By El Padre's request, I will now tell you about my debating experience.

Right off the bat, I will tell you that Monica and I's affirmative plan covered way too much information over way to large a board. For this reason, it is almost impossible to digest in one sitting and neither the negative team or judge knew what the hell we were talking about.

I told this to Monica on multiple occasions, but she said it would be to our advantage and that only an idiot judge wouldn't understand it. That turned out to be wrong.

So, because they had no idea what to argue against us with, we had nothing to strike back with. Later, Mrs. Gotterson (our coach) told us that we have to just keep repeating our plan and the harms it will illiminate. Which we didn't do, since we're beginners.

Our plan was about material witnesses, which has had a lot to do with homeland security post-9-11, but is not any part of the PATRIOT Act. The judge put on the ballot "... but PATRIOT ACT is big abned ?? WASHINGTON POST by Fed Gov." In other words, his handwriting is completely illegible and he didn't know that our plan had nothing to do with the PATRIOT Act.

By the by, did you know that USA PATRIOT Act stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act? Ridiculous, innit?

So, the opposing team came at us with some nonsense about how the material witnesses (mistaken with enemy combatants) are not held indefinitely because the government checks back on their case every once in a while to make sure that there is a reason they are held. An official definition of "indefinite" would have helped, but we tried to clarify about four times that "indefinite" doesn't mean "infinite", but "undefined or unknown." It didn't get through.

When we said that holding people for indefinite periods of time was unconstitutional and violated the fourth amendment (the right to be secure in persons, papers, etc.), they said that the constitution is flexible. I tried to get Monica to argue that in all of its transformation, the fourth amendment has always applied, but she has a very derailable train of thought, so when you try to tell her something when she's already got an idea in mind, it's SHOT DOWN!! Or just shushed and completely ignored...

In the end, we lost. A large part of it was because we didn't have a date for the "?? WASHINGTON POST" article, so he only gave Monica 2 out of 5 points for evidence. But it was alright, because Mrs. Gotterson told us that, although it was not a great debate, the negative team didn't attack our argument at all (which was mostly our fault) and said that, without bias, she thought we should have won. That was enough for me.

Next time we debate, we're going to use someone else's plan; one that actually works to formulate an hour long debate...

Mrs. Gotterson keeps telling me "Monica and you will make a great team next year", trying to pressure me into doing debate next year too. No feckin' way! One month was enough.

OFF TOPIC: I was watching a tape of the F1 race from last week, and when Raikkonen won, there were a bunch of people waving Finnish flags... and one person who mistakingly brought a Greecian one. Nyuck nyuck nyuck!