The Comrade General has beat the Supreme Leader in an intense battle of scrabble. This is despite the fact that the Supreme Leader chose to use such nonsensical words as "jouled".

Here's the final board:
Scrabble Game

p.s. I was the player named Comrade General, Amy was Supreme Leader.
This is a good time and a bad time for gun control. Maybe it's because everyone is distracted by the economy and especially the war, but congress right now is trying to push through a measure that will make gun makers and gun distributors immune from liability resulting from wrongful death. This is despite the fact that a former executive from a major company in the gun industry recently revealed that gun makers and dealers deliberately conduct business in such a way to make it easier for criminals to acquire guns (the good news). This is corroborated by the relatively known fact that gun producers produce a much greater supply of weapons that would be justified by normal demand.

If this angers you, click the link below which will allow you to write a letter to your congresspeople about this:
link
Today was a snow day - school was cancelled. It was a good day to get work done and my classes caught up on, but instead I did nothing. Well, I bummed around in the morning, too groggy to get myself to do anything, went to have lunch and walk around with amy, and then came home and slept. Much needed sleep. I think I need more sleep than the average person. Any less that 7 1/2 hours a night, and I really feel it.

Hmm... what else? Yesterday I lost my faith in the DC bus system. I had a 1 1/2 hour time block during which I was planning on going to the state department to drop off my security check forms. Since it's too far to walk, and no metro stops near the state dept, I figured this was a prime opportunity to see what the DC bus system's best had to offer. Aparently not any busses. Checked the web to see best route to take, and checked the timetable - every 15 min... not bad. So I walked a couple of blocks to the bus stop. Waited.... waited some more.... no busses came. This stop served 6 different lines, mind you... waited some more... 30 minutes later, a single bus came - not my line... waited another 20 minutes. I left.

Blah - never again will I attempt to use DC's busses. The metro is quite nice, although far from comprehensive.

Anyways, I'm home right now waiting for Amy - I cooked a lasagne dinner for us tonight, and afterwards we're going over to the Kennedy Center for a jazz concert. Hmmm, I'm hungry - I hope she makes it back soon.

Amy and i have been playing scrabble since I first introduced her to the game while we were hanging out in Zilker Park on the 4th of July last year. Upon going over the rules with her, I promptly tromped her at the game. Little did I know that it was the last time I would beat her for a while. (I was forced to let her win a lot*). Amy's vocabulary exceeds mine by quite a bit, but it's good - I'm catching up.

Anyways, we've recently discovered playing Scrabble over the internet which is a great diversion for her at work and for me in the library. Here's a game we recently finished:
Recently Finished Game

and one we're currently playing:
Current game (Dan = Comrade General; Amy = Supremes Leader)

________
* as in, I was unable to beat her.
I get an email update from the Far Eastern Economic Review every week when their new issue comes out. Recently they've begun each email with a quote from old issues on that same date. Here is the one I got this week:

An extract from an article published in December 1965:

SOURCES CLOSE to the Vatican have disclosed to this correspondent that the real reason for the Pope's still-not-fully explained trip to the United States and his speech to the United Nations headquarters last summer was to forestall any possibility of the US launching air attacks on China's atomic installations.

The Pope's decision to go to the UN and deliver a speech there in which he made an indirect plea for China's membership was a sudden one. The Vatican sources have explained that Catholics in the US had warned the Pope through a private emissary (an American businessman) that the Pentagon was pressing for a pre-emptive strike against China's nuclear potential, and was trying to persuade the White House that if such action were taken, the Soviet Union would not retaliate -- or would not react sufficiently strongly to make the US regret its action. This information is reported to have reached the Pope last July.


Some interesting things I noted:

The Vatican had an active foreign policy. Today it doesn't. Is this simply because the pope today is so old as to have his activities limited, or is it a result of a larger decline of the Vatican as a political entity?

The Pentagon was already trying to redefine norms by the notion of a pre-emptive attack. I think we can all safely say that the decision not to make pre-emptive attacks on China's nuclear arsenal was a good idea (e.g. keeping the Cold War Cold). How / Should this affect our thinking today?

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Here is a good analysis of Powell's presentation, with excellent sources, good point-analysis format that is pretty objective, and a quick easy read. We as Americans really should keep informed and ask critical questions about our foreign policy.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,889844,00.html

(Even though it's "The Guardian" and may be seen to be too leftish for some, it seems very objective and should be informative to those on both sides of the issue)
I'm finally done with my State Dept background check forms! Doesn't sound like a big thing? Well, I didn't think so either, but it's taken all of my (otherwise) free time for the past week. It was actually due Saturday (at latest Monday), but I've been spending all my time on it the last few days. It's not hard, but just extremely tedious - you have to basically describe accurately and in detail every bit of your life for the last 7 years. Who remembers their room number in 1996? I don't. Oh, and you have to give a name of a person to verify every piece of information you put down, and their current contact info. Thus a trivial task turns into a nightmare.

Anyways, today was also the end of add-drop for school. So here's my class list this semester:

International Monetary System

International Trade System

Applied Econometrics

China's Economic Reforms since 1978

Sound fun, huh? Today marks the end of the 2nd week of classes - I've had quite a bit of a hard time deciding on which classes to take - I've been sitting on at least 8 different classes - so now I'm way behind on everything. I guess I'm overcompensating for last semester's lack of class shopping which I ended up regretting.

Oh - today was a good test day. Amy kicked ASS on her GRE's today. Everyone sign her guestbook and congradulate her! I also re-took my CAL Chinese proficiency test today for the Hopkins Nanjing center application. 2 1/2 hours of toil.

(5.53 pm Comments (0) >> )