Britain finally burns the mortgage on WWII

Today, 56 years after the pact was entered into, Britain finally casts off the yoke of debt incurred fighting WWII and crawling from under the rubble.

In 1945, Britain was a mess. The empire was gone and the country was on the brink of bankruptcy, unable to even import sufficient food to sustain the population. In desperation, they looked to their closest ally and borrowed $4.3 Billion at 2% interest, to be repaid over 50 years. On six occasions, Britain was forced to defer their payments, most recently in 1976.

Britain has done a fair amount of grumbling about the repayment of the loan. The European allies really bore the brunt of WWII. They paid a much steeper price for their liberty than the United States did. The infrastructure of Britain was in rubble, the economy was in shambles. The country had endured the Blitz and many civilian casualties.

But now, 61 years after the end of the war, they are free of the debt.

I doubt I live to see the day the United States pays off the debt being incurred by the futile folly we are currently embroiled in.

Officially gone round the bend

The British have heightened security around the Chunnel for the Christmas holiday, based on intelligence obtained in cooperation with French intelligence agencies. I hope they had good intelligence and have averted a terrorist attack. I was feeling very good about the whole thing, and then I got toward the end of the article. And there it was...a pearl of hystrionic perfection.

Last week Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, described 'the threat of another terrorist attempt' as 'ever present' adding that 'Christmas is a period when that might happen. It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War,' he said. 'It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism.'(emphasis mine)

Unbelievable that someone would actually say that. Goodness me, I had no idea that the terrorist threat was capable of destruction on the same scale as global thermonuclear war and anhialation of the human race!

But insulting to his countrymen, Mr. Blair has apparently forgotten about the Blitz, in which 40,000 British citizens died, and 1500 were killed in one day. I'm sorry, but I don't see al Qae'da even reprising their success of September 11, let alone managing to kill 40,000 people in a sustained campaign.

I don't mean to dismiss terrorism, it is real and we need to deal with it, but setting up false equivalencies does not perform any valuable service whatever, it just makes the person setting them up look like a blooming idiot.

As British Parliamentarians are so fond of shouting from their seats while some proper Lady or Gentleman tries to peddle a sows ear by packaging it as a silk purse...Rubbish!