Bob Rossney

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• Commented on Stacking 117 objects on a Lego block, then knocking it over.
  Walter Wick invented one of the most beautiful puzzles I've ever seen. It's twelve photographs of a clock, taken at five-minute intervals; the object is to figure out what order they were taken in. The first mystery is that there...
• Commented on Mash-up video culled from 99 classic albums
  That's an outstanding rendition of "Loving Cup," at least, up to the three minute long ostinato at the end. The bloom comes off the rose there....
• Commented on Arthur Goldwag on the queen of the "birther" movement
  On a completely different subject: I'm reasonably certain that the inhabitants of the nation of Moldova are called "Moldovans," not "Moldavians."...
• Commented on Trotsky: the graphic biography
  When you consider the fact of what Russia was at the turn of the century - a vast, poor, economically undeveloped nation with a thousand-year history of brutal authoritarian rule, whose citizenry were still serfs fifty years earlier, being dragged...
• Commented on Indiana prosecutor says she's duty bound to prosecute grandma who bought cold medicine
  Saith reveng: I can hardly believe that the judge in this case wouldn't look past the letter of the law to the intent of the law, which is what judges are supposed to do. The case hasn't gone before a...
• Commented on Al Franken draws map of the US
  This is actually a pretty useful exercise to get good at. You'll notice that mostly he's drawing the states in their relation to one another. There are legislators in Minnesota who don't really know the difference between Alabama and Mississippi...
• Commented on The pleasure of reading stories that don't bore
  Grossman starts his argument with a little tale about the Modernists' war on plot, and then half the novels he lists to set the scene are books with strong, even lurid plots: The Sound and the Fury, The Age of...
• Commented on The blog of Philip Garrido, serial rapist and kidnapper: "sound control" gadget hallucinations.
  Not mentioned in this thread so far: Carl Probyn, Jaycee Dugard's stepfather. It's not just that he got to witness his stepdaughter being pulled into a van (and, he's been sure for nearly two decades, taken to her death). That...
• Commented on Sarah Palin, via Twitter: God told me to sue the internet
  Her written announcement (still there for anyone to read on the State of Alaska's official web site) is, if nothing else, a damning indictment of the state's public education system. Re Ned Sublette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOJ8NmGyGbk He's the tall guy on the...
• Commented on Michael Jackson -- unrecognizable motivations and constant ruination
  (Oh, and I also didn't intend to suggest that Henry Darger was a child molester. I don't think it's really meaningful to judge the morality of what was, in essence, a person recording his private thoughts. In general I tend...
• Commented on Michael Jackson -- unrecognizable motivations and constant ruination
  I started to respond to the comments here, and then things just got out of hand. In the event you're interested in my response, you can find it at http://www.koaxkoaxkoax.com....
• Commented on Wails and Murmurs: Eating Couscous at the Chi-Chi's in Walla-Walla
  I'm glad someone finally mentioned Miou-Miou, who I'm sad never starred in a remake of _The Blue Angel_ as Lola Lola. And who I'm sure listens not only to Duran Duran, but to Talk Talk, Liquid Liquid, and Mister Mister....
• Commented on Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality
  Joel Spolsky. Robert Sapolsky. Also, he's a neurobiologist, not an anthropologist. But you've got the part about him being amazingly interesting right....
• Commented on Bad Times Spur Entrepreneurship, But There's a Catch
  What about ending the protectionism, subsidies, and bureaucracy that's made healthcare products and services so artificially expensive to begin with? If we nationalize health insurance we probably don't need to nationalize health care. Nationalized health insurance addresses all of those...
• Commented on Bad Times Spur Entrepreneurship, But There's a Catch
  Long story short, it appears that Appendicitis has a lot to do with keeping your colon, intestines, digestive system clean. Long story short, no, it bloody well doesn't. It amazes me how much flack I'm taking here for suggesting people...
• Commented on Bad Times Spur Entrepreneurship, But There's a Catch
  Sounds like a way to avoid discarding a failed hypothesis. If a positive link between nationalized health care and entrepreneurship is asserted, examples of countries supporting this must be provided. "We should go to the movies." "I'd like to go...
• Commented on Bad Times Spur Entrepreneurship, But There's a Catch
  Health insurance is profitable entirely because insurance companies cover only the least expensive customers. Insurers certainly reduce costs by negotiating lower rates with providers, but they control their costs the most by not insuring people that are going to lose...
• Commented on Bad Times Spur Entrepreneurship, But There's a Catch
  A lot of fallacious arguments in this thread. "Canada's health-care system hasn't resulted in a higher entrepreneurship rate." A more correct formulation of this might be "Canada's health-care system is not enough to compensate for the many other ways in...
• Commented on Golfer's periscope, 1933
  The only thing genuinely elitist about golf is that in order to play it regularly, you have to belong to the aristocracy of people with free time. This is an odd kind of elitism. I recommend a few rounds at...
• Commented on The case against Candy Land
  Most of the comments I would have made by now (Candyland just teaches very young kids how to play games, Battleship does actually have a learnable strategy, the Germans know what they're doing, it's worth learning about how the world...
• Commented on About US Airways Flight 1549
  It's remarkable how hard it is not to succumb to magical thinking....
• Commented on Arab shoe-tossing isn't a gesture of friendly affection
  Obviously throwing an object at someone is a sign of disrespect. But they weren't things, they were shoes. And if you asked an Iraqi, "why shoes?" you'd find that that's a question that has an answer. And it's an answer...
• Commented on LOTR/Narnia-inspired music video
  That's really a demo reel masquerading as a music video. Further proof, if any were needed, that disintermediation isn't an unalloyed good....
• Commented on Please oh please: Don't let the sequel to Repo Man suck
  I remember, in 1990, reading a lot of movie critics opining on how Raging Bull was the best American movie of the 80s, and thinking, no, no it was not. The key line in the movie is a throwaway, by...
• Commented on Cognitive Therapy is as effective as anti-depressants in chronic depression
  Cognitive therapy is extremely effective for many people who suffer from depression. It is also ineffective for many people who suffer from depression. While "it only works if you work it" - tautological, since "working it" is what CBT is,...
• Commented on Blind painter Esref Armagan
  Actually, his last name is an anagram of "anagram," which is odd all by itself....
• Commented on Droste Effect: when a package's artwork features the package itself
  I cannot find an image of it on the interwebs, but the French aperitif Dubonnet's label features a cat curled around a bottle of Dubonnet, whose label etcetera....
• Commented on Superman's creator's heirs awarded copyright in Action Comics #1
  My favorite sentence in the decision: "The Court thus concludes that defendants may continue to exploit the image of a person with extraordinary strength who wears a black and white leotard and cape." It's also worth mentioning that if you...
• Commented on Fluxx -- Nomic card game
  If you've never played Cosmic Encounter, a CCG like Magic: The Gathering, or any of the dozens of games designed in the last 15 years that have incorporated the idea that the rules of the game can be bent while...