Young fabians blog post

I wrote a post for the Young Fabians' blog about Labour's credibility deficit on the economy, you can read it here if you want.

Book review - Ask Not

As a lecturer in Communications and a history graduate, Ask Not has all the right ingredients to appeal to me in a book. In a fascinating account, rich with historical details and primary research, Thurston Clarke traces JFK's inaugural address from conception to delivery. One of the most celebrated speeches of the 21st Century, its themes of service to community still resonate today.

Rumors (and truths) that Ted Sorenson had written much of JFK's Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage meant that JFK was particularly eager to establish his own authentic ownership of the inaugural. While the true picture emerges as a more complex interaction between Sorenson and Kennedy, who like all good speech writing teams had taken on aspects of each others writing, Clarke argues compellingly that the most memorable passages of the speech came from Kennedy.

Clarke is clearly enamored with JFK and anyone who has read the similarly excellent The Last Campaign, the first chapter of which is available free as a Vanity Fair extract, would be well aware of his political leanings. However, this no mere hagiography. Clarke gives time over to many of the issues which plagued JFK's, such as his affairs, conceited connections with celebrity and impatience with others whom he did not feel worthy of his respect. Its all the richer and more compelling for these details. One of the most amusing moment finds Frank Sinatra smashing his 'presidential helipad' as JFK seeks to create distance from him by electing not to stay at his house in the months following the inauguration.

One of the most interesting things in the book is an explanation of how it marked the transition from print to video as the primary means of presidential communication. The carefully stage managed spectacle and the close relationships which Kennedy fostered with television executives presaged a broader shift in political culture. I'd highly recommend the book for anyone interested in the history of the period, or exploring the intricacies involved in crafting a speech for the ages.

Ten lessons from USU

While things are fresh in my mind, I wanted to just write down a few quick thoughts about how we ran the tournament from the adjudication core side, and what lessons for good or bad can be taken from it. CA-ing a large tournament is something that most people only do once, or at the most twice, so I thought it might be useful for people to have some ideas from someone who has done it. Some of the ideas here are specific to the US circuit, but I think a lot of them would be relevant to anyone hosting a competition, particularly a large-scale one.

1. Judges’ test

We opted for a judge test that was not a great debate and in fact one that was difficult to call. What we considered most important was to find judges who identified important arguments for each of the teams and problems than the result itself. Everyone can judge one debate badly, and particularly so with a lack of others to discuss things with. As such, I think the focus should be much more on reasoning than decisions, with other questions about debating serving to determine who had the requisite level of knowledge to judge important rooms.

2. Judge feedback

We had limited time at the competition and given a lack of personnel chose to prioritise ballot running over someone to specifically tabulate judge feedback. As a CA team we took a triage approach, picking out the best and worst forms and seeing if others correlated with them. Based on the limited number of outliers, our feeling is that we were fairly accurate with our initial allocation of judges. However, I think for other tournaments having someone tab feedback, which I know has been the norm elsewhere, would preferable if the personnel are available.

3. Judge allocation

We trusted the tab to do its job. There were only a couple of very rare instances where we changed people about, and that was only for clashes or where equal ranked judges were randomly selected to chair and we moved the more experienced to the chair of the panel. Too often CA teams allocate panels to teams that they’re friends with. Tournamon does a great job of ranking panels and allocating the strongest judges to where they’re needed (bubble rooms). Having this approach and altering judge rankings based on feedback rather than changing panels after the draw sped up the turnover of the rounds hugely. Along with the Herculean efforts of our tab team, this was one of the main reasons that we were able to turn rounds around so quickly and stayed tightly to schedule throughout.

4. Open adjudication

We opted to have open adjudication in all rounds. It is the norm at competitions on both coasts in the US.

There is a tension between “debating as competition” and “debating as education” that clearly exists on the US circuit. I belong strongly in the former camp. However, I see the merit to the arguments for open adjudication. A long time is often present between debates and announcement and I think that can lead to people to alter their views of debates and convince themselves more strongly that they have broken. Having them in room shortly afterwards means that people get immediate (and not forgetful/ drunken) reasons for why they did not break. If competitions are to have open adjudication throughout, then there needs to be a strong norm against ‘throwing’ rooms. Personally I am still in favour of one closed round at the end of a tournament as I think it the excitement of not knowing who has broken (both for teams that are in contention and for those who are on the same teams/ friends with them) outweighs those benefits.

5. Warm room

Based on our tab team’s advice we instituted a ‘warm room’ policy of posting results from previous rounds in the debaters’ rooms and asking speakers to check to ensure that their results matched what they were orally told by judges. I think this is a really good idea, and am thankful to the team for suggesting it. Combining it with the acetate system that has been used at Worlds would be even better.

However, based on the arguments of some of the people present, the results went up with speaker points present. This was decided in the moment. Although it adds some interest for people to see how they’ve done as they’ve gone along and for others to see who is speaking well, I wouldn’t recommend it to others. Round 6’s results weren’t posted until after the break announcement, so people still had some of the nice tension of not knowing who the last teams in the break were. However, I think leaving speaks over as a surprise until the end of the tournament is more fun for everyone involved.

6. Wing judge questions

We asked wing judges to ask two specific questions of chairs, and put them on their feedback forms. One was ‘have we allocated speaker points to the right speaker’ the other was to double-check the math on the ballot to ensure no low point wins were given. Judge errors happen, but judges do not want to think that they are the ones responsible. Based on the experiences of pilots, doctors and others, we decided that these two formal questions were useful. We had a lower level of ballot math errors than usual. In cases where it did occur, it is highly unlikely that people actually followed our request to double-check the scores. I would recommend that other tournaments follow this policy. If it became the norm it would hugely reduce the number of errors that can often lead to large time delays as an errant chair is tracked down and asked to re-do the scores.

7. Communication lines

Something will always go wrong. Competitions with over six hundred people will always have incidents. One of the most important things is letting people know what’s going on when that does happen. There were two moments like that during the tournament that had that heart-stopping effect. One was that the team allocation for one of the schools was entered with their original rather than new list, that required a delay to round one while we made sure all teams knew where they were going. The other was that due to a room number error, four of the teams were dropped from the tab in the last round.

Thankfully all four teams were from the same debate and all that was needed was to let them know positions and assign judges to that room. That took about a 15 minute delay, but we tried to make sure people waiting in all three rooms around campus knew what was happening. My experience, from Dublin Worlds forward, is that people are far more forgiving of delays and errors when they know the reason why, rather than seeing the CA team running around worrying but without that information.

The other major area of communications was responding to questions raised about various tournament policies such as the inclusion of international teams and the issuance of judge and debater guidance that went beyond the mere WUDC rules and also discussed accepted norms. In both instances, legitimate differences of opinion were present. Based on the experience of similar questions in the lead up to other major international competitions, I decided to respond quickly to such threads and to explain our position. I think in other cases things have got a bit out of hand because of an absence of prompt official response.

8. Written documents need to be orally explained

We gave out maps and phone numbers to everyone involved in the competition, and thought that would be sufficient to get people to rooms and to phone in case anything went wrong. We were wrong on that one. Things would have been eased if we had both given them maps and numbers, but also let them know where the buildings were and told them specifically in the briefings to refer to their maps. You cannot trust people to read what you give them!

9. Motion setting

We brain-stormed motions before the competition and finalised them over a nice lunch on the Friday that the competition started. We had some really interesting motions that were perhaps more novel that we didn’t run. We took a deliberate philosophy of erring towards debates that we knew ‘worked’ than taking a gamble on an entirely new, and perhaps very good debate. I’m not sure if that is better or not, but our view was that for a title championships we would favour motions that we knew from experience, or close approximation in other areas to be fair. On purely logistical sense, googledocs were wonderful and I would recommend them to every other CA team. You can all collaboratively edit motions and leave comments in real time. They made the process of creating and critiquing motions much easier before the DCAs arrived.

As a CA team, we were really happy that we managed to provide a fair and balanced set of motions for debate. The lowest percentage of any round was 1st prop for round 6 where only 8.6% of teams won. However, given that 23.9% of 2nd prop teams won, I think it was probably more of an issue of teams taking a while to figure out the motion than it being un-propable. Anyone interested can take a look at the statistics for every round here. I think it would be a good idea for as many tournament as possible to post this kind of data afterwards. Over time, they would help us to set fairer motions.

10. Thank You

Finally, and most important I would like to thank all those who made the tournament possible, be they judges, debaters, volunteers or colleagues.

As many of you know, I am shortly leaving Vermont after two very happy years to return to Europe. It has been wonderful to be part of the US BP circuit that is rapidly maturing into a force to be reckoned with. I owe a huge debt to all those on the US circuit and particularly those in the North East who have made me so welcome. Thank you.

Women's participation in debating

There was a discussion on a friend's facebook account about women's participation in debating. I posted a comment there, but thought I'd copy it over here as well for anyone that's interested.

My thoughts are that there isn't much bias at play against women, just a major problem of retention. Kylie Lane, Beth O'Connor, Jess Prince and Naomi Oreb have all topped the tab at worlds since 2005. In our region (the North East) women have regularly done well too. Just from our Vermont team, Jess & John have won three tournaments this year, Sarah & Sam broke at Worlds and won a tournament, and Alli & Tom got to the Yale final. We don't seem to have as much of a problem retaining female debaters, and, as it happens, nor have UCD (my Alma Mater) lately. While not much research has been done on bias, Steven Kryger did write an interesting article for the Monash debating review in 2009 which indicated that there is no appreciable gender effect on results amongst experienced judges.

My gut feeling (and it's just that) is that people, as a whole, find it a little easier to get along with others of the same gender as them. The more women participate in a squad or on the circuit, the more people that others get to interact with, and form friendships with. The first year or two for any debater, no matter how good, is a tough slog where it's incredibly hard to reach knock-out rounds. What keeps people coming back is as much the friendships as it is the competition.

Why is it was a problem that women don't stay involved? At a simplistic level, I'd say it's extremely bad for teams competitively to lose 1/3rd of their (potentially) best speakers because they don't stay on after first or second year. For the circuit its bad because we get less diversity of views and opinions and have poorer debates as a result. (don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons to view it as a positive outcome, but these two, I would imagine, ought to appeal to all but the most insecure male speakers!)

So how to go about encouraging retention? Some things that have been implemented on other circuits range from a mixed-doubles competition (fun and ensuring 50/50 divide) in the UK, women's tournaments there, in Canada and Australia, and quotas for teams at major tournaments in Australia. Perhaps it's time to have a discussion about implementing similar measures in the North East. In the meantime, extra coaching and encouragement is always a good way to keep people coming back.

How history shapes people

We know that our history shapes our lives to some extent. What a new field of economics is finding is to just how large an extent that is.

Tim Harford author of the excellent Undercover Economist wrote earlier on this year about the phenomenon:

The largest silver mines in the Spanish empire were the Potosí mines, discovered in 1545 in what is now Bolivia. Exploiting the mines was dangerous, and in the late 16th century, the Spanish introduced the mita system of forced labour. Villages near Potosí were obliged to provide one-seventh of their adult male population to work the mines, and the mita system continued until its abolition in 1812.

That is history. This is not: the former mita districts are 25 per cent poorer than apparently identical districts on the other side of a boundary that ceased to mean anything 198 years ago. A long-abolished colonial system has somehow shaped the modern world.

While the field is a relatively new one, it has profound implications for public policy. Circumstances determine much of people's lives, even where those circumstances linger in the mists of collective memory. Policies such as those being implemented in Brazil to create conditional cash transfers are perhaps one way of addressing these inherited inequalities, but more ways must be found. It is considered a classic example of injustice that a child ought not inherit the sins of their parent (or their parent's owner); we ought do more to make that a reality.

Cape Town Harbour

I thought it was about time I got this blog going again. I've got a few posts half-written in the drafts that I'll post in the next few days. In the meantime here's a picture from my recent trip to the beautiful Cape Town in South Africa

Some reflections from China

As many of you know, I was just in China for 10 days at the FLTRP Cup, a national debating competition in English, sponsored by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. While this was the 14th year that the competition has been run, it was the first time that it took place in the BP format. I decided to jot down a few thoughts on the competition and some of the wider issues surrounding it while they were still fresh in my mind.

The debates

One of the questions that was in my mind before going to the competition was ‘how free will people be to make arguments’. Not knowing much about domestic Chinese policy, this was a bit of a mystery to me. One of the most surprising and rewarding parts of the whole experience for me was the argumentative freedom that the students expressed. Sometimes this was to my own political leanings; I saw the top room in a round about immediate elections in Thailand, where the prop teams made some excellent arguments about the mandate that a government requires from the people in order to be legitimate. In another round, while not to my political liking, I heard another fantastic argument. In a debate about banning online groups from publishing the personal information of those who have transgressed morally, the speaker explained how law was a reflection of people’s desires, and sometimes the law took a while to catch up with the views of the people, so there must be room for a certain level of extra-judicial space. So far, so seemingly liberal. However, she rounded out the argument with the example that ‘most people in China think adulterers should be put to death, but the law doesn’t respect that yet’. While it’s not an outcome I’m personally in any way comfortable with, it did make me realise that it was the exact same argument as one that I would have found incredibly persuasive with a liberal example, and it still received good reward in the debate!

Overall the quality of the competition was a pleasant surprise. In judging a semi and watching the final, I, and those around me, felt that the standard was similar to that which would be present at any international competition, with clever, sophisticated argumentation. (There was one really interning argument in favour of banning child athletes which drew an analogy to child soldiers, for example). At the lower levels of the competition, there was an over-reliance on is/ ought fallacies (‘China has a Confucian ethic, therefore it should), but that was no different from what you often see in similar debates elsewhere with new debaters. The training the teams had done in March had clearly paid off, and given that it was the first competition in BP for many of the debaters, it really was remarkable how good they were.

One of the other really noticeable things about the competition was the level and quality of female participation. A recent leader in The Economist discussed the idea of gendercice and presented the frightening face of a preference for male children in China and other developing countries. However, at this competition, however unrepresentative it may be, a different picture emerged. Talented female students were clearly given every opportunity to shine, and took it with aplomb. For many of the foreign adjudicators the women were seen to consistently outshine the men, and it forced us to ask questions about the level of participation and success of women in our own circuits. While I have no intention of rehashing the debate that recently raged in the IONA circuit, I think it is worth nothing that the success and participation of women in China shows what most believe to be the case anyway: there is no innate reason why women either participate less or are less successful in debating.

Scale & impact

One of the most striking things about the competition was its scale, both in terms of the number of participants, and the ambition of the organisers. Universities were limited to one team each, and there were 128 teams taking part. That means that there were teams from 128 different universities at the competition from all over China. The organisers had clearly put a huge amount of effort into the competition, with all team’s transportation and accommodation covered in order to facilitate their participation. While BP debating in China is still relatively new, this competition switching over to the format was already making waves. The work of people like Steve Johnson (CA of this competition) Lok Wing Fat (who has run countless workshops in the country) and many others are creating a national impetus towards BP.

I chatted with several coaches from Chinese universities about their desire to set up regional competitions in order to help them prepare more for the national championships. When it comes to international debating, China have already started to make an impact, for example, Tsinghua University winning the inaugural EFL section at Vancouver Worlds in 2007. However, their full impact is yet to be felt. For me, this shows the enormous success that the BP format has had in creating an international debating format. However, it also highlights the Worlds community’s enormous challenge in figuring out how Worlds should function with an ever-increasing number of people wishing to take part. As Gregg O’Neill noted recently, the failure of the Future of Worlds subcommittee was an enormous disappointment. With so many of these debaters clearly harbouring ambitions of partaking in the championships, and a natural limit to the size the competition can be run at annually and sustainably, questions must be asked about how these problems can be overcome while still having a representative worlds that achieves its stated purpose – finding the best debating team in the world.

Recommendation

The competition had a large number of subsidised foreign adjudicators. While I was a little worried initially that this could come across as ‘foreigners come to teach the Chinese how to do things’, this really wasn’t the way in panned out at all. This was due to two things. Firstly, the students and coaches were very receptive to the experience and opinions of people who were experienced with the format and looked to learn as much as possible from them. The second thing was the approach taken by the CA team to promote and involve as many of the quality local judges as possible which saw a gradual shift towards more locally based judging as the competition progressed. If the level of funding for the competition is around the same again next year, then I’d imagine there will be travel opportunities for many of the people who would be reading this.

I would not hesitate to recommend the competition for a moment. It was an incredibly rewarding experience that really reminded me of why I enjoy judging and coaching students. People were eager to learn, there was a freshness to many of the arguments and the standard was genuinely impressive. Add into the mix a wonderful group of international judges, tasty, cheap local cuisine, and two days touring Beijing after the competition and you really can’t go wrong!

just me?

Or does the Republicans voting down the finance bill because Nanci Pelosi said they were reckless and irresponsible not smack of reckless irresponsibility?

Obama meets the West Wing

There's an amazing piece of dialogue in the NY Times for anyone who was a fan of the West Wing, here's my favourite part:

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Great stuff!

A long way left to fall?

With the stock market withering like a plant in the desert sun, and commentators everywhere beginning to genuinely ponder the idea that the financial crisis could be as bad as the 1930's, it seems time to ask ''how bad is it going to get''?

I'm not an expert on stock markets by any means, but there is an interesting fact that could have relevance to today's crisis. The reason that people buy shares is, fairly evidently, for a share of the company's profits. In the long-term, shares need to give a higher return that the rate of interest in a bank. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to buy them in the first place. Historically, the rate of return on shares that the market has settled at means that people make their money back in 14.5 years, in other words an interest rate of 6.89%. That's a reasonable return, and enough more than putting your money in the bank to make the risk of buying shares worthwhile.



As the above graph shows, the prices at the moment are still well above that level. At the moment, the price of shares is around 25 times the annual earnings, or an interest rate of around 4%. Given that you can get a rate that's higher than that from a lot of banks' saving accounts, and the current market turmoil, there is every chance that share prices will continue to fall.


Notes: 1. I wrote this before the announced bailout, but think it is still relevant

2. The inspiration for this came from the Undercover Economist, a book I'd highly recommend

a sunny day!

There was a lovely sunny day for once, and luckily I was out with my camera and managed to grab a couple of shots so I can remind myself that the weather really can be nice in the dreary months to come!

Aisling and Fergus

Aisling

Stephen's Green Lake

Me, taken by Aisling

Stephen's green evening sunshine

Fresher's week '08

Brian after his shift at the grind

Ian and the (sadly non alcoholic) Kopperberg

Ciaran looking happy with Cranley's sticker...

Don't mess with the auditor during fresher's week!

Susan leaves her mark...

...and shows off her hemming skills!

James on security detail

Shane maintains that he was neither to fat, nor too ugly to model for Ralph Lauren, they just wouldn't pay him enough

Gregg being all busy and important.

Click to enlarge any of the images

L&H porn debate

The L&H's annual porn debate was last night, so I brought my camera along. The lighting in the theatres is always really tricky, so these are a mix of flash and natural ones. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling normally gives a much nicer look than pointing it straight at people (because the light looks more natural instead of the overly bright/ shadowy look you get with a normal flash). The problem in those theatres is that the ceiling is brown, so if you try that you get very brown people (and not in the way that fake tan attempts to make them!


The Rabbi

The philosopher

The auditor

Conor and The crowd (the guy to his left doesn't count)

Dwarfed by history!

Mags takes the hecklers down

The pastor

Sheehy and Janine

Daithi in pauses for laughs

Ian getting his porn talk on

Aengus' debs

It was my brother's debs during the week, so I snapped a couple of photos before he headed off!

First debate of the year

The first L&H debate of the year was last night. I brought my camera along to record to occasion!

It's a large hadron collider!


Mags in one of her two (wonderful) speeches!

Jarlath, as seen on tv3

Mary before the debate

Aisling and me

Conor gets his verbosity on

Shane posing

Dec speaking

''One Cigarette is the Price of Oral Sex in UCD''

It's news to me, but according to the Sunday Independent's front page banner headline, Irish students are ''Sex mad, booze mad and cocaine mad'', to the extent that they will exchange a cigarette for oral sex. As a story, it fits neatly with their editorial policy of publishing tawdry, sensationalistic, offensive and misleading stories. (Remember Liam Lawlor dying in a car with a prostitute that was, in fact, a translator?)

My favourite part reads as follows:

Derek Freedman, a leading specialist in STI treatment, said recently that he sees in his Dublin clinic a steady stream of UCD students, with many boasting they have had as many as 20 sexual partners, and often unprotected.

Aside from '', and often unprotected'' being the product of diuretic sub-editing, the content seems a little... unbelievable to say the least. It's notable that the ''boasts'' are not a quote from Dr. Freedman, and it doesn't sound like something a doctor would say, even if it were true. Moreover, can you really imagine somebody walking into a clinic and effectively declaring ''look at me, I had enough unprotected sex and got gonorrhea, I'm amazing!!!''. In the history of boasts about sexual bravado, that one doesn't rank so highly in the memorable quotes chapter. Never mind that the average lifetime sexual partners in Ireland is 10.6 making 15-20+ in your early twenties a very obvious exception to normal student (or adult) sexual activity. But ignore that, it doesn't fit with the story! Where's the sensation in that!

As for the ''One Cigarette is the Price of Oral Sex in UCD'' (the other part of the headline), it turns out that's something that happened, once, outside the ''notorious'' student bar in UCD. Those first year students who ran out and bought a pack of 20 for €5 thinking it represented pretty good value might find themselves a little disappointed.

McCain, a prisoner to the extremes of his own party?

George Packer at his New Yorker blog has an interesting view about McCain brought about by Palin's selection as the Veep candidate, and the Republican convention. He thinks that McCain has become a prisoner to his own party's hard right; a lone moderate lost in a sea of extremely conservative (white*) Republicans. I'm not sure I agree. After a 30 year career in the senate, you'd have to be dozing a lot more than the average elderly man not to pick up a few basic political rules. The most fundamental is that there is no way that you can get elected if your own supporters do not come out and vote for you. The second most important is that after you get elected, you can change your positions relatively rapidly and radically. Given that his own speech tacked away from the extremities, he's already laying the grout work for a relatively centrist presidency. In the unlikely event that McCain does win the election, I wouldn't be surprised to see Palin placed in a Walt Disney style cryogenic freezing, ready to be thawed out for the 2012 election.


*The Washington Post carried the shocking statistic that "Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor were black."

attack dogs

Fred Thompson, a former actor and Republican Presidential contender was speaking at the Republican convention yesterday. In what was seen as the most aggressive speech of the night, he went for the usual line of ''the democrats want to raise your taxes''.

According to seveal reaports, when Obama was picking Joe Biden as his running-mate, one of his major considerations was to pick somebody to do the dirty work for him, and go on the attack during the closing months of the campaign. It seems to be a job that he's taking to with relish. There won't be any Kerry-esque critique's coming Biden's way if he keeps going after people with the relish that he did today:

“I heard my friend, and by the way he is my friend, I heard Red October up there hunting for votes,” Mr. Biden said, imitating Mr. Thompson’s gravelly voice and alluding to one of his acting roles. “Fred got up there and he said well, the Democrats are going to raise your taxes.”

Mr. Biden said that the Democrats’ tax plan would raise taxes only on some corporations and the wealthiest Americans, including successful actors.

“Fred, look at me. We’re going to make sure you don’t get another tax break because I’ve going to give a tax break to the people right here in this room.”

They might not be friends for much longer...!

Bobby Kennedy

I've started an economics course before my masters, and we're studying GDP and GNP at the moment. I finished a wonderful book recently about Bobby Kennedy (about which more soon), but I couldn't help but share this quote, which I think reflects the inadequacy of using mere statistics to measure our quality of life. This was from the first speech of his presidential campaign, and makes for a rather gutsy opening I think.

Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

How to sell ice cream

I was at Wicked last night, which was generally excellent. I'd highly recommend that any students out there wondering about taking it in get their tickets on the day. Got great seats in person at the box office, at about half the price they were on Ticketmaster online!... They did have one very sneaky money-making idea though. Turn off the air conditioning during the interval, let the theatre heat up for 15 minutes, and keep pedalling the ice cream throughout... rather devious that one.