Brother of Mercy

While there's still work to be done, I'm darned impressed with Obama's first partial week on the job. He's taken care of implementing unequivocal policy decisions on the things I felt were most in need of fixing. These things make me happy.

Fixing Amendment the Eighth (nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted) which has the added bonus of restoring Geneva Convention protection and a bit of our international standing.

Transparency in Government I expect we'll work on restoring Amendment the Fourth: The right of the poeple to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

Merciful and sensible funding for family planning. I have read several places trying to claim Bush was "good" on trying to stop AIDS. I'm going to have to call that bullshit. By refusing to help fund any clinic that even discussed abortion, let alone provided one, his obsession left out 75% of family planning clinics that typically depended heavily on US money. If you were to shut down 25% of hospitals and cut the majority funding for 50% of them, you cannot claim to be "spreading the finest of hospital services." When you're dealing with a sexually transmitted disease, you cannot be squirrely about using a clinic focused on sex and the effects of sex when in the prevention of said disease. Basically, Bush only wanted to prevent AIDS in people who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Obama has restored the ability of family planning clinics worldwide to openly tell their patients the honest and merciful truth.

I found another bitchy blog that says this in a way I consider to be an improvement on mine, but I figure the more voices, the merrier. Plus, I get to use the tags "politics" and "happiness" at the same time.