The Extemp Files, LD-Values, and Government folders were updated yesterday afternoon, through March 6th. (I’m current with pulling articles, but not caught up with filing them.)
3-16-17: Files just updated again; now current through March 13th. Biggest edition is a ton of articles on the new Trumpcare proposal.
CX (China), PF (2-state/Middle East) and LD (housing): quick lessons from Nat Quals (ours was the first weekend in March). CX – you need to get more current material on what’s going on in China – too much of what I heard was dated and not applicable (though, often, the other team didn’t point this out – presumably because they weren’t current either). Hit the China folder for the most recent articles. There are some good ones on what Xi’s doing, and economic implications. PF – only judged one round, so not a lot of takeaways – but there have been a bunch of recent articles on the topic (Middle East folder), a lot of them analytical. LD – a longer post later if time permits (State this weekend, so jammed for time) – quick takes are that most people are sticking with homeless only – consider expanding to others who need adequate housing. Hit the Poverty folder; there have been a lot of recent articles on dealing with homelessness. Stats: there’s a 2011 figure I heard in multiple rounds about 2+M homeless; current is much less than that (600k?). Realize that while the recession peaked in 2008-9, there was a lag in people losing homes, so the 2M figure likely reflects the peak number of homeless during the Great Recession.
They’re complete through June 2016 (just before Nationals), and from Sept. 12 2016. Articles in the gap will be added as time permits. I have tried to find all the China articles in the gap after Nationals for the CX people. The files now begin in January 2016; 2015 articles are now in the backfiles.
The Extemp Backfiles folder is available, too. With some political issues, global and domestic, having existed for years, there are some gems to be found here.
Government folder: since the inauguration, I’ve been filing All Things Trump a bit differently. In the Elections subfolder, the articles since the inauguration have to do with the inauguration itself, the inauguration weekend protests, and with Trump appointments. There is now a Trump folder (which will eventually be moved to the Presidents folder, but not for a while) for things specific to him and to White House operations/people. Other topics concerning his actions will be found in the specific topic folders, mostly in the Extemp Files. Note that the Government folder has folders in it for both political parties, for Regulations, for Privatization, and an unfortunately active one for Corruption (including the potential for it).
Extemp Files instructions repost: The link takes you to a Dropbox folder; if a pop-over window saying something about setting up an account or logging in comes up, just close it.
The files are serious overkill – over 34,000 articles right now. There should be a way to copy or download individual articles when you find the ones you want in your files – try right-clicking the specific PDF file/article and selecting the ‘save link as’ option.
The four-digit numbers at the beginning of most of the file names (and the names of the sub-folders) are simply mm/yy codes so that you can tell how recent the article is at a glance.
Please don’t download the whole thing; it trips up my Dropbox limits and bad things happen that shut down access for others. If you need a full copy, let me know (see the About link for an email address) and I’ll make arrangements to get you a copy or share the folder (so that you get the updates as soon as I post them). Students who want to share the folder will need to have an OK from their coach – I don’t want to step on the toes of any coaches who prefer other methods of team research. (Several coaches already share the folder, if you’re a coach and are interested.) Specific topic subfolders can be shared as well.
Dinosaur Debate 