In his State of the Union address this week, President Bush repeated a request he made in May to double funding for global AIDS work. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), enacted in 2003, is now treating 1.4 million people in 15 focus countries around the world.

While no one argues over whether PEPFAR funding should be renewed, some say doubling the funds may not be sufficient. While Democrats wish to triple the funding to $50 billion, David Bryden, spokesman for the Global AIDS Alliance, said the figure should be closer to $59 billion.

Other issues also cause controversy among PEPFAR recipients and members of Congress such as requirements to allocate one-third of prevention money to abstinence programs. Other provisions block funds from groups that perform abortions and that aid prostitution. Outside of Democrats’ opposition to these provisions, others worry that the focus on AIDS could drain resources for other health care needs.

World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization, receives more than $150 million from PEPFAR grants now implemented in 14 countries. Director of corporate communications Dean R. Owen told WoW the organization focuses on caring for vulnerable children and especially those who have lost parents to AIDS.

Owen agreed that $30 billion does not meet global resource requirements that would ensure universal access to treatment, care and prevention by 2010: “Regrettably, the President’s request . . . is a doubling of the original bill in 2003, but not of current appropriations.”

He also explained that when PEPFAR was initiated, “prevention measures were narrowly focused,” and AIDS treatment did not focus on wide dissemination of drugs. The requirements helped distribute treatment effectively and support behavior change programs. This is necessary to accomplish World Vision’s goals of slowing the progression of the disease and also preventing its transmission, “something that will only be achieved in the foreseeable future through behavior change.”

With the film world absorbed in Sundance and the announcement of Oscar nominees, news has sort of slipped by that filmmaker Oliver Stone will be directing a biopic on the life of . . . the president.

Stone’s projected release date — around the 2008 election — seems to anticipate a return to days when he and his movies perhaps wielded greater influence. (And may also suggest a November surprise in the works?) His last two major pictures, “Alexander” and “World Trade Center,” fizzled out, depending on the critic, somewhere between flops and mediocrity.

Josh Brolin, costar in the Coen brothers’ buzzed-about “No Country for Old Men,” is Stone’s pick to portray George Bush. Having directed “JFK,” “Born on the Fourth of July” (for which he won a best-director Oscar), “Platoon” (for which he won another) and “Nixon,” Stone is seasoned in both political and controversial topics, and he promises that “Bush” — the name chosen over the other working titles, including “Misunderestimated” — won’t disappoint. It will “contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors,” he told Variety.

Still, no one’s quite sure how to evaluate Stone’s pledge to a “fair, true portrait” in light of his liberal, pro-Hugo Chavez, pro-Fidel Castro, often conspiracy-laced politics. Bloggers have kept the mood light with snarky japes like “Spoiler revealed: W was the second gunman on the grassy knoll.”

Stone says his interest in the biopic comes out of a singular, if slightly ahistorical, question: “How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?” Finding and answering this is, he said, “Frank Capra territory on one hand,” but also a job that will lead him into “the demons in [Bush’s] private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from . . . [like] his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States.”

“Conversion”? Contra Stone, Bush was raised in the East Coast Episcopalianism of his parents (ironically, ditto the upbringing of the now-Buddhist Stone), before moving over to the United Methodist Church after he met Laura. Perhaps confusing Stone by his evangelical term, Bush describes his resulting God epiphany — when he realized he had to stop drinking heavily and recalibrated his life — as being “born again.” Stone’s current grasp of his subject may not bode well for a “fair, true portrait.”

The world now knows what Gerald Ford really thought: Bill Clinton’s a sex addict, Carter was weak, and Bush invaded Iraq for the wrong reasons. The Washington Post speculates on whether Ford’s words will influence the 2008 election. He predicted Hillary would run for president but lose.

Barack Obama is having trouble making voters see the differences between him and Hillary Clinton. Analysts say it’s because he won’t attack her character. Bill Richardson is cultivating a soft, sweet demeanor: “I’m sure not the best looking, or the flashiest, but I know who I am. And I know how hard I’ll work for you.” Clinton counters him with her own ad: “These days it seems every candidate on earth is coming here for you. But which candidate has been there for you all along?”

Vice President Dick Cheney made another hunting blunder. This time he hunted at a private club that flies the Confederate flag.

President Bush blasts Congress for “not getting its work done” and wasting “valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and … endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq.”

Democrats blast Bush, asking if waterboarding (simulating drowning) is a legitimate interrogation technique or a form of torture. CNN says “Bush has had to retreat to gray-area defenses, using tailored definitions and legalisms to dodge questioners.”

The Blackwater controversy continues. Did officials offer Blackwater guards immunity, and will that hinder the investigation of a shootout that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead? Bush has picked an ex-general to head the Department of Veteran Affairs.