Uncertainty

I'm generally OK with it; I'm a pretty fatalistic kind of guy. I accept that in the long run, we're all dead, and compared with that, any other situation in which uncertainty might arise is pretty trivial. I came across the following series of pictures from That Will Buff Out, titled "Bungie Jump Truck Has Last Second Change Of Heart." Pictures from that site occasionally end up in my Sunday Funnies posts, but this is not funny. In fact, it makes me positively queasy. Did everything turn out okay? In fact, I was unsure whether I would even look at the photos again, let alone use them for a post. But I've been pondering for most of the afternoon how I wanted to address the historic passage of a health bill through the house last night. It's certainly a move forward. Is it a good move forward? Is my anger regarding the last-minute Stupak Amendment enough to turn me against the House bill? Probably not, though I regard that addition as abhorrent. From Americablog,

The House passed the anti-choice Stupak amendment last night. Basically, the amendment stops any government money from funding insurance plans that cover abortions. The twisted logic being that any money connected to any insurance company covering abortions is "abortion money," i.e., profits earned from "killing babies." We can't have the government touching that.

So I sure hope that no pro-life members of Congress are accepting political donations from any insurance companies that cover abortions. Because if they are accepting such donations, they're accepting profits that came from "killing little babies."

Will Leiberman show us his manliness, and stand with republicans in a filibuster, because $100 billion a year is a lot of money (though not as much as it would end up saving the economy over the next decade, and not nearly as much as we're spending in two wars)? And the important thing is not to "waste" money; it's much better to waste lives. Whether it's war or denying health care makes no difference.

Or will the Senate have the opportunity to vote on their bill (gee, I seem to recall a recent eight year window where the phrase "straight up-or-down vote" could be heard on a daily basis)? What sort of abortion will come out of reconciliation if it passes? ...Oh, that's right, we don't pay for abortions anymore. Guess you poor congressturds won't get your salaries this year. I know your salaries are a tiny fraction of your corporate kick-backs though, so it won't hurt too bad.

So, yes, I'm pleased with the news at some level, but I follow a lot of news. (Scroll down the side to see my link list; at the very least, I skim over every post from every one of those links, every day) This is another one of those bits of news that gets a very muddled reception- at least on the liberal side of the blogosphere. I'm sure the right side is marching in locked goosestep, crying how this is going to lead to fascist, locked-stepped authoritarianism, death panels, and re-education camps.

I'm sure I'll talk about this more, but I wanted to get my initial thoughts on record. I've been thinking for hours about what this means (among other things, of course), and my conclusion thus far is this: I have no idea what my thoughts are. But I do know I'm reacting very strongly in an emotional sense.

After long consideration, and trying to find my way through a fog of others' conflicting reactions, I suddenly realized the above photo set is a good metaphor for my own feelings: queasy and uncertain.