Danse macabre

The idea that we are currently living in a sort of feudal era but with consumer electronics and lab-grown cucumbers has been gaining traction over the past few years for obvious reasons, such as 1% reigning over 99%, total state control, etc. And speaking of feudal times, the danse macabre/Totentanz/dance of death concept has to be my favourite, along with morality plays.

Roughly, it’s a depiction of skeletons leading the living to their graves as reminder of the inevitability of death and what better topic for a Friday, right? That was the original danse macabre. In the modern version, we’re being led by not the dead but the brain-dead. Which is infinitely worse and it’s not even fun any more. It’s insulting. And because misery loves company, let me take you on a danse imbecile journey.

Take this recent statement by the EU’s so-called top diplomat, who, as we have previously discussed, has no concept of what diplomacy actually means. So, that individual this week said the following:

“It is great to be here in Yerevan.

We have the European Political Community meeting and Europe is not about geography, it is about values and principles. That is why we are super glad to welcome Canada here today to discuss the issues.”

What first strikes the unwary eye that catches this statement, of course, is the clumsy semantic structure. They have a meeting and Europe is not about geography, so they welcome Canada. To discuss issues of unspecified nature. This is not a good paragraph. It is, in fact, a monstrously bad paragraph that demonstrates an inability to construct a complete thought. But I know you don’t care about that and you’re probably still laughing at Europe not being about geography. Let’s address this.

Europe, as we know, is a continent. Continents are about geography. Very much about geography, I dare say. Of course, the individual in charge of what passes for foreign policy in Brussels is aware of this but she is trying to be metaphorical about things — and failing epically. Geography has always determined history and policy, and always will. The aggressive refusal to accept this simple fact of life is why the EU is a laughing stock but not enough of a laughing stock. Laugh harder, I’ll help.

European Commission@EU_Commission

The battle of narratives is going strong. Our countries are a recurring target. It is time to act to tell the stories that make us strong. Let’s live our own story! Protect what matters - our democracy.

6:53 PM · May 7, 2026 · 612K Views

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1.82K Replies · 347 Reposts · 2.7K Likes

Yeah, the battle of narratives is indeed “going strong”, which, I suspect, is not what they actually meant because “going strong” means something quite different than “is intense”. Which tells us that whoever writes these posts is not really good at idiomatic English. So far, so hilarious. Then comes the call to live our own story. Again, I suspect the author of this call is not really good at language in general and its relationship with thought.

We are very much living “our own story” and it’s a story of looming jet — and other — fuel shortages, soaring inflation, and, for our sins, German rearmament, doomed as it is, and thank goodness for that. I’m really not sure they want this story told. In fact, I’m quite sure they don’t, hence the above pathetic attempt at doing 1984. On a side note, could someone tell the French foreign ministry they are not witty? It’s painful to watch.

Moving on, we seem to have been blessed with a new Wall Street acronym: NACHO, an upgrade from TACO. NACHO stands for Not A Chance Hormuz Opens and suggests traders are not serious people, which we already knew, judging by oil price movements. Or they just need the occasional break as do all of us. But since the CFTC just reportedly launched a probe into, um, questionably timed short bets on oil minutes before statements by the U.S. president that moved prices lower, we might urgently need a new acronym.

I suggest SSIMP, after a local saying that goes “Who [defecated] in my pants?” and means somebody did something extremely stupid and there’s no way to hide it, so that somebody is forced to face the consequences. For convenience and double meaning, the acronym is in the form of a declarative statement.

Meanwhile, the IPCC has quietly disposed of its most extreme global warming scenarios. This is a low blow to the net-zero crowd because now they have one fewer weapon to wave in their opponents’ faces, namely, “Unless we keep building more panels and turbines we’re all gonna die”. Well, we’re not. Serious analysis on the topic from The Honest Broker. The only thing you can expect from me are jokes but first, a quote from THB:

Tens of thousands of research papers have been — and continue to be — published using these scenarios, a similar number of media headlines have amplified their findings, and governments and international organizations have built these implausible scenarios into policy and regulation.

Talk about a collapse in the dominant narrative — and a very, very convenient loophole for those who are looking for ways to dispense with the whole net-zero alarmism story. It won’t work on activists, of course, but their quinoa is going to get more expensive because of the jet fuel shortages, so there’s a silver lining there.

In other collapsing narrative news, climate changelet IEEFA, which stands for Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, announced green hydrogen is not going to work for Germany. After praising the thing as an excellent means of decarbonising economies, the IEEFA wrote the following:

The logic is compelling, but delivering hydrogen at scale requires costly infrastructure be built ahead of confirmed demand. The centrepiece of the infrastructure buildout is Germany’s hydrogen core network, a pipeline system connecting demand centres with domestic production and import terminals. Public debate often describes this as a €19.8 billion construction project, yet the true cost is substantially higher.

I leave you with a work of art from the times when the continent of Europe, which is made up of a few dozen nation states with their distinctive cultures, histories, and a horrible track record in foreign relations, was not completely overrun by idiots.