22
December
One of the most popular politics disadvantages of the first semester is no more. After intense negotiations and political wrangling, the Senate this afternoon finally ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia. From the Washington Post: The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a new nuclear arms-reduction treaty with Russia, the broadest such pact [...]
14
December
Students attending schools that provide them with competitive debate opportunities are fortunate. Those that are provided with access not only to debate but also to instruction from a professional debate coach are even more fortunate. But having a coach is not enough: students need to make the most of their interactions with coaches to truly [...]
8
December
Suppose that the 1NC presented the following politics disadvantage shell: Obama will get START ratified in the status quo. The plan kills Obama’s political capital so he can’t get START ratified. START ratification increases U.S.-Russia relations, decreases the risk of terrorism, and decreases proliferation. Proliferation causes war.
7
December
After the last podcast a few people asked me about what kind of things they should be reading to try and keep up to date with the topics development. So from time to time I will post some links that I think are relevant/would be useful to read under the banner of topic updates. Afghanistan [...]
6
December
Let’s talk about how to make debates cleaner. By clean, I am referring to organization: a messy debate is one where arguments are poorly organized and not grouped together logically. A clean debate is where the debaters make a conscious effort to sort like arguments together. Why is this important? A clean debate 1. Makes [...]
5
December
The problem that some people have been having when trying to edit pages on the NDCA Wiki is a result of formatting errors. When a large wiki page contains formatting problems (lots of “span” tags, incorrect nesting of bold tags, and other syntax errors), the “Visual Editor” chokes when trying to process the page and [...]
5
December
Intelligence Squared recently featured an Oxford-style debate regarding U.S. military presence in Afghanistan: Has the surge in Afghanistan failed, and is it time for the U.S. to admit defeat and start pulling our troops out? Nine years in, what have we accomplished in Afghanistan? Upon taking office in 2009, President Obama ordered an additional 17,000 [...]
1
December
As promised, the latest episode of The 3NR Podcast was recorded today. From the description on the Podcast page: As the first semester draws to a close, this episode of The 3NR Podcast assesses the evolution of this year’s topic and provides practical advice for students as they prepare for the rest of the season. [...]