In which we nod approvingly at March PF

OPTION 1 – Resolved: The United States should no longer pressure Israel to work toward a two-state solution.

OPTION 2 – Resolved: The United States should suspend military aid to Israel until new settlement construction ceases in the West Bank.

All right. These are the potential March topics, which means that, at least around here, they’ll be used for qualifying for CatNats and NatNats, and that’s about it. Needless to say, the subject certainly has been in the news lately, and it’s hot-button to a lot of people. I like the idea of students learning about our relationship to Israel, and about two-state, and about the West Bank construction. I like that the topics are fairly single-minded. The former could break into two things, pressure on the one hand and two-state on the other, the latter into military aid on the one hand and construction on the other, but offhand I can’t see any great advantage to anyone to parse their way into some resolution other than the one suggested by the framers. In other words, I’m on board. I’d probably go with number one, because the idea that we’ll suspend military aid to Israel for anything short of Israel declaring war on the US is pretty slim, but in a debate, anything goes. Not bad, folks!

After telling the Penn registrants yesterday that what they got is mostly what they’re going to get, there was a little drop off. At this point it’s mostly getting more slots in divisions, although a couple remain heavily loaded with schools that simply aren't getting in. Speech keeps fluctuating but debate seems locked. Nobody’s going anywhere. This may encourage people to actually start looking at the list of tournaments when it opens on tabroom. You can always take people out later, but you can’t necessarily put them in. Given that the popular tournaments do fill up, you’d think people would have realized this by now. Whatever.

Speaking of tabroom—I know, you’re saying to yourself, who was speaking of tabroom?—if you go to the Help tab on the home screen, you now get a place to post questions and bug reports and suggestions. It needs a little work design-wise, but I like the idea. I put in my thoughts about running e-ballots at colleges. I'll probably put more in over time, if I think it's useful. 

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