I’m on pacific time and the events of the BIG DAY are in eastern time.  But the swearing in ceremony is supposed to be at 11:30am ET, which makes it 8:30PT, which is 10 and a half hours from now.

After 8 years of the man who has done more to destroy this planet than anyone else in recent history, we will be free of it in less than 12 hours.

Bush did put through Medicare Part D, which gives drug coverage to older adults. Yes, that was helpful, but believe me, it wasn’t his idea. And that doesn’t begin to make up for his war on reproductive rights. This is one of his shining moments:

“In 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, the Bush Administration denied funding to UNFPA that had already been allocated by the U.S. Congress on the grounds that the UNFPA supported Chinese government programs which include forced abortions and sterilizations. In a letter from the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns to Congress, the administration said it had determined that UNFPA’s support for China’s population programme “facilitates (its) government’s coercive abortion programme”, thus violating the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which bans the use of United States aid to finance or support abortions overseas.

This accusation has never been supported by any investigation, and has in fact been disproved by the various US, UK, and UN teams sent to examine UNFPA activities in China. UNFPA points out that it “does not provide support for abortion services”.Its charter includes a strong statement condemning coercion.

But bush steadfastly refused to provide the $34 million allocated by Congress. How many women died in childbirth as a result of Bush’s actions? How many people contracted HIV? How many children died of treatable and preventable diseases (yes, it provides help to mothers and their children, not just birth control)? And finally, George, how many abortions were performed because the women couldn’t get the birth control that the UNFPA might have provided them with?  I would guess several million over the course of George’s 8 year reign of terror.

Overall, health care in the US has suffered tremendously under the Bush thing’s administration. The number of uninsured and minimally insured has gone up, the FDA has become more corrupt and inept if that’s possible, and nothing has been done on a federal level for preventive health.

I don’t know what Barack Obama is going to do. Promises are promises. But the world can finally breathe in a breath of fresh air as the Bush creature disappears into the Texas hinterlands, and a new president takes the oath.

Today at 11:30 am PT, the new millennium–the 21st century–is finally going to begin.