This is a fantastic interview with a professional rock-paper-scissors player, Jason Simmons.  Why is it that “female players open with scissors much more often than their counterparts”?  I wonder how wired this simple game is into our psychology.  Simmons clearly thinks it’s not about chance.

The last Bond movie I saw that I liked was one of the Pierce Brosnan ones, and I think was in elementary school. At the time, my best friend and I were going through a Terminater phase and would endlessly act out various scenes of carnage, using my garage’s closing door as a prop to add a sense of urgency, so I can’t say I was a particularly qualified movie critic. I’ve hated every Bond movie since. Especially the last one - casting Madonna is always the first sign of movie apocalypse.
But I saw the new Bond movie, Casino Royale, last week, and despite my cinematic pretensions thought it was completely awesome. It’s true that Daniel Craig strongly resembles a monkey. Even so — Casino Royale was enjoyable, sexy, and surprisingly gritty.  The GPS watch and talking car were replaced by a machete and a decidedly low-tech difibrillator.  This Bond is less sleek and shiny, but much more fun to watch.

Hooray for birthdays!  People have been making me happy.  19 is a good age to be!  Turning 18 is like becoming a real person, but 19 adds legitimacy.  I’m not new to the world of adults any longer.  I have got it figured out, mostly.

So I got back from the MTSU tournament in Tennessee only to find that mock trial had again found a way to sabotage my classes, especially accounting. At least my attempt at giving closing arguments met with some success. Meanwhile, I have a 15-page paper due Thursday on the Chechnya situation, and Michael refused to procure Adderol for me, citing “ethics.”  What place do ethics have in a foreign policy context, I want to know!

I’ve discovered some interesting things while researching the Chechnya situation. Namely, Russian politicians are intensely fatalistic. Viktor Chernomyrdin, after yet another disaster of state: “We wanted it to go better, but it turned out as always.” But my favorite thing is that the CIA World Factbook misspells the name of the British Labour Party because it “always uses the American spelling, even when these common words form part of a proper name in British English.” Another blow struck for freedom!

Lawrence Wright came to the Joynes room to talk about al-Qaeda! Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker and by definition has my eternal adoration. I showed up embarassingly early, sat right in front of him, and then spent most of the lecture agonizing over having the correct listening expression when he made eye contact with me. It was very interesting, though. Specifically, I liked his insights about the impact of humiliation on the Arabic psyche and how the role of women in society has contributed to extremism — he said “it’s much harder to be a terrorist if your girlfriend doesn’t let you.”
From the Nov. 1 Economist:

Dick Cheney, America’s vice-president, argued on Tuesday October 30th that Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda fighters are trying to influence next week’s mid-term congressional vote. “It’s my belief that they’re very sensitive of the fact that we’ve got an election scheduled,” said Mr Cheney. They are trying to “break the will of the American people.”

Quite what that would mean is unclear. Mr Cheney presumably wanted to imply that fighters in Iraq would rather see lily-livered, “cut and run” Democrats in control of Congress, not stout, “stay the course” Republicans.

I asked Wright about this (”How does al-Qaeda want me to vote?”) and he pointed out that, while pulling out of Iraq now does create something of a PR victory for al-Qaeda, staying lets them continue to use Iraq as training and recruitment ground for future terrorists.  So it’s not entirely clear how al-Qaeda would want you to vote, but Dick Cheney wants you to vote Republican out of spite.

I’ve been looking at a lot of Christian t-shirts lately.  I’m not sure why, but I think I enjoy imagining the intense awkwardness of wearing them.  I especially like this one — what it lacks in substance it makes up in style.