And they're off!

So there's a lull in the action here in the GA First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) thanks to a lovely presentation by the International Crisis Group. Thus far, our committee has decided to debate (or is it argue?) the topic of small arms proliferation.

Only one of the multiple hundreds of pleas by delegates to enter an unmoderated caucus have gone unheard by the chair, forcing us into a prolonged formal debate.

In addition, we kind of wished that many more of our fellow delegates had fallen upon this in the course of their research.

Here are a few significant statistics:

• United States has been called out only ONCE in formal debate (on issue of regulating arms manufacturers)
• Average number of "Main Ideas" mentioned per speech: 3
• Standard Deviation of number of "Main Ideas":0
• Uses of word "absurd":1
• Cries of "National Sovereignty": 1 (This is almost unhead of; we have been in debate for over 2 hours, and usually at this point national sovereignty has been mentioned at least 95-175 times...)
• Number of delegates Will has debated with before in room: 2 (maybe more..it's a big room).
• Assertions that Say's Law applies to small arms and light weaponry proliferation: at least 3-4

--Will Thomas and Jessica from La salle de bal ouest (home of GA:DISEC)