Socialized Medicine

We can't afford it.  Some people like Michael Moore say that we should just divert funding for the war toward Socialized Medicine, but the fact of the matter is is that we can't afford the war either.  We are already borrowing money to finance a lot of the dumb programs already in place.  Government spending is out of control, and we need to exercise budget restraint now, not consider new areas to increase spending.

Actually, I think the device in question is a spinoff from another device used in the medical industry for colonic inspections.  Since death-by-lava-enema is an extremely restricted market, I don't believe a patent was accomplished.

There are similar instances of low-tech approaches to similar solutions throughout history.  One Roman soldier, for his punishment for some crime, was forced to imbibe molten silver ... which as you can imagine, killed him.  In fact, making prisoners drink molten metal has happened more than once, to wit:

http://www.folger.edu/html/newimages/INS0072.jpg

And introductory text for it:

"The widely circulated woodcut first published in Theodor de Bry's America Pars Quarta (1594), is surely the boldest restatement of the topos. In this strikingly graphic representation, probably crafted by the Huguenot artist Jacques Le Moyne de Mourges, vindictive Amerindians lay exemplary punishment upon captured Spanish soldiers, forcing them to drink the molten gold they so shamelessly coveted, literalizing their appetite for the precious metal in such a way as to provide the Iberians their poetical just deserts."