There is an entire issue of the journal Critical Review that is dedicated to the monkeys throwing darts card.
Hat Tip -Zavell
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Afghanistan has mega attitudinal inherency
Going for Framework on the Aff: Its hip to be square pt 1
Debate arguments often operate like fashion trends; they emerge on the scene, gain popularity, that popularity peaks and then declines. Some arguments, like multiple counterplans, then experience a resurgence years later. For some time now it has been very difficult to gain any traction by going for framework arguments on the affirmative vs negative critiques. This is partially because judges get tired of hearing trite theory debates, and also because as the K has gotten more and more mainstream the idea that it is “abusive” has become a tough sell. However, many greedy negatives are not content with 4 entirely plan inclusive counterplans- they also want to use framework to moot the remaining shards of 1AC so that they can pick up an easy win. Because of this, you as an affirmative must be able to pick up on when it is happening, and competently extend framework.
Updated Baker Award Standings: Westminster Remains In Top Spot
With the final two octafinals-bid tournaments of the year in the books, most of the teams at the top of the standings for this year’s National Debate Coaches Association David P. Baker Award for Season Long Excellence have completed their resumes. The top spot in the standings came down to a single ballot in the final round of the Harvard National Invitational as Westminster’s Ellis Allen and Daniel Taylor bested St. Mark’s Rishee Batra and Alex Miles on a split decision to claim the tournament championship and (unofficially) the Baker Award.
The top twenty teams in the updated standings are listed below the fold.
Down To The Wire: The Baker Race Enters Decisive Weekend
With their tournament championship and undefeated preliminary record at Stanford, St. Mark’s Rishee Batra and Alex Miles have put themselves in contention to win the Baker Award. Entering the final maximum-point qualifying tournaments of the season this weekend at Harvard and Berkeley, Westminster’s Ellis Allen and Daniel Taylor remain atop the standings and are the prohibitive favorite. Thanks to their performance at Stanford, however, St. Mark’s has an outside chance to unseat the season-long number one with a win at Harvard.
How can it happen? The answer is below the fold.
Some Notes on Impacts
I’m somewhat baffled by many of the debates I see lately (as well as with the decisions of other judges when I listen to them) with the strange focus on terminal impacts, both in what percentage of time is spent debating them, and then even after a lot of time is spent arguing defense to them with how large of a “risk” judges assign them. Especially with people who I have had conversations with about how to debate or adjudicate impacts who when they are then in a debate seem to disregard/not employ the views they had previously expressed.
So below the break are some thoughts on what is going wrong in these debates and in the deciding of said debates.
Zalmay does it again…
Call me old school but as good as the Kagan and other hege impact cards have been I’ve always been a Khalilzad fan. Unfortunately too many people felt the Khalizad card was getting old (haters)
Luckily for people who like to hear Khalilzad when someone says hegemony he has a new article that can be found here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad
Let the pronunciation wars over his last name begin again!
BFHS Rap Up
You can find the results packet, bracket, and all 21 ballots from the final round here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Khalilzad Replies to Mearsheimer
On the heels of Robert Kagan’s response to John Mearsheimer that Scott mentioned, Zalmay Khalilzad has joined in the fun with a reply of his own to “Imperial By Design”:
Shifting to an offshore-balancer role now is premature. Adopting such a strategy would accelerate the rise of multipolarity and increase the risk of conflict among major powers. Pursuing a global-leadership strategy remains the best option, albeit in a way that incorporates lessons of the past two decades. Looking ahead, future administrations should adjust specific policies to deal with changing domestic and global circumstances—the rise of China and threats resulting from globalization such as cyber attacks for example—while maintaining a grand strategy of American global leadership.
Top Speaker Rankings Updated To Include Emory
Along with the Baker Award standings, the rankings of the top individual speakers of the season has also been updated to include results from the Barkley Forum. As before, speakers are ranked in two ways: by their total share of speaker awards and by their average points per round. Remember, these rankings only include tournaments that are octafinals bid qualifiers to the Tournament of Champions: Greenhill, St. Mark’s, Michigan, Glenbrooks, Blake, MBA, and Emory (with Harvard and Berkeley remaining). The updated standings are below the fold.