Two things tonight, medical and dumbassery

On the latter, as Og says, stupid SHOULD hurt; the lesson sticks that way, if you'll have the brains and humility to accept it.
Amid screams and what survivors called a "terrifying scene," two cables holding up the suspension bridge at Hidden Lake Park in Merrillville failed at 10 p.m., sending the bridge and 50 to 120 children and adults crashing into a creek about 10 feet below.

The 80-foot span was designed to hold 40 people, but "at least twice as many" were on it when it collapsed, said Ross Township Trustee John Rooda, who runs the park.
To quote from Mythbusters, "Well, there's your problem right there!"
Hall, who was treated at a hospital for a sprained ankle, said she saw some people "jumping up and down on the bridge, laughing" before the collapse.
"Hey, the bridge is moving, ain't this cool?" Splash.
There is the question of why the cops, one at each end, let so many people on; that'll need to be answered. Which still leaves idiots on a packed bridge jumping up & down...


The medical is Kevin's most recent post on the wonders of socialized medicine,
I was going to respond to this comment by reactive target Markadelphia a couple of days ago, but I discovered I didn't need to. John Stossell, one of the few in the legacy media who doesn't qualify as a "gerbilist" already has:

"Better" Health Care?

by John Stossell

President Obama says government will make health care cheaper and better. But there's no free lunch.

In England, health care is "free" -- as long as you don't mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth. At any one time, half a million people are waiting to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.

Wow. That sounds . . . sterile. Then there was the recent case of a British patient in hospital for an abscess on her neck who took it upon herself to clean the ward she was in because it was filthy.

Obama insists he is not "trying to bring about government-run healthcare".

"But government management does the same thing," says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. "To reduce costs they'll have to ration -- deny -- care."

Like the New Zealand hospital for all intents and purposes told a Samoan family that they should let their deformed newborn daughter die, and denied her care. The government went so far as to deny her a visa to travel to where she could get care. That child eventually did get to the U.S. for treatment, and has now returned home, still alive.

There's a difference between having the government insist on denying care, and the family making that decision. That difference is who's paying.
Read it all. And if you need to check out the leftist defense of this garbage, click on the comment by the reactive target in the first line(and the others to find out about 'reactive target' and the 'gerbalist'). Oh, and I'd suggest you hit this link that a gentleman left in the comments, and consider our numbers changing to those of (fG)Britain or Canada. Like
60: Average cancer survival rate (all types) for patients in the United States. Canada’s survival rate is significantly lower at 55%, while Europe’s is a dismal 48%.

81: Average percentage of those who survive a diagnosis of prostate cancer in the United States versus 43% in Britain under their National Health Service.

90: Number of days, on average, each Canadian patient must wait for an MRI under the Canadian government-run health care system.

Several years back I had an idea, and being on this here internet thingy I sent a question to a number of politicians: "If you simply want to make health care more affordable, make all health expenses deductible: not the current 'calculate 'X' percent of your income and what's above that' mess but ALL of it. People could adjust their withholding to take account of known/planned costs, and if have some above that they'd get it back when they file."

Not one of the bastards would even answer me. Because, I think, because for most of them it's not actually about making health care more affordable: it's about control of health care AND control of your money.

I've got a friend who insists that the examples of socialized-medicine horrors I send him are due to me cherry-picking bad stuff; he won't believe that all you have to do is scan British and Canadian news sites to find this stuff. And insists "At least I'll have free health care!" And gets upset when I say "It won't be free; you may not be writing a check to the doctor, but you'll be paying out the ass in taxes for that 'free' care."

And, before I forget(ok, dammit, so this makes 'three', if you're going to be picky), since Sweden is often mentioned as a wonderplace of socialized care,
Take healthcare. Swedes do not enjoy free public care: it costs to see a GP. That is, if you manage to see one. Queues are long and scandals rack the system. Psychiatric care, the source of many such scandals, has a near-medieval penchant for authoritarianism with few European equivalents. People are locked up for months for not taking medicine, given no therapy, and spat out of the system into despair and destitution. The mentally ill die in wards and in outpatient isolation. And they do not even have charities to turn to because state-run healthcare is supposed to work: this is Sweden, after all.

Those who do enjoy Sweden's second-rate public services are lucky. Undocumented migrants, who lack a "personal number", are barred from day-to-day healthcare. Foreigners do not fit easily into a social system built on the postwar notion of the folkhem, or people's home, whose rightful inhabitants are the native Swedes. Despite the xenophobic right's lack of electoral success, Sweden is divided between those inside the system and those outside it – including the asylum seekers now deported en masse to Iraq. But migrants should be happy to be here. This is Sweden, after all.
and
Even being in the system is less rewarding than it was. Unemployment benefits are falling behind those of other countries, and access to social security involves Big Brother-style controls most Europeans would abhor. The state's iron grip remains even as the care that used to go with it has gone. Swedes might lack Britain's profusion of CCTVs, but their lives are scrutinised by an armada of bureaucrats. A new law lets authorities tap all phone and internet traffic crossing the borders. Norwegian lawyers have sued over privacy infringement, leaving the prime minister perplexed – because in Sweden, the state is there to help us.
Two notes: first, the 'xenophobic right' in Sweden is doing hateful things like pointing out that not only do a lot of muslim immigrants not integrate into society, they're forcing society to change to accomodate them, and the wussy leftists in government are letting it happen because actually dealing with the problem is 'racist' and 'bigoted'. Second, while the left here screams bloody murder at tapping phone calls to numbers known to be used by terrorists; think they'd prefer the scheme of socialist Sweden?

Hell, one more note, that "because in Sweden, the state is there to help us." Even when you can't see a doctor, even when your daughter has to cover herself to avoid being raped, even when they're tapping your calls and net use, it's ok because 'the State is there to help us'. Disgusting attitude. And it's shared by the 'progressives' here.