aggienaut: (asucd)

Weekly ASUCD Report
   A bill was passed unanimously by the ASUCD Senate two weeks ago which would allow Court members to write legislation. Currently the judicial codes forbid Court members from writing legislation, making them the only nine members of ASUCD who cannot write legislation (Aggie employees can't either but thats their rule, not an ASUCD one).
   I'm told by Senator Thomas Lloyd, though independant confirmation hasn't been successful yet, that President Gallagher vetoed the legislation. Lloyd claims that I tricked everyone (all of IAC, all of the Senate) because it didn't explicitly say that Court members could only write legislation on the Judicial Codes and Article VII of the Constitution (the judicial article). I think this is preposterous considering the legislation is only like five lines. If they interpreted it to be wildly different than it actually was, its certainly not my fault they failed to read and interpret FIVE FREAKING LINES.
   Consequently, Lloyd has authored a bill which went through Internal Affairs Commission on Monday which very explicitly removes the rights of Court members to write legislation on things other than the Judicial Codes or Article VII. Incidently there is no precedent anywhere in the world outside ASUCD for abridging our ability to write legislation, nor is there any reason that holds any water. The one that continually comes up is "whats to stop them then from abusing their power and writing legislation giving them more power," to which the obvious answer is that it has to go through the entire process of IAC, Senate and President. Additionally, wouldn't that same argument make for a much more realistic reason to ban the president from writing legislation? And what about the Senate??
   If the previous legislation was really vetoed, I say the Senate should override the veto this Thursday. If one really wants to push the argument that the Court is going to go mad with power with the ability to write legislation, I urge that one at least be consistent and similarly ban the executive office from writing legislation other than for the Government Codes and Article III of the ASUCD Constitution.

   Otherwise, the new Senators were sworn in last Thursday, ushering in an era of unprecedented diversity of affiliation on the Senate. Previously dominated by the two parties, Lead and Focus, the Senate now consists of four Leadite senators, three Focite senators, three independant senators (two republicans and the president of the davis college democrats), and two Urger senators. Also IAC Chairperson Kahliah Laney has become the most recent in a string of resignations.

[Poll #451234]



Rating Elections
   Polling here has indicated that Emosnail readers consider the ASUCD Election to have had a Shadyness Rating of 9.42, with 83% of the respondants indicating a 10.0. Incidently, once the issue could no longer be appealed to us (after the Senators were sworn in), we discussed the topic on the ASUCD Supreme Court. Fortunately most of them knew little about the case, so I gave them the relevant facts while avoiding leading them to any particular conclusion. The members of the ASUCD Supreme Court all found that Roy's actions did not constitute falsification, and furthermore, finding so after having verified the information oneself sounds suspiciously like one is "gunning for him." I would concur: what is listed are possible examples of falsification, but that does not mean they are in all occurances falsification. Clearly, the information was not falsified. Also if they found on the high end of their discretion in this case, what the crap would constitute less severe falsification??

   The MUN election occurred today. In lieu of rumours that there had been intended elections fraud, Dana Davies-Shaw, former ASUCD Senate candidate, Campus Judicial Board member, and Canadian, was brought in to observe the ballot counting.
However, former Secretary-General Catherine Myung (who appears to still be planning everything two weeks after resigning) instructed those wishing to cast their ballots via email to email them to her. I pointed out to her that they ought to be instructed to at least cc these to Davies-Shaw as well. Her response as "I was just planning on printing out all the email ballots, and have them mixed into with the regular ballots. But if Dana is okay having ballot's cc'ed to him, I will send out another email about it. Or I could forward all the ballots to him as well." She never sent out another email. We are therefore depending entirely on Myung's word alone that she faithfully forwarded all the emailed ballots and didn't make any up. I don't mean to say that she did use the opportunity to conduct elections fraud, but its just a huge blow to the legitimacy of the election.

   I've never really understood people who boycott elections, like the Shiites in the recent Iraqi election. Aren't you mainly just screwing yourself over? However, I found myself not voting in the MUN election. It wasn't a boycott in the same way -- I didn't publicize my abstention to any of the relevant parties as a political statement. Rather, it was more for myself. I couldn't in good conscience participate in this election -- any candidate that the current leadership didn't like had been intimidated out of running (I myself would have considered running I think if I didn't feel it would just result in a concerted slander campaign against me and being the victim of completely unfair and fraudulent tactics just like last time). I couldn't grant it the credence of legitimacy without making myself feel sick, so I abstained from participating.

   The amendment to the MUN bylaws I wrote last week to eliminate the Secretariat's ability to expel people from the club without consulting the membership was not voted on today because it was placed sixth our of seven agenda items, and by that point in the meeting we had lost quorum. I have written another amendment that will require amendments to the bylaws to be considered first on the agenda, because otherwise they could be put off indefinitely, as regularly a good third of the members present at the beginning of a meeting are gone by the end.


Shady Quote of the Day
amazonjedimaster: you have no morals of any sort to hold you back
amazonjedimaster: ^_^
PrzemekP: ha! I do
PrzemekP: I have morals, they're just weird and skewed


Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today:
Another Party on Loyola - and one next door, to which I believe Shemek showed up.
   Year Ago Today: Dancing in the Kitchen - Four months for Kristy and I. Today it has been 16 months of the strongest sauce and heartred.

aggienaut: (Default)

   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. [livejournal.com profile] 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)

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