Links for Wednesday

• Just watched Sicko last night. Moore’s best film by far, IMO. a must-see for every american. this goes along the movie’s message:

France Best, US Worst in Preventable Death Ranking – CommonDreams.org

WASHINGTON – France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs. via

• eating the body of christ- a new theory on the disappearance of His body (thanks, gus)
• Dementia drug instant hit

• US scientists claim a drug can reverse some of the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease – with the first effects seen within 10 minutes.

• idaho guy sees the mark of the beast on his hand and cuts it off, microwaves the hand (your usual steps to taking care of this latter-day ‘beast-itis’)
  • The New Testament Book of Revelation contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying, according to the New International Version of the Bible, “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury.”
• Mike Huckabee wants to copy-paste the bible into the constitution!  (link to PZ Myers)

• The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried to Suppress- Pretty crazy shiite.
• King of the Rats weighed One Ton!  Fossil hunters have uncovered the greatest rodent that ever lived — a one-tonne behemoth that bestrode the swamplands of South America some four million years ago.

  The newly-identified species is the greatest-known member of the order Rodentia and by comparison makes the biggest rodent alive today, the 60-kilo (132-pound) capybara, look like a pygmy shrew.

  The skull of the extraordinary beast was found in a broken boulder on Kiyu Beach on the coast of Uruguay’s River Plate region.

  Measuring a whopping 53 centimetres (21 inches), the skull has massive incisors several centimetres long.

  Despite this fearsome look, the creature was not carnivorous and looked more hippo-like than rat-like.

  Its small grinding teeth suggest it had only weak masticatory muscles for chewing food, and probably tucked into soft vegetation, fruit and squidgy aquatic plants in deltas, the experts say.

  The newly-found species has been dubbed Josephoartigasia monesi, in honour of Alvaro Mones, a Uruguayan palaeontologist who specialised in South American rodents.  via

• Penn Jillette has new Vodcast called Penn Says
• Your Inner Fish (author interviewed by Stephen Colbert)
• New Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Podcast- a 5-minute bite-sized version available here
• Two Utah men try to purchase beer after 1 am (that’s a no-no here), are then denied, and:
  • the suspects then allegedly also asked if they could steal some beer, to which the clerk replied “yes, but Jesus is watching.”

    Investigators say the suspects showed a pistol, then took the beer and left $9 on the counter and could now face armed robbery charges if caught.