Florida City, Gateway to the Keys

Getting ready to leave Florida City, FL to travel down the Keys to the homeland for all Parrotheads, Key West. A nice sunny day with a margarita and cheeseburger on the menu for lunch at Margaritaville!!

London for the week-end

Heading to London for a meeting Monday. Back Tuesday. May even have some nice weather.

Cheers.

Drum Roll Please

A drummer, sick of all the drummer jokes, decides to change his instrument. After some thought, he decides on the accordion. So he goes to the music store and says to the owner, "I'd like to look at the accordions, please." The owner gestures to a shelf in the corner and says "All our accordions are over there." After browsing, the drummer says, "I think I'd like the big red one in the corner." The store owner looks at him and says, "You're a drummer, aren't you?" The drummer, crestfallen, says, "How did you know?" The store owner says, "That `big red accordion' is the radiator."

Yes I Am A Pirate... 200 Years Too Late

A guy walks into a pub with a t-shirt that says "Pirates are stupid for 3 reasons!" He walks up to the bar, orders an ale. and sits down. He no more than gets his quaff when a smelly old sot comes up to him and says, "Aaargh, thar, matey! What's that yer shirt be sayin' thar?"

The guy looks around, looks the man straight in the eyes (well, in his one good eye, anyway), and says "Reason number 1 -- Pirates can't read!" Then he turns around to enjoy his beverage.

Not used to this sort of disrespect, the surly gent takes his hooked arm, lays it aggressively on the man's shoulder, and slowly says, "What's that ye be sayin' thar, sonny-boy?"

The guy looks around again, looks his aggressor square in the eye this time, and enunciates, "Rea-son num-ber 2 -- Pirates can't hear!" And again, he turns around to face the bar.

MSU Debate

MSU team crowned national debate champ

Contact: Greta Stahl, Debate, stahlgre@msu.edu; Kristen Parker, University Relations, Office: (517) 353-8942, Cell: (517) 980-0709,Kristen.Parker@ur.msu.edu

Published: March 24, 2010 E-mail Editor

Carly Wunderlich, of Brookfield, Wis., a chemistry senior, and Eric Lanning, of Spring, Texas, an international relations junior, hold the Larmon trophy, which they received for taking first place in a National Debate Tournament.

The 12-member MSU debate team poses with the Larmon trophy.

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Related Links

• MSU Debate Team

EAST LANSING, Mich. — For the third time in seven years, a team from Michigan State University has won the National Debate Tournament.

The two-member team of Carly Wunderlich, a chemistry senior, and Eric Lanning, an international relations junior, claimed the honor early Tuesday morning at the 64th annual competition. The five-day tournament was held at the University of California in Berkeley, Calif. Both students are members of the Honors College.

There are 12 students on the MSU debate team. The team’s road to the championship included victories over the University of Kansas, Emory University (which entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in the nation) and the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

In the final debate, MSU faced fellow Big Ten competitors Northwestern University, which entered the tournament No. 2 nationally and had not lost a debate at the tournament. At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, after two hours of debate and another hour of waiting, the five-judge panel voted unanimously and named MSU champions.

“Carly and Eric’s victory demonstrates their commitment to hard work, research and devotion to the activity,” said Greta Stahl, MSU’s director of debate. “Supported by a team of extremely hard-working coaches and teammates, their success demonstrates that MSU continues to stand among an elite group of competitors in the debate community. Their success is incredibly well-deserved.”

This year's debate topic was the United States' nuclear weapons policy, Stahl said.

She explained that throughout the year, when students endorsed government action (referred to as being affirmative), they argued the U.S. should declare it would never be the first to initiate the use of nuclear weapons during a conflict. Other examples included reducing the number of U.S. nuclear weapons, taking U.S. nuclear weapons off high alert and shifting to development of non-nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes.

"This year's resolution said that the U.S. federal government should reduce the role, mission or size of its nuclear weapons arsenal," Stahl explained. "This topic was chosen due to its timely nature: The Obama administration is due to release its Nuclear Posture review in early April, which sets the administration's policy on many of the questions above."

MSU won this particular tournament two other times – in 2004 and 2006 – and had been to the “Final Four” five times before that. MSU also won the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament in 1995 and the Seasonal National Championship Awards in 1996 and 2002.

http://news.msu.edu/story/7624/

MSU is 2010 NDT Winner

The Michigan State University policy debate team of Carly Wunderlich and Eric Lanning win the National Debate Tournament with a 5-0 decision over Northwestern Matt Fischer and Stephanie Spies in Berkeley, California at 1 am today. The finals match-up had #1 seed Northwestern versus #2 seed MSU. Lanning was ranked 2nd speaker in the tournament which started with the best 78 debate teams in the nation. MSU defeated Emory IW in the quarter finals on a 3-2 decision. Emory IW was the top ranked team for the season, winning the Copeland Award. Stephen Weil, the W in Emory IW was 1st speaker in the tournament. Congratulations to Coaches Greta Stahl, Will Repko, and Dave Strauss of MSU.

A Nice (Almost) Spring Day

Sunny and 65 F today. Good-bye winter.