PF 2009 Part 4

Next up—case writing

Curiously enough, my old rule number one for PF was: Don’t do LD in a PF round. How wrong I was.

This is not to suggest that people actually do LD in their PF rounds. There are no values, there are no criteria, speed is problematic at best, and judges are inevitably new to the activity so you can’t count on any paradigmatic understanding of what you’re doing. But the underlying concept of value and criterion can easily be adapted to case structure in PF, and doing so will make your cases all that much clearer. We'll get to that eventually. Before that, the mechanics.

The first step in writing a case is divvying up the work. There are two people on a PF team, so we need a fifty-fifty approach. But I’m not necessarily sure if something as simple as, you write the con, I’ll write the pro, is a good approach. I’m going to assume that as a general rule your team will have somebody who always does the first speech and someone who always does the second speech. The first speech on either side is a constructive. Simple enough. Your best constructor will go first, your attack dog will go second. There are probably plenty of variations on this theme, but that makes sense as a starting point.

So here’s a problem. Both members of the team write a speech, but only one actually delivers it. Unless the person who is writing but not delivering is a professional speechwriter, it is highly unlikely that that person will be capable of molding his or her phraseology to match the speaker. As a rule, we all write like ourselves. People who read my writing inevitably tell me they can hear my voice in their head when they read it. I write like me, so when I read something I’ve written aloud, I do it pretty well because I know what it’s supposed to mean. This is true of most people, consciously or otherwise. Language has a unique personality aspect for each user, regardless of whether it is written or spoken. My rhythms, my word usages, my syntax. Because of this I’m wary of splitting the writing chores in a simple 50/50. I would suggest the following.

The case-writing process begins when the initial research is completed. The idea that informs an LD case, that there is a central thesis, that you are running X, where X can be relayed in one simple sentence, holds for PF. If you can’t boil it down to one simple declarative sentence—running that Obama’s health care plan will bankrupt the country, let’s say, or that not enacting Obama’s health plan will result in the collapse of the present health care system, whatever—then you’re not there yet. So, the first step between the two partners is a meeting of the minds. Agree, after studying the topic area, what the plan of attack will be. If you don’t agree, you’re going to be in trouble, so make sure you both like it. And then I suggest that the first speaker put together a good solid draft of the case. Write it all out, start to finish. Make it good. Then send it to your partner for a critique. Partner will find things that aren’t clear, that go on too long, that need different evidence, etc., and edit it accordingly. Then back to the speaker/writer, who incorporates the editing. Repeat until everyone is satisfied.

This may make it seem as if the second speaker is getting something of a free ride. Not exactly. Can you say blocks? Rebuttals? While the first speaker is putting together the constructive, the second speaker puts together predictable arguments against the other team. We don’t want anyone to feel left out here. The partner will edit these blocks as this person edited the partner's.

Of course, there is the question of, what if the better writer is the second speaker? Aren’t we missing out on that person’s very useful skill?

Well, yes and no. You just have to work things out. What I'm suggesting here is a starting point for a team, given that the team will have many many months, nay years, to work it out. When all is said and done, one person will be delivering the speech that is written. Every word tripped over, ever phrase misstated, works against the team. But different people are different people. In the best of all posible worlds, a team will over team find the best system that capitalizes on both their best skills.

But no matter who does what, the basics apply of using an LD framework while not using an LD framework, that I mentioned at the start. We’ll get to that next.

Either/Or

A Kierkegaard moment, you ask? Or an Elliott Smith moment? Whichever.

Logic demands the following. If an article is going to be commented on here, it will not be in the raw Feed. If an article is something about which I have no comment, which is often the case, it will go into the raw Feed unheralded here. In other words, either/or.

If you're following this blog through RSS, and also following the Feed through RSS, this will eliminate the overlap, except when I forget and raw-feed something I'm also blogging about, because, well, perfect I ain't. As you probably know, I recommend RSS for all your computing needs, and even supply directions on how to use the Google Reader.

But then again, what if someone only reads the raw Feed, or only reads this blog? Either through RSS or good-old-fashioned going to the website? Won't they miss out on half the stuff? That would have to be their problem, I guess. I can't go to everyone's else and tell them how to optimally live their lives, although if I did, their lives would be better for it.

In this vein (eliminating duplication, that is, not the going-to-your-house-and-straightening-you-out vein), I'll stop sending this blog to the raw Feed. I exist to serve only you, bro and/or sis. You know that. The thing is, I'm evolving what I do here. Look on the bright side. It's the off season. We've got time to experiment. (And if you're serving something really good for dinner, maybe I will go to your house and straighten you out after all. Will work for food, you know?)

Further discussion...

Reprinting Anjan's comment, regarding my thoughts on Harvard, which I think warrants further discussion:

I respectfully disagree. Harvard is unique among major national "circuit" tournaments because it does not cap its field and is attended by many programs whose only trip all year is to the tournament. Capping the field at 160, for example, would mean that 190 debaters last year would not be allowed to debate.

Am I saying that every tournament should be like Harvard and allow all comers? No. But, there is space for a tournament like this on the schedule -- a tournament that lets anyone enter.

Is there room for improvement in judging? Surely so (though there always will be). But then again, that will always be the case and Harvard surely has shown they are willing to listen to suggestions.

Well, yes and no. If you like the tournament, and can afford it, that is fine. One can go or not go as one chooses. I took this tournament off my team's list quite some time ago, and haven't felt the need to air any particular grievances against it as a result. There are plenty of tournaments I don't go to because I don't like them, for one reason or another. We all do. We organize our programs accordingly. Live and let live, eh?

Why comment now, then? Well, they're the ones who wrote the open letter to the community.

My points relative to Anjan's comments are two. First, I don't think they'll be able to seriously improve the judging without a cap (and a serious pool of good hireds). It is probably inherently impossible. It's hard enough running a tournament half this size and keeping the judging running well. Secondly, their judging has been a problem for many years. I simply cannot gather a lot of enthusiasm for their willingness to listen to suggestions if the tournament has been notoriously badly judged for as long as anyone can remember. I'm sure they're all fine people (I know a couple of them, and yes indeed, those ones I know are fine people) but that doesn't excuse a disconnect from the debate community by, literally, the community's biggest debate tournament.

I do hasten to point out that this does not suggest that debaters who succeed at the tournament are in any way less than excellent. The questionable nature of the judging probably makes it harder to succeed, not easier, and I applaud those who have done well there.

Bile? Moi?

Regarding Harvard's plans to improve its tournament:

I applaud that they are going to use the $120 per debater to provide a civil, competent ballot table, better judging, and rooms in which to have debates. High time, I would say. But I find their acclaimed good intentions may outstrip the possible results. Given the enormous field, a "limited number of strikes" and community rankings won't really solve the problems with adjudication, which outweigh all the other issues. Also needed: cap the field at 160 and hire 15-20 solid LD judges above the number needed. Short of these, their good intentions will remain merely intentions. For a hundred and twenty bucks, I want more than intentions.

For the sake of full disclosure, I will be among the Quakers that weekend. Make of this what you will.

PF 2009 Part 3

Continuing with our series on introductory PF…

This probably isn’t a problem for you, but it is a problem for a small team without much of a history of group research. To wit, what the hell is group research, anyhow?

First of all, there’s the question of what, exactly, comprises the group. It can be merely the two members of the sole team doing PF during a certain period (we’ve had that a few times amongst the Sailors), or it could be a couple of teams, plus maybe a lost soul or two simply interested in either the subject or PF per se. Whatever the size of the group, there are some rules that seem obvious.

All research is owned by the team. In other words, if you find anything at all, it is to be shared by everyone.

All people involved in debating a topic are involved in researching it. While it may be convenient to have a lot of other people go scouring the vaunted halls of data while you lounge about on your divan eating Turkish delight and watching “Saved by the Bell” reruns, following which you simply skim the best of what others have done to write cases, this is not allowed, for a reason other than the apparent unfairness of work assignment. The thing is, knowledge is the number one key to success in debating, or at least one of the number one keys to success. The acquisition of knowledge does not come from looking over the shoulders of those who have themselves acquired knowledge, but in the actual act of acquiring it. Let’s say that you’re specifically looking up international health plans. Every plan you look at, good, bad or indifferent, tells you something about health plans in general. If a lot of them are the same, that tells you something. If they’re all different, that tells you something. If all the doctors in one country are women, that tells you something. Different rates of infant mortality tell you something. In your research, discovering any of these bits of data might lead you somewhere you weren’t expecting. Depth of knowledge comes from going down different pathways. Superficial knowledge comes from dabbling. The debater with depth of knowledge will inevitably win out in the long run over the debater with superficial knowledge. Trust me on this. (My brief against some critiques in LD is, of course, that they are an attempt to circumvent the acquisition and display of knowledge on a topic rather than an honest attempt to challenge the grounds of a resolution, which if done correctly require just as much research.)

Research must be organized in advance. If it’s just the two team members, each gets a starting assignment. If it’s a handful of people, more assignments. The researchers should work as a team, specifically digging stuff up. There will be overlap, but there’s nothing wrong with that. In the end, there will be a bounty of material that is mostly different, that can then be shared, in keeping with the rule above that all research belongs to the team (except for the lazy yabbo on the divan with the Turkish delight).

Research, after it is acquired, must be made physically available to everyone. We haven’t quite knocked this one yet. We don’t have any specific programs for organization, although I have seen various schemes and database apps on occasion from Policians who do this for a living. We’ll be working on this, but at the moment, we simply put it into a folder online where everyone can access all the good stuff. With a small number, that works well enough. And, of course, given that resolutions tend to repeat, if not literally then at least spiritually, it’s good to be able to go back and look at the old stuff. This is going to be my problem going forward, coming up with a workable solution to data organization. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything revolutionary. I doubt if that will happen.

Think about your research. All of the above speaks merely to research in the raw. Obviously there is good research (useful, meaningful data) and bad research (useless, meaningless data). One needs to distinguish between the two, but that shouldn’t be too hard if you’ve done enough work in the acquiring in the first place. If all your data say that there’s a one in ten chance of hell freezing over except for one chart that proves that hell is already frozen, the odds are that your vast data weighing in on the warmth of hell indicates that hell as a skater’s paradise may not be something you want to buy into. “Facts” that are out of line with all your other facts, or your intuition, are either paradigm shifters or bogus, and as a general rule, the latter is more likely than the former.

There’s more to research than facts. How you read the data is yet another issue. This is why the acquiring is so important. In the process of acquisition you will usually discover facts not merely as data in a vacuum but evidence in support of a position. Professor So-and-so points out that all the doctors in Amazon City are women, and links this to a low infant mortality rate and better education for immigrants, or whatever, and you have acquired not only facts but opinions to draw on, to inform your own opinions in putting together your case positions. Of course, there is a lot of raw data out there (I post plenty of charts in the Feed), but most data has a point of view surrounding it, or a source lending it substance and veracity and trust (or lack thereof). Mastering these aspects of research, i.e., weighing its value, is as important as the mechanics of the thing, but can’t be done until the mechanics of the thing are inherent in your approach to things. It’s scales and concerti again, again: you can’t make art until you first master technique.

Finally, there is the question of research in a library versus research online. This is a tough one. If you have access to the resources of a major university library, grab the group and go there. But absent that, nowadays the resources of your average local library (not to mention school library) may be of the slim pickings variety. Get everybody together and go on line, as a group, in that case. But do work together, if at all possible, regardless of where you’re working. This will keep everybody organized and working toward their specific assignments, while keeping you flexible for changing assignments. This is not to say that everyone won’t do independent research as well (making the fruits of this labor available to the team), but group research will ultimately bear different fruit, and therefore should not be ignored.

FEED: Civil Rights

P.A.P. has a great article on the death penalty as a deterrent (i.e., not).

Unless deterrence has somehow become much more effective than it was in the early parts of the 20th century – which is doubtful given the relatively low numbers and humane methods – it’s doubtful that such a relatively small increase in the number of executions during the last decades is the cause of the extraordinary decrease in the number of homicides during the same period. More...

It might be suggested that we here at Coachean HQ are simply extending our own agenda with such items, but, okay, we're anti-guns, anti-capital punishment, pro-anything people want to do that doesn't harm us. We admit it. Deal with it. We're pretty good, actually, at pointing out articles on both sides of guns and CP; as for stopping people from doing things that don't harm us, you'll have to look elsewhere. It's not in our philosophy.

FEED: Civil Rights

As we perhaps watch the Supreme Court remove the underpinnings of the laws that protect civil rights of minorities, we might want to look at the idea of testing per se.

Here is a test:

You are in a burning building. Do you want a firefighter rescuer (choose one:)
a. who passed a written test,
b. who has a sister-in-law on the city council member or is of a certain race,
c. who has proven on-the-job performance and successfully passed simulated fire rescues

Answer class? More...

FEED: Civil Rights

We here at Coachean HQ were not happy with Heller, because we simply cannot see the inherent legality in the ability to blow each other's brains out. SCOTUS, of course, felt differently. Reason has a good interview with the Heller (pro-gun) lawyer.

The lawyer who successfully argued that case, Alan Gura, has remained a dedicated opponent of all sorts of gun regulations that still stand post-Heller. Senior Editor Brian Doherty talked to Gura by phone earlier this week about the various legal challenges Gura is fighting against state and local gun laws. More...

FEED: Debate

According to the Global Debate blog, the Debatepedia has been updated. What, sez you, is the Debatepedia? Good question. Essentially they list umpty-ump subjects and provide arguments pro and con. This can certainly be useful off the top, in any analysis of a topic. I took a quick look at civil disobedience, for example, and there's some perfectly useful material. Can you really pull enough material out of this for cases? Not really. And it's "debate" in the common parlance usage, not the specific academic debate context. Nevertheless, it should be added to the canon of general research sites.

Which leads me to believe that there should be a canon of general research sites. I'll start creating a list over on the right. For that matter, hasn't somebody else got a list somewhere we can crib? I know you're out there: I read the stats. Stop making those cricket imitations.

FEED: International

There's some country-specific data in this article about failed states. There's an interactive map, and who knew that Australia was more stable than the US?

The global recession is sparking fears that multiple states could slip all at once into the ranks of the failing. Now more than ever, failed-state triage could become a grim necessity for world leaders from the United Nations and World Bank to U.S. President Barack Obama’s White House. All of which puts a fine point on an old and uncomfortable dilemma: Whom do you help when so many need it? More...

FEED: Human rights

The French do a lot of racial profiling? I'm shocked, shocked, to hear it.

In France, there's no provision for monitoring ethnicity under the law. This is not an altogether bad thing, but it makes it impossible for anyone to get data about police 'ethnic profiling' [what us Brits call 'racial discrimination'] in the way that they treat members of visible minorities. More...

PF 2009 Part 2

I have a new project that’s going to be keeping me busy, and away from the debate universe, for a bit of the summer, so forgive me if entries become erratic. (Erratic in appearance, that is; they’re already erratic in content.) Feed items will continue as I’ve been doing them, annotated here, and raw (and in greater numbers) on the straight feed itself.

Here’s a rule of thumb I propose for Pfffters: Never open your mouth unless there’s a piece of evidence in it. If nothing else separates PF from LD, then let it be this (although, of course, there are plenty of other separation points as well, but this one is key). This is not to say that PF need be nothing more than dueling facts, of course; my point is that simply saying something without evidentiary support is a sure way to lose a round. In LD, solid analytics derived from evidence or even concepts can take the day, especially in areas where one is discussing something ephemeral like justice or societal obligation. Interpretation of those issues, in LD, can be as important as application of those issues to specific circumstances. But, as a general rule, it’s the other way around in PF, where application and circumstances usually come first. Analysis is important, obviously, but if you’re arguing, for instance, that we should have nationalized health care, what will win the day is healthier people. Healthier people will result from better health care, national or non-national. And this structure applies most of the time.

The speeches in PF are like an inverted unmultiplied factorial or something, going from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 minute (and, I guess, to 0 minutes when it’s all over, which is totally non-factorial in that all results would equal zero, but that is soooo beside the point). None of these is particularly long, but at least in the first speech you get a chance to present a reasonable, and in LD terms, normal length constructive. After that, things get progressively tighter. Clarity and word economy are obviously of great importance. But so is argument structure. If you’re going to refute what the opponent has said, this is where you can’t open your mouth without a piece of evidence in it. But that evidence must be in the classic Toulmin argument structure of claim/evidence/warrant. Here’s a loosey goosey example: “[claim] If we enact a national health care plan, it will result in people dropping like flies. [evidence] According to the the Onion, 87% of all people who have been in a similar plan in Kush Behar have instantly contacted the yaws and collapsed in a heap. [warrant] Since our plan is no different than theirs, we can expect the same result.” Even the NFL documentation discusses what they call the “Art of Argumentation” in this fashion.

This sort of presentation is simple enough in a written out case, but it must also come out in rebuttals. In a way, the evidence part of the equation is the easiest to come up with, assuming you’ve done your research. That is, a fact is a fact is a fact. Claims can be scurrilous, and warrants can be elusive, but as Mr. Gradgrind would happily point out, facts are facts and there you are. The problem is, it is tempting to leave out facts in refutations, especially if one’s background is LD where the warrant and claim (and impact) are often sufficient to win a point. (Alternately, it might also be tempting to go so facty on us that one leaves out the literal arguing—the claim and warrant—beyond a mere dusting. That’s no good either.) That’s why I say that, for the former LDer especially, not opening your mouth unless there’s evidence in it is important. The temptation is to argue other ways, but I don’t think that that will work very often. Smart arguing on warrants is intriguing in some contexts, but in the PF round, at the end the judge is looking for (in my example) the most health, and the most health is probably going to result from demonstration of facts applied logically rather than demonstration of logic applied without factual basis.

Curiously, much of my thinking is based on CatNats where they were arguing more often than not social contract. Winners of fact fights were those who actually knew something about the social contract. Which is, of course, not a fact but merely a philosophical construct. Whatever. You had to, first, get the philosophical construct right, i.e., know what soc con actually is, theoretically, before you could do anything else. Very bizarre. Come to think of it, CatNats was also about health care, I think, but the arguments were mostly about societal obligations. So very LD, so not PF. But, I think, the conclusions remain accurate.

FEED: Human rights

You probably have heard this by now. India un-bans being homosexual.

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs had opposed changes to the law on grounds that decriminalizing homosexual conduct would “open the floodgates of delinquent behavior.” But on Wednesday, Home Minister P. Chidambaram indicated that the government might have “new thinking” on the issue. More...

FEED: Philosophy

Which came first, the language or the thought? Understanding language may be the key to understanding human nature, which is why linguistics, even in its most practical facets, is absolutely fascinating to the student of philosophy. This article is long, and well worth your time.

Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak different languages? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do polyglots think differently when speaking different languages? More...

FEED: Debate

I like articles that simply come out and support high school debate as an academic tool. This one is from the Chicago Tribune via Snider.

Pickert, 17, a recent graduate, isn't sure where he will go to college but knows his research and study habits honed by debating will help him to succeed. "The things you learn in debate spill over," Pickert said.

Research indicates Pickert is likely right. 2004 University of Missouri study found that debating skills have a positive effect on academic performance. And researchers at the University of Michigan are looking at the impact on academics. More...

FEED: Human rights

As always, PAP makes you think.

If you care about human rights, it’s extremely important to measure the level of protection of human rights in different countries, as well as the level of progress or deterioration. Measurement in the social sciences is always tricky; we’re dealing with human behavior and not with sizes, volumes, speeds etc. However, measuring human rights is especially difficult...In order to measure whether countries respect human rights, one already needs respect for human rights. More...

PF 2009 Part 1

You’re going to thing that this is all old-hat, but look at it from the perspective from which I’ll be saying it. Amongst Sailors, one starts as a novice in LD. At present I believe that this is the best way to learn the basics of debate like case writing, presentation, argument structure, etc. Plus, there’s a lot of opportunities to debate as an LD novice, so if a student is looking to gain experience, it will happen. After LD boot camp, Sailors can, if they so desire, begin doing PF. So, the starting point for Sailors in PF is a year’s experience in LD, with all that entails.

Last night I began writing up my new materials on PF (I don’t know exactly what form this will take—lecture, handout, podcast—it’s still early days). I didn’t get far, but the first two things that occurred to me were preliminary to any actual discussion of the activity. They were also results of that boot camp year in LD. I think they may be the biggest spiritual differences a student must accept at the onset of the activity.

First of all, the nature of research is entirely different from LD research. Obviously research = research at some level, but the nature of LD is, ideally, that we are attempting to achieve some lofty goal like justice or morality in our actions. Often the resolutions are removed from real life contexts (think kill one to save five), or are only tangentially related to real life. If we discuss nukes we do not discuss the politics of nuclear weapons but the morality of nuclear weapons. Compare: The policy debater handling nukes will certainly research some moral aspects of the issue but will research facts and figures and political stances in incredible depth, while the LDer will certainly research some facts and figures but will concentrate on the morality aspect in the greatest depth. Realistically, PF follows the Policy research approach. It’s about the facts and the figures. Not exclusively, but nonetheless primarily, and exhaustively (or as exhaustively as can be done in a month or so, versus the full year of topic maturation on the Policy side). This is a change of mindset that newbie PFers coming from LD might not be prepared for. But it’s an important one to understand and embrace. Good PFers never talk out their butts, or to be more precise, good PFers, when talking out their butts, bring facts out of their butts as well. An LDer walking into a round with a well-stuffed folder of evidence looks like a goober. A PFer walking into a round without a well-stuffed folder of evidence looks like a goober. Therein lies one key difference between the activities.

The second big difference is, of course, the partnership aspect. Policy has always had partners, and policy coaches have various approaches to the unions and breakups of their pairs over their debating careers. Some people are not that well suited for team debate, at least not initially. Some Policians become LDers because they can’t do the two-person thing. The bottom line is, having to debate as a team brings in a totally new dimension to the activity. If you have a big team, you can match-dot-com them and find the right pairings, perhaps. With a small team, it’s more of a default pairing. It’s still pairings, though. Learning to work as a team requires a specific set of skills different from working alone. Tennis doubles is still tennis, but it’s played differently. There’s a lot of opportunity for people to bump into each other, or for neither of them to be where they should have been. Meshing with a partner is a good skill all its own. I would like to be able to promise everyone on my team that, for the rest of their lives, they will only work with people with whom they are compatible, but it just isn’t true. As often as not, they’ll be forced to work with yabbos of the most yabbonian persuasion, and they won’t be able to just blame failure on their partners. Teams work because the members of the team capitalize on their assets and minimize their deficits. Sometimes teams will be more an exigency than a meeting of the minds, but that should not limit results.

As I say, these are new problems, or new approaches, for the LD novice graduating up into PF. For that matter, they’re still issues that must be addressed even if the Pffffter has never done LD, but at least in that case one is not going counter to previous experience.

So that’s my starting point with good old Pfffft. This is going to be fun.

FEED: Capitalism

The FTC came up with this stuff, which somehow just makes me shake my head. Maybe Cap Bad is true.

And so this strange taxpayer-funded, candy-colored interactive online mall of free trade propaganda was born. The lessons are encourage economic literacy, pro-trade attitudes, and mall map reading skills. More...

Exegesis, future planning, Mass Matt's Mac, etc

Here’s how things are working at the moment here.

Feed articles are posted during my lunch hour (I wonder why), with the FEED: in the header. I’m going to start limiting the subject lines after that to a distinct handful, for simplicity’s sake. I will also keep sending these articles to the unremarked Feed (if I can remember to click the appropriate button, which I forget sometimes when I cross-post). In fact, there will probably be a small number of posts in the Feed not carried over here, because they are of marginally less interest, at least insofar as further notation is concerned.

Non-Feed articles are posted in the evening, usually at 7:30. They have their usual unintelligible subject lines, many of which seem to be taken from random email spam. (Feel free to send me your social security number and all your bank information, if the spirit moves you.)

I’ve now gotten information, I think from WTF, on three tournaments for next year, suggesting I poise my fingers over the keyboard to sign up. All right, Yale does require some planning (guessing how many Sailors might want to go, pretending I have a real number when I go through the hell of securing hotel rooms, etc.), but Big Jake? O’C obviously had a little WTF time on his hands, or else he needed that $5K. I was shocked, shocked, to read that he is planning to give awards bigger than the average everyday SUV for a variety of accomplishments. He’s already solicited that I give two speeches at varying moments, not to mention enlisting my tuba playing skills in the legendary Big Bronx 2AR Marching Band. I hear that JV is playing glockenspiel. Should be very entertaining.

(If any more proof were needed that O’C has got time on his hands, in his archaeology mode Our Man in the Bronx discovered that Ewok is distantly related to some guy who won the one-legged novice declamation championships in Ohio in 1942, or something like that. He was mighty proud of this discovery, beaming away in his broadcast text message. Things must be pretty quiet down there in Kaintuck.)

Come hell or high water, my next job is working on Pfffft. I want to document my thoughts and publish them so that others can tear them apart. Give me a day or two. Or three.

And I’ll be terribly disappointed if Mass Matt goes for 15 inches over 13. Size is not everything. If one is lugging the thing around, less is more. If it’s sitting on your desktop 24/7, then more is more. Plus, it’s about $200 extra per square inch. A studio apartment in Manhattan is about $80 a square inch. $200 a square inch? You’re talking penthouse prices. Moving in with Woody Allen. I dunno…

FEED: Civil rights

It is an interesting conundrum. What rights do groups have to discriminate for religious reasons? For any reasons, for that matter? This is a very tough, murky area.

On college and university campuses and in high schools, Christian student groups risk being denied official school recognition because their religious beliefs conflict with anti-discrimination policies. These controversies often involve groups that bar gay students from qualifying for voting membership or leadership positions if they don’t acknowledge the alleged sinfulness of their ways. Liberal advocates of equality applaud the denial of official status to conservative groups deemed hostile to gay people; conservatives and some traditional civil libertarians decry the denial of fundamental associational and religious rights to Christian groups. More...