel = getting sick, unfortunately.