The International Extemp final round has concluded. Here is Extemp Central’s analysis of the final round. Extemp Central provides a quick breakdown of the speeches and ranks the round. Awards will take place tonight and when the results are made official, we will bring them to you here at Extemp Central.
Notable Fact: Dr. Steve Moss, national circuit judge, and Jason Mehta, founder of forensicsonline.net is on this judging panel. Also, Robert McMahon of the Council on Foreign Relations is on this judging panel, which is really cool.
Notable Fact #2: 235 extempers competed in International Extemp this year at the NFL National Tournament.
Notable Fact #3: If you didn’t stop by the Livestream chat you missed out. Two-time NFL national champion and former CFL national champion Kevin Troy was there, as was Kevin Yi, runner-up in U.S. Extemp last year, and Forrest Richardson, a past semi-finalist in USX and MBA participant.
Speaker 1 (243 – Abhilash Sandireddy)
Question: Does Egypt’s political transitions presage another phase of Mideast instability or hope?
Answer: Instability and hopelessness
AGD: Krugman quotations
I. Egypt abandoned democracy
NYT 6/14 – Muslim Brotherhood cannot run in election and parliament and its leader cannot run for president
ECO 6/14 – Egypt has dissolved its democracy as the military has manipulated the Supreme Court to do what it wants
FP 6/14 – Egypt is going back to military rule
Stratfor 5/25 – Egyptian political transition not really democratic as less than 1% of the Egyptian population protested in the Arab Spring
II. Syria another ethnic conflict
Stratfor 5/15 – Al-Qaeda is gaining power in Syria and opposition to Assad is made of the Sunnis
III. Al-Qaeda will grow stronger
Stratfor – Syrian free army cannot defeat Assad because of a lack of international support
(Source) – Al-Qaeda emphasizing transnational Muslim unity and that it can solve problems
AJ 5/18 – Those tired of ethnic conflict will side with al-Qaeda
Time of Speech: 6:51
Summary: The speaker is flying through some of their AGD and it’s creating a few stumbles out of the gate. The AGD was also confusing. It seems that Egypt gets lost in this speech and most of the speech starts to focus on Syria. Syria is more in the news now to some extent (well before yesterday), but the question emphasizes Egypt, so the speaker is really extending the question to areas that it should not go. We just don’t enough analysis about Egypt and that should be devastating to this speaker on many judge’s ballots if they are following along. The speaker has a great presence and is skilled, but they are just not answering the question. The speaker also appeared to be rattled in cross-examination and didn’t convey the same confidence that they did in the speech.
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Speaker 2 (272 – Daniel Morgan-Russell)
Question: Has U.S. influence in multilateral organizations waxed or waned under President Obama?
Answer: Waxed
AGD: Clinton’s & Bush 43’s presidencies compared
I. P5 + 1 on Iran
Dominion Post – U.S. taken serious steps to stop Iran from getting a weapon
Nuclear Iran – International community needs the U.S.
II. G20 on Global Economy
Keynes – Growth needed for strong policies
Guardian 6/15 – G20 trying to reduce the chances of a financial meltdown
Le Monde – the U.S. is trying to work with the euro zone
III. Rio + 20 on Global Warming
Hot, Flat & Crowded – U.S. emphasis on climate change can help it
IHT 6/15 – U.S. made concrete policies in green sectors
Assault on Reason – U.S. needs to make strong policy decisions
Time of Speech: 6:55
Summary: Interesting AGD parallel, nice segway into Obama. The speaker is also speeding up near the end of their intro and stumbling, but they need to move quickly because the intro took 2:11. It’s smart of the speaker to mention the Council on Foreign Relations, but they are playing to it a little bit too much. The speaker is doing a good job talking about how the U.S. is involved with these organizations, but he’s not really proving how our influence is increasing in these organizations under President Obama’s leadership. This is at least true in the first two points. He’s also being a little unfair to Bush because while Bush 43 wasn’t the best multilateral actor, he did care about issues in many different parts of the world. Overall, this speaker is trying to play to the audience, but is letting the feeling of trying to be witty overwhelm him. That’s unfortunate because he would be a better speaker if he would slow down.
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Speaker 3 (280 – Kohinoor Gill)
Question: How can the U.S. protect its cyberspace without restricting essential Internet freedoms?
Answer: Take widereaching and effective measures
AGD: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
I. Disarment agreements
(Source) – Eliminate potent threats from state actors and will not lead to online restricts
IHT – Russia arguing for a bilateral disarmament agreement on cyber weapons with the U.S.
II. Increased penalties for cybercrime
SMH 6/13 – U.S. hackers are active because of a lack of enforcement
III. More persuance of cyber criminals
(Source) – U.S. cyber weapons often blowback and threaten U.S. infrastructure
Rasmussen of NATO 6/13 – U.S. needs to be more direct in weapons its uses (i.e. Flame Virus with Iran)
Time of Speech: 7:13
Summary: Interesting tie of Lincoln Financial Group to the AGD, but we might be reaching a saturation point of jokes about sponsors. As I said in the USX round, I’d prefer the speaker take one of these points and make their three points about why they would not restrict essential Internet freedoms. The speaker does a good job bringing up Russia’s cyber warfare in Eastern Europe, but some specific examples of what Russia did would help. I like that the speaker extends the metaphor of their AGD throughout the topic. Fluency gets spotty in some places, but it doesn’t distract from the message. The speaker uses some good examples in various spots of the speech to reinforce his message and does a good job emphasizing the important parts of the speech with his voice, making this easy to follow and listen to. However, I feel that too much of the speech is talking of cyberspace security moreso than how it balances with essential Internet freedoms. I’m just not convinced that the link between the two has been very steady and solid. However, this is the best speech of the round thus far in terms of content and delivery.
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Speaker 4 (308 – Linda Pei)
Question: Is political Islam compatible with democracy?
Answer: No
AGD: 1952 presidential campaign and Adlai Stevenson quotation
I. Divisions of Sectarian Lines lead to violence
BBC 12/9 – Sunnis (90%) don’t get along with Shia (10%) and this division has produced centuries of conflict in the Middle East
BBC 12/9 – this is why democracy doesn’t work with political Islam
(Source) – Even in stable countries like Lebanon, sectarian violence has brought uprisings within the country and we also see this in Iraq
ECO 4/14 – as the U.S. has withdrawn troop presence in Iraq, sectarian violence has erupted
II. Divisions = political paralysis
ECO 4/14 – divisions in Islamic government leads to a lack of agenda setting and political processes
NYT 6/14 – Egypt dissolved its parliament via the courts
III. Extremist ideologies against the ideas of democracy
(Source) – Sharia law is counterproductive to rights of women and democracy
Time of Speech: 7:04
Summary: The gestures of this speaker don’t always match their message, but the speaker has a nice historical AGD to get this started. However, its link to the topic isn’t as good as it could be. The speaker could do a better job clarifying what political Islam is (we get a better picture of this by point three). The speaker has some good humor bits, but it disrupts some of the flow of the argumentation. Time allocation gets disrupted in the speech, as the third point ends up far too short. The speaker has a great outline for argumentation here, but some of the content could be more convincing. However, she does hit the right points and had some great moments of humor, so it will be interesting to see how that impacts her standing in the round. The speaker also does a great job handling her opponent in CX by pushing aside his questions with humor.
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Speaker 5 (241 – Ashesh Rambachan)
Question: Can Greece disrupt the U.S. economic recovery?
Answer: Yes
AGD: Greece PM at convenience store
I. Weakens global trade
FA May/June 2012 – fears Greece can’t pay debt, raises fears of indebted nations across the EU so austerity measures have ensued and loans have contracted
NYT 6/1 – European economy did not grow in first quarter
Second World – U.S. trades 50% of its output with the EU, so in recession they cannot buy goods
ECO 6/9 – impact this has had on exporters, this explains why only 79k jobs were created in the U.S.
II. Disrupts global financial markets
(Source) – spector of hundreds of billions in losses, most European banking systems are on the brink of collapse so they have reduced loans
Center for European Policy Studies May 2012 – banking systems are fundamental part of global financial system
III. Raises fears about American debt
National Interest May/June 2012 – Politicians compare the U.S. to Greece
CFR 1/23 – GOP advocate to cuts spending to address debt problem
Time of Speech: 7:37
Summary: The speaker has a great joke to start the speech that is topical and funnels in well to the topic. However, since the joke was long, the intro ended up going 2:08. The speech is way top heavy coming out of the first point at 4:30. The speaker does a great job using a variety of different sources, ranging from books to think tanks to newspapers and magazines. The speaker finishes their speech at 7:37, but because of the laughs they got from the Colts line that probably will not negatively impact them among the judging panel. However, the speaker did have to shorten the third point in order to get through it. The speaker does something interesting as well by using a counter source on CX. This was a strong speech, but the time allocation issues might sway some ballots if it’s close.
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Speaker 6 (242 – Lily Nellans)
Question: Is the G20 the most relevant economic power grouping or are we in a G0 world?
Answer: Yes b/c right forum for global economic success
AGD: Ban ki-moon and fashion
I. Right Forum to Solve Economic Problems
NYT 6/14 – euro crisis can be solved by the G20
CFR 3/1 – most important job of the G20 was to press financial ministers to back up the EU financial stability fund
AT 6/6 – China’s economic growth has slowed tremendously and global economy could slump
II. Discussion
(Source) – sanctions need everyone on board
U.S.-Korea Institute: With NK continued development, the world might have to push NK more to give up their nuclear program
Center for New American Security – global problem of nuclear issues, so the world must be in the same boat on Iran, so Russia and China must be brought on board
III. Includes important emerging economies
FA March/April – One of the biggest problem with the World Bank is emerging economies don’t get an appropriate role
FPIF 3/26 – Mexico, as head of the G20, has focused on financial stability, food crisis, and other issues
Brookings – because China and Brazil have big economic problems, they have to have a say if we want the globe to be stable
Time of Speech:
Summary: Interesting joke to start with, but the crowd is a little burned out and didn’t respond. The speaker does a great job clarifying what a “G0 world” actually means. The speaker also does a good job extending the metaphor of their AGD through some parts of their speech. The speech could be helped by a more intricate discussion of the G20, but the speaker does clarify how the G20 can play a role in each of the points. It would also help for the speaker to counterbalance the G20 versus other economic organizations like the WTO to show why the G20 is best. We get a little bit of this in the third point, but might’ve been able to be worked into other areas as well. The ending of the speech could have been more powerful as well. The speech just quickly died. This will be a tough speech to weigh against Ashesh’s, but on my ballot the fifth speaker flushed some things out a little better.
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Final Ranks on My Ballot (Which Doesn’t Count):
1-241 (Ashesh Rambachan)
2-242 (Lily Nellans)
3-280 (Kohinoor Gill)
4-308 (Linda Pei)
5-272 (Daniel Morgan-Russell)
6-243 (Abhilash Sandireddy)
Random Note: With Rambachan, Nellans, and Gill returning next season and Isabelle Taft taking seventh in IX, the International Extemp side is going to be loaded at next year’s NFL National Tournament.
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