Give Pat Robertson a break

The above photo is of a U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Leader's graduating class of 1951. My father was in that class, as was Pat Robertson. (Front row, far left)

My father's recollection of Pat was that he was an average guy who did manage to use his senator father's influence to attempt to avoid going to Korea. This incident has been well documented, but Pat did eventually pull a somewhat cushy tour in Korea. (Jack Daniels anyone?)

I can remember the early years of Pat's UHF TV station WYAH. Back in those days we had the three main networks plus a UHF PBS station so getting another channel, whatever the content, was pretty exciting.

As to Pat's comments about Hati, he may be right on the money. The wrath of God is no joke. His comments have their genesis in the Bois Caiman ceremony of August 1791, which began the Hatian slave revolt against the French. (And really, who wouldn't want to get out from the French yoke?) It has been established that this ceremony actually took place and for those of us with a religious persuasion, we know deals can be made with the devil. (Seems idiotic that folks would want to trade a few years of prosperity for an eternity roasting in the fires of hell, which is located at the center of the Earth. Unimaginable pain and suffering forever....no thanks, I'll pass)

One thing I did not realize about Hati was that it had a population of over 9 million, 2 million of which lived in Port-au-Prince. Hati is only about 10,700 square miles or roughly one fourth the size of the state of Virginia. Tragically, there were only about 2 doctors per ten thousand population before the disaster.

Back to Pat. Deride him as you will, but he has managed to build an empire that provides charitable help to thousands of people each year. CBN's Operation Blessing "has provided hunger relief, disaster relief, medical aid and community development to more than 192.8 million people in 96 countries and all 50 states, providing goods and services valued at more than $1.2 billion. Operation Blessing is governed by a national board of directors that includes founder M. G. "Pat" Robertson, his wife, and son Gordon."

The "Flying Hospital", a converted L-1011, that CBN had was sold in 2000 to another non-profit due to the high expense of operating it. Many people were helped by this aircraft's facilities.

From the CBN website:

"Today CBN is a multifaceted nonprofit organization that provides programming by cable, broadcast and satellite to approximately 200 countries, with a 24-hour telephone prayer line. Chief among CBN's broadcasting components is The 700 Club, a daily television program featuring Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuswen, Gordon Robertson, Kristi Watts and news anchor Lee Webb. On the air continuously since 1966, The 700 Club is one of the longest-running programs in broadcast history. Seen in 97 percent of the television markets across the United States, the show's news/magazine format presents a lively mix of information, interviews, and inspiration to an average daily audience of one million viewers.

CBN programs have aired in approximately 71 languages from Mandarin to Spanish and from Turkish to Welsh. In 1990 CBN International launched special projects in the Commonwealth of Independent States (formerly the Soviet Union) that included primetime specials and later The 700 Club and Superbook, an animated series of Bible stories. The broadcasts were followed by 190 rallies throughout the region that resulted in the establishment of 190 churches. Similar special projects were implemented in the Philippines and Romania in 1994. CBN International also distributes videos and literature and provides follow-up through international ministries around the world. In 1995, CBN launched CBN WorldReach with a mission of converting 500 million people to Christianity using Gospel programming to targeted international audiences.

Middle East Television (METV), a television station in Southern Lebanon, broadcasts news, sports, family entertainment, and religious programming by satellite to a potential audience of 200 million people in 15 nations including Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Cyprus. METV also distributes free videotapes and religious literature and provides food and clothing -- through CBN’s humanitarian affiliate, Operation Blessing International -- throughout the Middle East. METV was sold to a like-minded ministry, LeSEA Broadcasting, in July 2001.

Here in America, The 700 Club Prayer Counseling Centers in Virginia Beach, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee provide prayer, scriptural counsel, and literature to people who call CBN's toll free telephone prayer line. The center's phones are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year by a staff of paid, volunteer, and “on call” workers who are trained in offering comfort and encouragement from a biblical perspective.

In 1977, CBN started the nation's first basic TV cable network with satellite transmissions of religious and syndicated family TV shows. By 1981, CBN Cable reached nearly 10 million homes. Renamed the CBN Family Channel in 1988, the commercial cable operation continued to prosper and was sold in 1990 to International Family Entertainment Inc. (IFE), a publicly held company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange. IFE was sold in 1997 to Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc.. Disney acquired the Fox Family Channel and it was named ABC Family on November 10, 2001."

We all have our issues, but Pat Robertson has done more good than most of us ever will hope to.

News Roundup

So, the MainStream Media has been busy lynching Rush Limbaugh over some supposedly racist comments Rush made. Although I am not a big Rush fan, his treatment by the MSM just illustrates they have absolutely no credibility left.

The MSM simply took unverified quotes from Wikiquotes and an unsourced book and spread the lies throughout the nation. They should be sued and they should lose big. Their lame excuses for not doing their due diligence are typical of today's liberal left wing media.

Conservatives have long known that it is the Dimocrats who are the biggest racists, but for those who need a refresher, here are some Dim quotes from redstate.com:

10. Democrat Fritz Hollings of South Carolina thinks being from Africa makes you a cannibal: “You’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”

9. Howard Dean(former DNC Chair) reaches out: “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.”

8. California Democrat Diane Watson thinks interracial marriage is icky: “He’s married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn’t want to be black.”

7. Howard Dean thinks service positions are for minorities, not big fancy white people: “You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? … Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”

6. Joe Biden explains why southern Democrats should vote for him: “My state was a slave state.”

5. “Conscience of the Senate” and former Klansman Robert Byrd on equal opportunity: “I’ve seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time.

4. Hillary Clinton does an impression (complete with accent) of an African-American man who didn’t know what Emily’s List was: “She’s supportin’ all these people. She’s supportin’ Sen. Dianne Feinstein . She’s supported Sen. Barbara Boxer . . . She supported everybody. Why won’t she support me?”

3. Democratic Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin denies that white people might live in New Orleans: “I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.””

2. Democrat Steny Hoyer reviews Michael Steele’s career: “[He has] a career of slavishly supporting the Republican Party.”

1. Then Senator Joe Biden fills us in on who works at convenience stores: “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent … I’m not joking.”

In other news...........

Michele Bachman (R-MN) lets us in on this tidbit about ACORN via rightsoup.com:

"one way the banks could satisfy their requirement under the Community Reinvestment Act is they could partner with ACORN. So a bank could either make a cash donation to ACORN, they could give equipment donations or they could work with ACORN to provide these loans to people who are poor credit risks. One bank that did that was the Citizens Bank of Massachusetts. They put it in a partnership with ACORN. Minnesota Bank, Northeast Bank of Minnesota donated $2,000 to ACORN. New York Bank. We’ll put all of this information up on our website at MicheleBachmann.com. But this is huge. Here you have the federal government demanding that banks lower their lending standards. And as a threat to these banks the federal government says we’re putting you out of business unless you make these bad loans. But one way you can satisfy your Community Reinvestment Act rating, because you have to get a certain score, one way you could satisfy your score, give money to ACORN. Work with ACORN. You work with ACORN, you’re good with us, says the federal government. This is so bad. But the dots are connecting…

…Banks had to figure out some way to satisfy the federal government’s demands and so if they, you know, if they were nervous about making loans to very to people with very shaky credit, one thing they could also do is give money to ACORN. So it’s a form of payola. So the banks, in order to be in compliance with the federal government, would give payoff money, so to speak, to ACORN in order to stay in the good graces with the federal government. I mean, what else would you call that but a payola? "

And, in other news.....

From AFP:  "China has detected deadly nerve gas at its border with North Korea and suspects an accidental release inside the secretive state, a Japanese news report said Friday.

The Chinese military is strengthening its surveillance activities after detecting the highly virulent sarin gas in November last year and in February in Liaoning province, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources from the Chinese military."

Yes, the North Koreans have an estimated 5,000 tons of chemical and biological weapons. If those 10k plus artillery pieces aimed at Seoul are loaded with sarin, the South will not be too happy about that.

As I say, Obama has a lot on his plate and the Dimocrats continue to just fizzle out. We have many potential problems of a very serious nature and we have a rank amatuer in the White House to deal with them.

Auf Wiedersehen

Another wrench tossed into the works.

I must admit, I did not see this one coming:From ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/defectors-tell-of--burmas-secret-nuclear-reactor-1766566.html )

Defectors tell of Burma's secret nuclear reactor

North Korea is helping country develop weapons, according to the men

By Roger Maynard in Sydney
Monday, 3 August 2009

Two of Asia's most oppressive regimes may have joined forces to develop a nuclear arsenal, according to strategic experts who have analysed information supplied by a pair of Burmese defectors.

The men, who played key roles in helping the isolated military junta before defecting to Thailand, have provided evidence which suggests Burma has enlisted North Korean help to build its own nuclear bomb within the next five years.

Details supplied by the pair, who were extensively interviewed over the past two years by Professor Desmond Ball of the Australian National University and Thai-based Irish-Australian journalist Phil Thornton, points to Burma building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facility with the assistance of North Korea.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the head of Thailand's Institute of Security and International Studies, said: "The evidence is preliminary and needs to be verified, but this is something that would completely change the regional security status quo.

"It would move Myanmar [Burma] from not just being a pariah state but a rogue state – that is one that jeopardises the security and well-being of its immediate neighbours," he said.

The nuclear claims, revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald at the weekend, will ring alarm bells across Asia. The newspaper said the testimony of the two defectors brought into sharp focus the hints emerging recently from other sources, supported by sightings of North Korean delegations, that the Burmese junta, under growing pressure to democratise, was seeking a deterrent to any foreign moves to force regime change.

Their evidence also reinforces concerns expressed by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, in Thailand last week about growing military co-operation between North Korea and Burma. "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology and other dangerous weapons," she said at a regional security conference.

The two defectors whose briefings have created such alarm are both regarded as credible sources. One was an officer with a secret nuclear battalion in the Burmese army who was sent to Moscow for two years' training. He was part of a nuclear programme which planned to train 1,000 Burmese. "You don't need 1,000 people in the fuel cycle or to run a nuclear reactor. It's obvious there is much more going on," he said.

The other is a former executive of the regime's leading business partner, Htoo Trading, who handled nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea. The man, who died in 2008, provided a detailed report which insisted that Burma's rationale for a nuclear programme was nonsense.

"They [the generals] say it is to produce medical isotopes for health purposes in hospitals. How many hospitals in Burma have nuclear science? he asked. "Burma can barely get electricity up and running. It's a nonsense," he said.

Professor Ball and Mr Thornton reported that the army defector claimed that there were more than five North Koreans working at the Thabeik Kyin uranium processing plant in Burma and that the country was providing yellowcake – partially refined uranium – to both Iran and North Korea.

The authors concluded that the illicit nuclear co-operation was based on a trade of locally refined uranium from Burma to North Korea in return for technological expertise.

What is missing in the nuclear chain at the moment is a plutonium reprocessing plant, but according to the army defector, one was being planned at Naung Laing in northern Burma, parallel to a civilian reactor which is already under construction with Russian help.

The secret complex would be hidden in caves tunnelled into a nearby mountain. Once Burma had its own plutonium reprocessing plant, it could produce 8kg of weapons-grade plutonium-239 a year, enough to build one nuclear bomb every 12 months.

If the testimony of the two defectors proves to be correct, the secret reactor could be operational by 2014, The Herald reported. "These two guys never met each other, never knew of each other's existence, and yet they both tell the same story basically," said Professor Ball.

"If it was just the Russian reactor, under full International Energy supervision, then the likelihood of them being able to do something with it in terms of a bomb would be zero," Professor ball said. "It's the North Korean element which adds danger to it."
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I suppose I should have boned up more on my Asian geography since I have never considered Burma (Now known as Myanmar) of any great significance. It is, however, the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia. It's territory encompasses 261,227 square miles and its estimated population is 55,390,000; which is a much larger population than North Korea.

Burma has been run by various military juntas since 1962 and is currently led by Senior General Than Shwe.

Apparently, every small peckered petty dictator wants to get their slimy meathooks on a nuclear weapon and, in Burma's case, this may now be possible in the not too distant future since uranium is a plentiful natural resource there. It also just makes sense that N.Korea is providing technical assistance in return for some yellowcake. The above article mentions Iran is getting yellowcake as well. The Russians (surprise, surprise) have also been helping out. Those dang Ruskies have their hands in quite a bit of nefarious poop. (how 'bout another Russian post Don Rich?)

Depending on how far along Burma is, we may have to take out North Korea AND Burma, although our real target should probably be the Russians. Oh well, more sleepless nights ahead for the U.S. Intelligence analysts. (I figure the Israelis will "do" Iran)