Round 4: A judges perspective from within the round

I am currently sitting in one of the 2-0 debates between Trevor Aufderheide (Edina) and Amy Anderson (Jefferson) vs. Travis Panneck (Eagan) and Erik Walker (Sibley). Trevor and Amy are affirmative running water - the plan text is the USFG should substantially increase its public health assistance by fully funding local water initiatives and rural hydraulic projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The negative strategy includes ASPEC (as the 2ac pointed out not likely a round winner in front of me - but we will see), T Public Health Assistance (not just funding), Japan CP, Japan DA, Over-confidence, Bush Bad - Free Trade Bad (which by the way - Bush is never bad before noon - only after) and case. There are pictures on flickr for your viewing pleasure. The negative block kicks out of the Japan Disad, CP and T. There is a time allocation problem: mainly - they spent more than 1 minute talking about ASPEC in the block. For the parents reading out there - this argument is like watching paint dry or mowing the lawn for more than an hour. Actually that is a bad analogy because at least once the paint is dry or the lawn is complete you are left satisfied. Other than that argument - the students have done a fantastic job, at least in this round, arguing for their positions. I end of voting negative on a conceded inherency argument that says that the US is already providing water assistance. The affirmative drops this and the analysis that says a dropped inherency arugment is a stock issues and reason to vote against the affirmative first. Since the affirmative drops both it is relatively hard to vote affirmative.


Will Hailer