The Agrinautica

The Journey Home
   I was up most of last night reading about people with names like Vercingetorix, Vortigern & Catigern. Then, since I've managed to accumulate some important tasks at the Courthouse I had to go into work. Finally I escaped from there, but had to AMPAC Governor-General Sameer for an hour on the phone about the conference we are in charge of putting together next April, which was all good and well but it was hellorz hot out and I really wanted to go home and take a nap. Then I got home only to find someone parked in my parking place. The office determined the offending vehicle belonged to the guy who should have the spot next to it. When maintenance man Modesto contacted him regarding this, the guy said with attitude "well someone was in MY spot," as if that justified it all (and I hope you all know that you are retarded if you think it solves anything by parking in the person's spot next to you when someone has parked in yours). Finally I made it into my apartment only to find two catsup smeared plates belonging to my flatmate Jason on the livingroom floor, where he seems to think they belong.
   This latter offense is in clear violation of the policy my roommates and I had agreed to unanimously, that dishes must remain in one's room if one cannot clean them immediately. I've decided my current policy for dealing with this is moving the dishes for him when he's not home ... onto his bed.
   Also the solution to the best way to confront him regarding the fact that he's in flagrant violation of something he just recently agreed to with minimum awkwardness came to me after some thought... next time he's home and I find him in a clear violation of policy, or if he asks me about my relocation of dishes to his room I think I'll ask him in an earnest manner if he thinks the policy is too draconian and needs to be changed. That way I will come across not as accusatory but compromising, while he'll be faced with either feeling like a complete flake by saying this simple policy is too difficult (which I really doubt he'll do), or reaffirming the policy in direct reference to his plate behaviour.
   Anyway, then I was finally able to take a nap, but in my delirium was unaware that I'd left my phone in my car so I missed a call I'd been waiting for regarding some stew. )=

30 in 30 III
   Anyway, the result of all this is that I'm not really feeling like a top-notch slinger of hilarity at the moment, so 30 in 30 III is off to an inconspicuous start for me this year.

   So far we have 30 in 30 posts by apoplecticfittz, otimus, pavel_lishin, roter_terror & shid. Best entry so far I think is roter_terror's: "Listen up, folks. 30 in 30 is here and I am not ready for it! THEREFORE YOU GET BABY ANIMALS... with a twist! Here are 16 of the best baby animals I could dig up at a moment's notice. Your job is to vote for the best."

   Anyway, you may all be relieved to to know that one of my goals for this 30 in 30 is to try to steamline my blogging by spending no less than 30 minutes per post (30 in 30.. IN 30?)

Meanwhile in the real world
   In other news, last friday we had the initiation party for the newest batch of Φ A Δ pledglings. On Sunday I went to recently-former Califorina Aggie Editor-in-Chief Matty Jojola's party. It was a very interesting mix of people, with four guys wearing Davis Players Society polos hanging out with Kalen Gallagher in one corner while from the opposite side of the political spectrum city council candidate Rob Roy campaigned in the kitchen wearing a suit & tie. I got a scandalous picture of him eating a watermelon rind with some girl, as well as another of him giving someone a classic politician handshake, I'll put them up when I get a chance. Also my fellow justice & reverend Tim Coady was there, marrying people at random and granting indulgences.

   On Tuesday most of the Court came to the Internal Affairs Commission to discuss their opinions on the Court. Also this day we were reinforced by an editorial in The Aggie advocating that our Court be strengthened rather than abrogated. IAC was unwilling to concede anything, but none of them would speak in support of any of their arguments (other than that ASUCD is a business), preferring rather to try repeatedly to end the whole conversation by saying there was no legislation regardnig the subject. Aside from the fact that the discussion the preceding week had ended with "we'll talk more about this next week," I've certainly been around long enough to know that there's always "no plans," until suddently there are, and the plans are never put forward until after the political maneouvering stage.
nbsp;  Also they made an obvious effort to put us off as long as possible, which I thought was kind of petty & desperate. Regarding ASUCD as a business, it went around a few times until Chairman Harms announced his revelation that "ASUCD is not a government OR a business, it is an association." To which I responded that that was great but "what we are specifically arguing about here is that Kai Savaree-Ruess said ASUCD is 'not a public institution ... but in fact a business,' and a Court has no place in a business. If you say we're not a business but an association, you're not backing Kai's argument that I am here to counter..." I believe 90% of arguments improperly lost are lost because one allowed the opponent to change what the argument was about.. never let them get away with this.

   Anyway, since then Paul Harms has ceased to be the Internal Affairs Commission Chairman...


Picture of the Day

Kristy and I at Rock It

Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Today: Jello Shot Night - What we all did before we had 30 in 30 to occupy ourselves: slosha's dorm-mates throw a party which shall live on in infamy as "jello shot night." ...Kristy is eventually determined to be missing and is then found wandering aimlessly three floors down outside... d=
   Two Years Ago Today: 30 in 30 I - Day 1 - mrkevincostner was actually first out of the blocks at 10:20am, followed by stephenl who at 12:56 posted the official call to action. apoplecticfittz began with a new version of his recent Frasky Awards; lerani started with an amusing story about a retarded lawyer that managed to exponentially exacerbate her own ethics violation; fragglerocker84 started out strong with a well composed entry apparently about people on her vollyball team (its very well done for its subject matter, but the subject isn't the most interesting to random bloggers); and feuders also vows for the course of 30 in 30 to drink no beer (except for a number of frequent exceptions), eat no fast food, and run five miles every day. Additionally, jdryznar declares he's going to make 30 posts in 30 days about politics, while incomple also just posts half baked ravings against conservatives (at least for the first five I checked today).
   Year Ago Today: 30 in 30 II - Day 1 - First day of the second annual 30 in 30. Best entry for this day has been identified as Professor David, with second place going to otimus (who has since deleted his all his 30 in 30 II entrie, because he does strange things like that)

Thursday I hung out with Carissa and we explored local labyrinthine edifice The Social Science Building, known endearingly as "The Death Star."

   That evening I went to the ASUCD Senate meeting. It was dominated by an extensive debate about whether or not the Senate should pass a resolution urging local businesses not to accept advertising from cigarette companies (or something along those lines). I just listened for logical fallacies in the arguments and desisted from participating. I got on the speakers list during public discussion at the end, but the Senate adjourned before I could speak. I might mention some of my thoughts next week.
   Of particular note though, I was very disappointed in the way more than one senator summarily rejected the comparisons the "pro-smoking" Focite senators (particularly mini-Kalen) were making to alcohol, simply because they said the two things were "different." This you see, was "political correctness" in action. You probably don't think of being anti-smoking as being "politically correct," because it seems like an obvious thing to many people, but when one won't even listen to the arguments against alcohol because you know smoking is condemnable but drinking isn't so much, thats where you're letting PC guide your actions. PC makes taking certain stances condemnable and leads to less intelligent discussion and a generally undesirable political environment (though at the time one will probably not notice if one is themself on the PC train). Don't get me wrong, I am for the gradual elimination of smoking from society, and am against similar treatment of alcohol, but the summary refusal to entertain the Focite proposal offended me.
   Eventually the resolution passed with Rob Roy flipping a coin to decide the crucial vote (video footage!).

Friday I went to Murder Burger for lunch with Roxie and her friend (Molly?). We saw turtles in Putah Creek and Kalen Gallaghers at Murder Burger (along with Kalen's "hetero lifemate," Behzad).

Friday night: see Pledging. Also saw The Motorcycle Diaries with Kritsy and Sashie. Its about Che Guevara before he became a radical revolutionary.

Saturday morning I took the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE). A six hour test designed to see if your hand has the endurance necessary to process paperwork while under fire in third world kleptocracies while advocating US policy (from a cubicle). Also Azver was there.


Pledging
   Monday night we had our first pledge meeting and informed of everything about the process. Wednesday night we met our "big sibs." Mine is a girl I've known for awhile, she was a Senate reporter for KDVS like two years ago I think. I escaped early though because I needed to put together a presentation in Swedish that I had to give the next morning.
   Friday night we had casino night, which I thought was cool because I have no idea how to play poker but would like to learn where money isn't on the line - as in this case. I've found my lack of understanding can almost be advantagious, since obliviousness to the value of ones cards leads to a perfect poker face. At one point I beat someone who had a flush with a better flush, causing them to exclaim "he plays a flush just like a low pair, its insane!!" Fact is though, that I hadn't even looked at my cards until I turned them over. (=
   After a glorious winning streak however, people nickle and dimed me to death until I was only up 12 points.


Picture of the Day

   So one fine day on Daviswiki, contention erupted over the shadiness factor of Campus Crusade for Christ. To help solve this controversy, Emosnail staff benevolently volunteered to do some polling on the subject, but in response noted local Republican George Andrews stated "having Fricke do a poll on Campus Crusade in EMOSNAIL is like having me do a poll on Nathan Thomas/Black Caesar/Dan Beeman Approval ratings among DCR members."
   We then posted polls both here and on the UC Davis community (ucdaivs). Ostensibly this was to ascertain the shadiness factor of CCC, but really we're just using jedi mind tricks to make you think thats our motive -- the true motive was to show that CCC would get a higher shadiness rating from the UC Davis lj community than from the readers of this livejournal (the postings were exactly identical).
   At this point, more than 18 hours after the polls began, and with 60 responses: the ucdavis community has rated Campus Crusade for Christ at a shadiness factor of 7.14, while the emosnail readership has rated it at 6.33. Clearly Emosnail does not foster antireligious mentalities.


Resistentialism
   The other day my browser (mozilla) inexplicably crashed and when it came back up, all my bookmarks had been lost. I find this very aggravating because I had quite a few things that I regularly used bookmarked. I miss the most-recent-pictures-updated-to-livejournal webpage that I haven't been able to find again. )=
   Last night apartment-mate wdsguy came home from LA, where he spends the week steeped in the adult entertainment industry (you think I'm kidding), and promptly unplugged my internet and went to bed -- presumably without actually realizing I needed it (we don't have a router because I live in a cave so only one of us can be connected at a time). So I spent the rest of the night in the computer lounge working on my paper. When I returned in the morning I was plugged in again but our internet was down, appeared to be a problem with our service-provider. When it finally came up trillian (my AIM client) crashed and burned horribly. When I was finally able to get it up again all my friends groups had been eliminated, so I now have 435 people all in one big group. I promptly created the missing groups and garnered a small amount of satisfaction sending some people to the gulag (my friends-list category of that name anyway). I believe resistentialism is taking root in my computer. Either that or its developing bovine spongeform encephalitis ("mad cow disease").


The Order of Trogdor
   EMOSNAIL is proud to present Daviswiki creator Philip Neustrom with our highest honour, the Order of Trogdor:

   Neustrom is seen here receiving the prestigious medal in the traditional ceremony. (with the medal on)
   Neustrom has exemplified the most admirable interests in promoting community understanding, combined with illustrious competence in creating the Daviswiki and making the wonder that it is today.
   Truly, if there is anyone who deserves to be on Davis Mount Rushmore, it is Phil (incidently I've never heard of four of the five people listed there).*

Weekly ASUCD Shadiness Rating
   We're overdue for the weekly ASUCD shadiness rating. Since last polling, ASUCD went ahead and passed unanimously the legislation preventing members of the ASUCD judiciary from authoring legislation, and Kalen Gallagher was replaced as President by Caliph Assagai and Darnell Holloway (but not before Gallagher characterized choice voting as a disease he would squash). Here's an Aggie article on the recent adventures of ASUCD.
[Poll #457889]

Daviswiki Entry of the Day: Magic Items of Davis


Shady Quote of the Day:
PrzemekP: true, but if it's possible, have him hold off, like I said, the worst possible for her would be her nominating herself
PrzemekP: haha, or better yet, if Fricke does it!
amazonjedimaster: you have enough pull with fricke
amazonjedimaster: have him do it
amazonjedimaster: have fricke nominate her first
PrzemekP: I'll see what I can do
PrzemekP: but there is a part of me that thinks Fricke might vote for Veronica
amazonjedimaster: because if you want the worst person to nominate .... fricke is that person
PrzemekP: true
amazonjedimaster: janet and i made it clear to centian people that we hate kris
amazonjedimaster: with a passion
amazonjedimaster: some of them are peons at berkely
PrzemekP: yeah, but like I said, a part of me feels Fricke might vote Veronica
amazonjedimaster: you think nomiating gena will change how he votes?


Year Ago Today: Ice Cream Sandwich Cravings - & rooommate Jill asks us sausage themed questions for her lover.

*if someone wants to use the above picture to make it look like Phil (& Amie) are on the real Mount Rushmore I think that would be ridiculously funny, and um, I'll buy you a twinkie.

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.

   "...I hereby resign ... I was in the freshman dorms, I never lied about that. Fact is, I was told to go there by my Focus [his party] advisors ... and you all sit around smiling smugly as if you didn't do the same. Not only that but I know many of you were drunk during budget hearings..." -(former) ASUCD Senator Nafeh Malik (paraphrased here, I don't have an exact transcript), resigning in lieu of the campaigning in the dorms controversy.
   "wow um... I think we need a ten minute break now to recollect ourselves." -Vice President Paloma Perez. "actually... I resign as well... -(former) ASUCD Senator Sean Reul.
   "The word is FUBAR" -ASUCD Senator Donald Cohen-Cutler on his cell phone immediately after a recess was subsequently called.
   "I'm... not resigning..." -ASUCD Senator Brianna Haag, the third implicated new Focus senator, as an anxious silence awaits her report.
   "I'm resigning... from all my other positions" -ASUCD Business & Finance Commission Chairman Alan Pang. "So wait, you're remaining in this one?" -President Kalen Gallagher, interjecting in the subsequent confusion. "yes." Room breaths an exasperated sigh of relief, Internal Affiars Commission Chairwoman Kahliah Laney looks like she's having a heart attack.

   Also at yesterdays senate meeting they swore in former Focus candidate Cari Ham to fill the senate seat earlier vacated by Lead senator Adam Barr. Selection of senators to fill vacated seats is the sole discretion of the ASUCD president.

Aggie photographer Matt Jojola (blueliquid13) sulks after missing both resignations, having left the room right before the excitement commenced (but he got a picture of the empty seats which I tihnk was probably more poignent anyway). Orwellian party candidates Rob Roy and Chad van Schoelandt can be seen in the back right corner.

Jurisprudence in ASUCD
   President Gallagher ostensably vetoed the bill passed by senate last quarter to allow ASUCD Court members to write legislation. He justified it by saying that US Supreme Court justices don't write legislation, among other things.
   In response, I firstly pointed out that as the ASUCD president has until the next regularly scheduled senate meeting to veto legislation, and that has already transpired, his veto is unconstitutional. So what happens now is either the relevant government body can refuse to recognize his veto in light of its manifest unconstitutionality, or it can be reversed in a case. The former more convenient method is unlikely to occur so either I will be filing a case myself, or if I don't other people have said they will certainly file one. Obviously either way I wouldn't be sitting on the case though.
   Furthermore I pointed out that in the national arena, one has the Justice Department, the Bar Association, numerous other law related lobby groups, and armies of lawyers who love to tinker with the law. In ASUCD the only semblance of any of these is the ASUCD Court. To say the court can't write legislation is to say that no judicial legislation will be written in ASUCD, and that is ridiculous.
   Also I mentioned that Marberry v Madison in 1807 established that the US Supreme Court could review issues that inherently involved the Court, thus negating the opposing argument that if Court members wrote legislation it would be a conflict of interest for them. To this Commissioner Gordon "I was president of my JC" Fung responded that he didn't think Marberry v Madison applied in this situation. In response I proceeded to give a brief history of the circumstances and significance of Marberry v Madison for the Senate.
   Chairperson Jenni Beeman then asked why we were citing US Supreme Court cases as relevant to ASUCD. This prompted me to give the Senate a brief overview of legal theory and jurisprudence.
   In summary, it was altogether good times.


ASUCD Senators Keith Shively, Janine Fiel, & Darnell Holloway during Thursdays meeting.

The subject on all your minds: At this point the electoral college results are 254 Bush, 252 Kerry (its 6:30 in the morning). With 270 needed of course for election seems to me things are shockingly close at this point. Everyone is saying Bush has won so I'm guessing the remaining locations are expected to side with him though? Anyway if you can depart from dwelling on the election for a few minutes, its not the subject of this entry, and I'd like your attention because I'm going to be serious here about something real and frightenening thats not the election.


The Conspiracy at UC Davis
   ASUCD President Kalen Gallagher recently announced to our Justice Daniel Raff that he opposes all of our proposed judicial reforms, in stark contrast to what he'd told Justice Raff the week before and myself sometime before that. This latest hair-pin turn of policy, combined with his recent inexplicable veto of legislation that would have made it harder to raise student fees and had been supported by an "overwhelming majority" of the ASUCD Senate leaves me with the strong feeling that President Gallagher is no longer making his own decisions.
   A certain former commission chair has been telling me about a secret organization called Swords and Sandals, which allegedly includes members of the Administration up to and including the Chancellor, and higher-ups in student government. Basically the theory is that members of S&S gather in secret and talk about how they want to manipulate campus politics and other things within their influence, presumably at the expense of actual student interests (ie it would be their policy to oppose making it harder to raise student fees).
   Now I find malevolent secret societies a fun thing to speculate upon in a non-serious manner. I mean, I may deny it later when I'm not being so serious, but I am very close to the two non-serious campus secret societies (ie they invite me on their various expeditions but I never go), Campus Crusade for Chaos & Confusion and Students for an Orwellian Society. But when it comes to actually believing conspiracy theories I usually draw the line.
   before our court meeting, in informal discussion regarding President Gallagher's inexplicable behavior, I mentioned S&S. One justice responded that he'd heard of it before, and another proceeded to tell a story about his former roommate Brian McInnis.

   Before I get into the story of Brian McInnis, however, I want to further lay out the background evidence of S&S's existence. I did a search on google for several combinations of the words "swords," "sandals," "ASUCD," "Davis," and "UC Davis" and came up with three results. (1) UC Davis provost Virginia Hinshaw in a listing of "major / keynote presentations" she has done lists "Swords and Sandals, Davis, CA" in 2002 (source). (2) A page about UC Davis facility reservation policies lists under policy 270-16 "Occasional fund-raising on University property is permitted for the following groups with the prior approval of the Director of CEVS. Funds raised must be donated to or used by a service, charitable, or education organization registered with the IRS. (A) Campus Interest Groups (ex. Swords and Sandals); (B) Non-University Organizations (ex. Davis Chamber of Commerce)" (source)
   Finally the only other reference to the organization that I could find anywhere on the web is (3)in a humorous article written for the "UC Davis Magazine" (itself basically a ploy to get alumni to donate wads of cash) six years ago. I recommend reading the article if you've got a minute and are interested in some other unanswered questions about Davis (notably a cal trans conspiracy theory).

   So: Brian McInnis. I haven't been following his odious ASUCD career too closely and in general I don't pay much attention to the "advocacy units" but I believe he originated somewhere in either "City / County Affairs" or "State & National Affairs." There very early on and from a position of relative unimportance he made his mark by ingratiating himself to city council members at the expense of ASUCD (I believe telling them bad things about the mentality of the rest of ASUCD so that they'd see him as "their man" in ASUCD, which was naturally detrimental to the relationship of the rest of ASUCD with the city). Other early impressions were that he was the most manipulative and generally smarmy individual since ASUCD Senator Lee Weissman (now a used car salesman, no joke). Anyway I believe he was eventually put in charge of State & Nat'l Affairs (under the Gallagher administration incidently, which I thought at the time was unexpected because the impression I was under was that he was universally hated), and was the author of a record number of resolutions expressing endorsement for political candidates and propositions (all of which, it turns out, were illegal and hence ASUCD's current IRS investigation). Later on however, a new position was created specifically for McInnis, the name of which unfortunately currently escapes me, which basically puts BOTH City/County & State & Nat'l under him, giving him an unprecedented amount of authority. This is his current position.
   McInnis is the exact opposite of someone one would want representing their organization to outside parties. He falls over himself in his rush to ingratiate himself to any political figure outside of ASUCD. Instead of taking ASUCD issues to these external figures he directly takes on whatever issue THEY want and advocates it within ASUCD. Altogether he is the ideal tool of S&S, and that relationship would explain his rise to power in the face of general loathing from student government members.

   As to President Gallagher, he's not eager to sell out ASUCD like McInnis is, but I think he's extremely ambitious and somewhat unscrupulous. I won't subject you with a second ASUCD biography in this entry but to highlight Gallagher's ambition I'd like to note that, former president of his HS' ASB, he emailed all the then-current ASUCD senators the summer before he first arrived at Davis. I met him on my first day here a few days before school started and he handed me his business card. He didn't even have a job but he had a business card. He ran for senate his first quarter (as did I - we're the same year) on Lee Weissman's Untie Unite slate (Weissman later related that Gallagher had told him "you can have me on your slate, or not, but either way I'm going to run and I'm going to win").
   I have never seen Gallagher get behind an issue except for the sake of getting behind an issue (as opposed to actually believing in the issue). As such S&S has exactly as much influence over him as he perceives it to be in his aspiring political interests to cooperate with them; and I think they recently made him a tantalizing offer.

   Anyway, if you've read all the above I really appreciate it. I needed to get this conspiracy off my chest as it were. I hope you understood all that, I tried to make it understandable to those not familiar with the inner workings of UC Davis or ASUCD. If anyone here has anything further to share on the subject of Swords and Sandals I'd be greatly appreciative.


PS: Its 8:30am now and apparently Kerry just informed Bush that he will concede at 1pm EST (10am here?). You've probably heard that already, but if you're hearing it here first, EMOSNAIL is proud to be on the cutting edge of the news.


This entry rated: PG (friends only)

Compare & Contrast: Case # 24 & 25,
   So this morning I get a call around 10am informing me that another Court case was filed in SGAO. I go up to the third floor and get the case documents. Then around 1pm I get another call.. ANOTHER case was filed.

The Defendants (and Defendant offices) listed:
Case # 24: Vicki Swett, Alex Park (Creative Media, SGAO)
Case # 25: Vicki Swett, Mark Champagn, Ceative Media (Creative Media, SGAO)

Listed "brief description of the arguments Plaintiff will make":
Case # 24: "The Defendants are not acting in the letter or spirit of the amendment [Constitution Article II, Section 5 & Article III Section 3.2], specifically the clause that provides for an independant count. This makes it nearly impossible for any one to analyze the data, putting the data to print on 800+ pages, available only while in the SGAO office, when a computer program is required. This violation undermines the integrity of the system because it prevents public oversight and transparency.
Case # 25: "SGAO failed to make the documents [ASUCD Constitution, Judicial Codes, Standing Rules, Government Codes, etcitera] stated within the bill [2003 Senate Bill # 48] online as of the stated date of September 2003. Specifically, the Director of Creative Media, Alex Park, and the Student Government Advisor, Vicki Swett, failed to decide how to implement this bill as stated in Section 2 of SB48."

   The ASUCD Court has yet to decide whether or not it shall accept these cases, and shall likely not do that until next quarter (as only three academic days remain in this quarter). We here at Emosnail attest that the above information has been objectively transcribed from the filed documents and does not imply any opinion of anyone but the Plaintiffs. The Defendants are assumed innocent until proven guilty.


Swearing Kalen
   Today I replaced ASUCD President Sara Henry with ASUCD President Kalen Gallagher, by swearing him and Vice President, Paloma Perez into office. This of course is the second ASUCD President (& VP) that I've sworn into office.
   Sara Henry is no longer in office ...that means I can talk about her now. ...but I don't think I will. I maintain however that the campaign to unseat me was completely bogus and motivated by all the wrong reasons. Shame on all those involved.


The Kerryman
   After inexplicably disappearing for more than three months, Sean the crazy Irishman has returned to Davis. I saw him briefly today and I'll see him tomorrow hopefully.


Picture(s) of the Day

President Gallagher pretending to be Kristy

So this weekend I went on the ASUCD Leadership retreat to Tahoe. Then I came back and wrote this entry. Then after it was nearly done I tried to click back to it from an aol dialogue box, accidentally hitting "livejournal FAQ," which opened a new page, and the whole entry was lost. I am now in a very very bad mood. You will now get the I-already-wrote-this-once version. )=Nadia and Shemek (a third unitrans manager was with us as well).
   "We should seperate the driver from the rest of us so we're all technically in the trunk and can drink!" - Elections Committee Chair Mary Ball. Needless to say, we drank anyway.*
   There were 16 people on the bus up. The politicians and government officers chatted happily, while the commercial unit managers sat in awkward silence.
   Up at tahoe we had three condoes, declared the main one, the quiet one, and the late night one. I of course immediately declared sovreignty over the loft of the latter.
   That first night we all partied like whoa. It was pretty cool. Chief of Staff Behzad (last name?) is a party animal. Then we went to the hot-tub. Security chased us out but told us we should go to the more secluded one at the other end of the complex. Yea. "what happens in the hot-tub STAYS in the hot-tub" Unfortunately some keys stayed in the hot tub as well...
   After walking back, Public Opinion Polls Committee chair Russ Fagely realized he had lost his wallet. Simulteniously I realized I had lost a key. So we retraced our steps.. eventually found a key in the hot-tub. It was for building 483 though and I was definitely in 484. Psha on that. Russ eventually tracked down his wallet.. and eventually I discovered that I had in fact originally been given a 483 key. So it all fit together.

   The next day we did various team-building excercises most of the day. A large flow chart of the ASUCD heirarchy was unveiled ("now you can see how we're all connected... OTHER than on friendster.com!" -ASUCD President Sara Henry).. and it was prominently missing the Supreme Court!! I immediately got another peice of butcher paper, wrote "STUDENT COURT" really big with sharpie, and put it in the approprate position (level with "senate" and "president" on the top level).
   I was very very disappointed to learn that "ASUCD Refridgeration Services" does NOT operate vast room-sized industrial walk-in refridgerators at some secret location on campus. Vice President Kalen Gallagher agreed with me that they SHOULD do this, stating "I sense a senate bill coming up!"
   We also had a workshop on "diversity training." "how many of you have been professionally objectified for money."

   That night the prevailing opinion was that we should go to the casinos to eat, and then come back and proceed with the getting drizunk. That turned into gamble until we're seated at the restaurant in harrahs, eat, and eventually gamble the rest of the night. I don't gamble, so this wasn't my preferred turn of events.
   A few of us managed to pass the time beforehand by searching for alcohol. The casino of course had some.. at an exorbitant price. Finally we found a gas station two blocks down that was fully stocked (As opposed to the closer one with none), and Jenna in her frenzy for alcohol didn't even see the large "alcohol liscense suspended!" signs. No alcohol there for us. Finally we found some at a grocery store a little further on.
   After we ate I managed to escape the casinos before too long. But not before the somewhat drunk manager of Special Transportation Services (STS) and Tipsy Taxi asked me: "I'm sorry if I'm a bit blunt right now but... you dress different from everyone else, don't you." I don't know I thought that was funny.
   So yea. KDVS Director Teresa, executive staff Event Coordinator Jenna Zelman and I caught a shuttle back to central control. Teresa went to bed immediately and Jenna and I watched TV till ASUCD Controller Jon Avidor returned at like 2am. Then I went back to my place and went to sleep. At 4am everyone else got back, and unitrans Planning and Marketing Manager Shemek Pawlik came up to tell me everyone was drinking. I actually considered joining them briefly before rolling over and going to sleep.

   Events Sunday were cancelled because too many people had left. Of probably 40+ people at the workshops on Saturday, only around 18 survived till Sunday morning. We never did find out what happened to the mysterious Mark Champaign, secret overlord of ASUCD. We slept in a bit, then Russ Fagely and I watched the end of Red October on TV, we all packed up and fled. The End.




   *Please see the disclaimer in my info. Anything that appears to be illegal is without exception completely fictional.