It’s Not the EU, it’s the EE

Further update: The video is working again. We’ll see how long it lasts...


Update: The embedded video no longer works, nor does the direct YouTube link.

I know it used to work, because I watched it. suspect that YouTube’s bandwidth has been overloaded this morning, as everyone in the world takes a look at the newborn Empire.

We’ll keep checking it to see if it comes back.


Speaking in Strasbourg, Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, sliped big time: he said the European Union is now an empire. It must’ve morphed into this new entity while we weren’t looking. But don’t worry, Barroso claims this is the first “peaceful empire,” one without a dictator.

Well, that’s reassuring. I was worried there for a moment. I thought that the bustle of bureaucrats in Brussels constituted a hydra-headed diktat, but obviously they mean no harm to mere earthlings. So we’re safe. Whew!

I think EUX TV was a bit taken aback, too. It reports:

His answer startled many of the journalists present. Barroso’s spokesman, Johannes Laitenberger, afterwards asked some of them not to pay too much attention to the comments.

Somehow that explanation seems a lot like the dialogue from another fanciful tale… “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

Here’s EUX TV’s video. Watch Vice-President Margot Wallström making a joke while she tries to wriggle out of what Barroso has just said:


I think her response was bureaucratese for “no way, Jose.”

Or maybe, “Wait till I get you in private, you moron. Don’t give away the Empire’s secrets on television.”

That would explain the spokesman who told everyone to ignore the comments.


Hat tip: Larwyn.


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