All praise be to Allah for this great news!

1) Squirtle is a MAN??? Since when?
2) Thank God. Just thank you, God. Thank you.

This might just be the greatest Daily Planet story ever. I wonder if Becky O’Malley is a pseudo-nym for Carolyn Jones. It is so unimaginably one-sided, it’s not even funny. Actually, scratch that. IT’S HILARIOUS.

Here is the headline, for example:

UC Berkeley Continues to Embarrass Its Graduates

Some key excerpts, but you really have to read the whole thing:

I’d been told that it was in a special conference room in Haas Gymnasium, and that it was only open to the media, not the public. Here I must confess that even though I’m a UC alumna I didn’t really know which of the huge and hideous Mussolini Modern athletic buildings next to Zellerbach Hall was Haas. By the time I figured it out I was a bit late for the event.

In the lobby a security guard tried to stop me from going in, but when I forcefully identified myself he let me pass and directed me down a hall where hastily printed signs pointed to a “media event”. After a long series of twists and turns thru a Kafkaesque labyrinth of dark underground corridors, I found the room, passed through another set of screeners and joined the press conference.

The speaker at the podium was a quintessential Old White Guy, impeccably dressed, with perfectly groomed white hair, obviously a partner in a big law firm . At first I thought he might have been pale from the shock of losing his case, but I realized that he’s probably always so pale that you can’t tell if he’s pale for a reason—one of those really really white White Guys. He was saying that he’d just gotten the opinion at 6:45, so though he was sure it was a victory for UC there were still some points he wasn’t quite so sure about.

I’d like to meet this Beckey O’Malley!

He “also wanted a cigarette”. Yeah right, he really wanted some ganja. The tree-huggers don’t have any ganja! So, my money is on this becoming a common scene as most tree-huggers will suffer withdrawal from the lack of their god. Ms. Muffin and one or two other nutjobs will stay, but that will make for easy-pickins!

Timber!

Similar CoCo Times story.

Well then:

The move came a day after the Berkeley City Council — in an emergency move late Tuesday night — sent two city workers to check on the tree sitters. The workers reported back that the tree sitters refused their help, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said Wednesday.

Kamlarz said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong and Jim Hynes, assistant to the city manager, went to the tree grove after dark Tuesday and asked the tree sitters if they needed medical attention or food and water. They said a spokesman for the tree sitters said they would not accept food and water from a public safety official.

Tree sitters and their supporters, however, told a different story.

“That is absolutely not true,” Shem, a spokesman for the tree sitters, said Wednesday. “We told them directly that we would not accept food and water from the university because we need the university to be held accountable for trying to kill us.”

Yes. Trying to kill you. How…...............reasonable.

The Alameda County Court website has the Plaintiff’s order et al scanned in twice. And a letter saying “heres the order! If you want to have anymore hearings, lets talk!” I think they scanned it in twice, because they received both a faxed version and a hard-copy version. Not a big deal.

From SF Gate:

The tree-sitters also told the City Council they need a pound of marijuana, although one of them later said it was a joke.

Yeah, right. A joke.

City officials dispatched to the grove Tuesday night “asked us what do we want, and someone said we want marijuana, but I don’t think it was serious,” said tree-sitters’ supporter Eric Eisenberg.

just copy and paste the whole thing:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/26/BA8E11F6S0.DTL

the first part comes out as a link but I’m no computer nerd, just copy and paste the whole thing.

Subject: [oak grove tree-sitters] 1) UC’s extraction Tactics on Trial Friday 2) Resupply the treesitters Sunday

Hey friends,

Two things in this email:

1) Important Court Date in Hayward Friday June 27th (tomorrow) at
2:30pm.

2) Berkeley Grandmothers will try again to resupply the treesitters
this Sunday June 29th at 2pm. The situation is dire you are needed!!

More info below…........................

=========================================
1) COURT DATE ON FRIDAY JUNE 27TH 2:30PM

There is an important court date to attend tomorrow in Hayward. The
treesitters’ attorney will challenge the legality of the dangerous
extraction techniques employed by the University and their contractor Williams
Tree Service (“the arborists”), as well as the legality of denying
water and food to the treesitters.

Please come to support these valient Sheroes and Heroes in the trees.
They have stood so strong and this is a good chance to be able to help support them.

Friday, June 27th. 2:30 pm
Hayward Hall of Justice Dept. 510
24405 Amador St (near the corner of Winton Ave.)
Judge Richard Keller
Case # should be RG 07345190

Rides are leaving the Oak Grove at 1:30pm. You can also take BART to
the Hayward station and take the bus (#92?) to the Hayward Hall of
Justice.

PS – if you have any video footage of UC’s dangerous extraction
techniques or extractors endangering treesitters or anyone else, please call
510-938-2109 and tell the treesit ground support so we can get it ready
for court tomorrow if possible.

============================================

2) BERKELEY GRANDMOTHERS SAY COME SUNDAY JUNE 29TH 2PM FOR RESUPPLY.

Dear Friends,

As I write this today (Thursday), tree sitters have been cut off from
food and water for almost two weeks.
They have lived through some harrowing, life-endangering attacks and
have stuck through it. Now we need to stick by them!
An attack on the tree sitters is an attack on us all!
Come to this week’s Re-Supply! Food and Water is a human right.
We shall not be moved.

Sunday 6/29 at 2pm
Memorial Oak Grove
Piedmont/ Bancroft

Bring non-perishable food in cloth bags and water with screw-top
containers if you can. Most importantly, bring yourself. We need you.

Love Over Fear,
millipede, extracted tree sitter

Domain Web has the following notation:

06/26/08 Motion Reservation Set for dept: 512 date: 07/22/2008 time: 10:00 AM

06/26/08 Order Shortening Time Reservation Set for dept: 512 date: 07/01/2008 time: 10:00 AM

It looks like there is hearing next Tuesday on this matter. As to what that hearing is, it is unclear. The judge has not even received Cal’s documents yet (to my knowledge). I can only offer the speculation that she is unhappy with the plaintiff’s Order in some way.

I asked one of the other attorneys who works here about it. He said that he didn’t have a lot of knowledge on the case. But that if he received the type of proposed Order (as I described), he would consider sanctions against the party. This is purely speculation, but maybe a punishment is in order? Who knows? I don’t care about punitive sanctions. I only want positive change moving forward.

Drop the injunction and let’s get moving!

its the perfect companion for them.

UC Cal is supplying the tree-sitters with some supplies.

University of California, Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said campus police delivered water to a remaining group of about six protesters at a grove of oak trees near the university’s football stadium about 1 p.m. today.

Mogulof said campus police Chief Victoria Harrison, Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya and other university officials expressed concern about the protesters’ health and inquired about their remaining supplies of food and water.

Some have expressed concern that this would make our beloved UC Cal look weak. I think it makes us look compassionate and smart. I also hope it means Barbour and Co. know something we don’t about this 7.1.08 hearing (may that be the day of freedom and independence).

Believe me, I am as frustrated and exasperated with the tree-sitters as much as the next sane human being with ration and reason. But this is meaningless in the scheme of things.

Cal again takes the high road:

Mogulof said that after Harrison was told by the protesters that they were in fact in need of food and water supplies, she offered to begin providing them with food and water in return for a commitment to begin lowering their waste on a daily basis.

Mogulof said the protesters rejected that offer, but campus police “decided to act unilaterally in the interests of health and safety” and placed a case of 24 half-liter bottles at the base of the tree.

And for sunday’s resupply:

Mogulof said campus official stress that while they stand ready to provide for essential needs, re-supply of the protesters from outside sources “will not be allowed under any circumstances.”

Anyone else think it sucks that the hearing is set for the 22nd? Doesn’t that mean its unlikely the judge will change anything, or submit any judgement, before then?

06/27/08 Motion to Modify Preliminary Injunction Filed by The Regents of the University of California

06/27/08 Motion to Modify Preliminary Injunction Hearing Confirmed for 07/22/2008 10:00 AM D- 512