As much as Western and Arab media differ in their points of view, they both agree that North Korea has the oddest government in the world:

In 2002, for example, according to South Korea’s ministry of unification, celebrations for Kim Jong-il’s 60th birthday led to a 36 per cent drop in industrial productivity.

Granted, in the United States, we have an event which hurts productivity just as much. It’s called March Madness.

Check out this position (the whole game can be seen here):

I played Rxe8, sacrificing the Rook for a Knight and a Pawn. This was to disturb Black’s major pieces and put some pressure on his Queenside Pawns. Apparently, the idea wasn’t completely nuts (Fritz judged the resulting position as even). Several moves later, I made a couple bad moves and had a lost game. But it should have been a much better fight.

Here was our post mortem, in full:

Me: “Man, I think I should have had that game.”
Him: “No, you shouldn’t have taken that Knight; a Rook is more valuable than a Knight.”

While I sat there stunned, the kid went to talk to his friends. That couldn’t be the extent of his thinking. Surely, SURELY, he understands the concept of sacrificing material for positional factors. I mean, he’s a class A player, right? Or maybe he’s one of those kids who are so good tactically, he causes old-fart Experts to go into (mental) hysterics.