Assignment saves time?

[rpglover64 at gmail.com]

I ran the following in the python shell:

>>> import timeit
>>> storeit=timeit.Timer('s=len(li);s==1000', 'li=range(1000)')
>>> checkit=timeit.Timer('len(li)==1000', 'li=range(1000)')
>>> listofresults=[(min(storeit.repeat(5)),min(checkit.repeat(5))) for i in xrange(20)]

listofresults contained these values

(0.25506401062011719, 0.25763511657714844)
(0.2541499137878418, 0.25717496871948242)
(0.25352811813354492, 0.25570392608642578)
(0.25349903106689453, 0.25812816619873047)
(0.25426197052001953, 0.25819206237792969)
(0.25236606597900391, 0.25693607330322266)
(0.25433588027954102, 0.25758695602416992)
(0.25356602668762207, 0.25770902633666992)
(0.25328993797302246, 0.25844502449035645)
(0.25414395332336426, 0.25747895240783691)
(0.25800919532775879, 0.25954699516296387)
(0.25691604614257812, 0.25997209548950195)
(0.25767397880554199, 0.25859308242797852)
(0.25512409210205078, 0.26129603385925293)
(0.25843596458435059, 0.25791501998901367)
(0.2594301700592041, 0.2605140209197998)
(0.25701212882995605, 0.25839614868164062)
(0.25591516494750977, 0.26186609268188477)
(0.25582718849182129, 0.25893092155456543)
(0.2576749324798584, 0.25799012184143066)

in only one of these pairs is the first value larger than the second
value.  I don't think this constitutes consistently, but I do think it
counts as frequently.