It has certainly generated a much needed debate about the role of aid and the state of development in Africa.
At the same time, such events allow much needed debate on certain core issues with the major stakeholders, including the BNP.
Meanwhile, the former attorney general Eric Holder made headlines on Tuesday when he told David Axelrod that Snowden had done a "public service" by sparking a much needed debate about privacy and technology that had not existed before his leaks about the NSA in 2013.
For this reason, the IDB's important work in this area should help raise awareness and advance a much needed debate.
But unless due caution and much needed debate is afforded to the evident discrepancies between the Bank's rhetoric and its practice, and unless it is able to better cooperate with its partners at country-level, the Platform and all that it intends to achieve risks resulting in another development intervention failure.
Soutphommasane's observations generated considerable media attention, suggesting there is scope for a much needed broadening of diversity debates to better account for the challenges faced by Asian Australians, and we could not agree more.
"Thank you Dan Lucas for adding some much needed sense to a debate about the Stereophonics," gurgles Matt Dony.
But the accent also stimulates the debate, much needed in the comedy world, about the relationship between a stand-up's work and his or her offstage personality.
The energy bill authorizes not one but three speculative projects aimed at turning plant matter into fuel, but the biggest bet may be the $800 million coal gasification plant awarded to Norm Coleman, a Minnesota senator whose vote was much needed during last year's debate on the bill.
But a "Church Committee-like" public report on these surveillance programs by this highly expert group would bring much needed transparency to the debate.
Despite these downsides, I've found far more people willing to support bringing much needed truth into dinner-table debates.
