Meet the New Official Portrait of the Danish Royal Family

Holy WTF - They paid good krone for this?

When the Queen of Denmark opted to commission the first royal family portrait in almost 125 years, she turned to Thomas Kluge, a largely self-taught Danish portrait painter whose inspirations are said to include Rembrandt and Caravaggio. After four years of work, Kluge's finished painting is finally here: an inexplicably creepy portrait that reimagines the royal family as a clan of sadists, transvestites, and malevolent pigmen whose abominable ruttings have brought into the world a brood of Damien-like progeny.

Or perhaps he accurately captured  the creepy-and-kooky-and-all-together-ooky scandi nature of the Glücksburg family. All I know is that Damien Prince Christian must be taken down before he attains his full powers. And that's not going to be an easy task:

But the prince will not easily be killed: he has splintered his soul between seven horcruxes, each of which has been hidden as a sort of Easter egg within Kluge's masterpiece. Can you find them all?

But all future bloodshed aside I am looking forward to the dramatic TV and movie series based on the painting.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:49 PM | Comments (429)
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Mother beats baby in womb with hammer to show how tough the kid is

...Heather Thorpe, 24, was filmed by her former partner, Sean Hanlon, striking herself with the claw hammer around a month before giving birth to her son, Jonathon.

But when Mr Hanlon, 26, showed the video to police, officers refused to press charges, insisting no offence had been committed.

Yesterday Mr Hanlon said he was appalled at the decision, adding: "If there was a film of someone hitting a baby with a hammer they would be in handcuffs in 10 seconds flat." Mr Hanlon shot the five-second video in the couple's living room in October last year, just weeks before Miss Thorpe's due date...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:47 PM | Comments (22)
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Open Thread! Let the wild rumpus begin!

Did y'all see Dallas almost choke? They can't even choke right. They were on their way to yet another epic choke, then they choked on their choke, so they didn't choke.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:04 PM | Comments (249)
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In case space isn't your thing, here's a 10000% astronomy-free open thread for ya. more...

Posted by: CAC at 02:00 PM | Comments (248)
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And anything else that emerges from the darkest depths of your scary minds.....

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:09 PM | Comments (58)
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We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic.

-- Sincerely, the Fascist MGMT

Yes, it has meat in it. All food should have a meat component, if for no other reason than to irritate the vegetarians in our midst. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:10 PM | Comments (138)
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Well, isn't that just precious.

"Syria congratulates the Iranian brotherly people and their wise leadership on this historic achievement which reiterates Iran's role in the stability and security of the region," the source concluded.

In favor of this deal: Obama, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, the EU.
Opposed: Israel.

The details are terrifying. Iran gets to continue its activities at Arak, Fordow and Natanz facilities, and gets a reprieve from sanctions in exchange for promising not to continue its nuclear weapons program.

Oh, and we're making concessions of international law, as well:

Zarif said that the agreement “covers several important domains, the most important of which is the recognition of the right to enrichment.”

The U.S. and other major powers have never conceded an international norm of enrichment. Obama's just giving this stuff away.

*Programming Note* We want your comments, questions, advice, jokes, japes, and jackfoolery for this weeks' podcast. This is a holiday-week opportunity only, so if you're really dying to get something out of the cobs, this is your moment. Send your question/comment/request for advice/whatever to andy+asktheblog AT aoshq DOT com, and, provided it's not utter lunacy, there's a good chance we'll read it and either answer it or (more likely) mock it on the podcast. You know you want to.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:00 AM | Comments (275)
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Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the award-winning AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Oh No, Not More JFK Coverage

Hey, do you know what famous person died on Nov. 22, 1963? Well, C.S. Lewis, for one. I ask again, do you know what famous person died on Nov. 22, 1963? How about Aldous Huxley?

Huxley wrote a royal crap ton of stuff, stories, satire, and novels, and was one of the leading intellectuals of his day. His best known work is probably the dystopian novel Brave New World.

Lewis also wrote a royal crap ton of stuff, and perhaps best known for The Screwtape Letters, although I believe the best way to get to know him is by reading Mere Christianity or, my personal favorite, God In The Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. And of course, the Narnia Chronicles.

Kennedy "wrote" Profiles in Courage, and I use quotes because it is now known that he wrote PiC the same way that Barak Obama wrote his books, i.e. he didn't. Instead, PiC was mostly written by his lackey speechwriter Ted Sorensen, who admitted decades later that he very well paid by Kennedy for his ghost writing services. Because of his work, Kennedy was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

The strange coincidence of these three men dying on the same day is the basis for the book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley by Peter Kreeft, who imagines a conversation between these men, each representing distinct worldviews, with Kennedy as a modern humanist, Lewis representing Christian theism and Huxley advocating Eastern pantheism.

I grabbed the "triptych" photo from this article, which also has a trivia quiz so you can test your knowledge on Lewis, Huxley and Kennedy.

And doesn't Huxley look like a complete nerd?

The Sunday Morning Book Thread Gets Results!

And by "gets results", I mean "causes PGiS to blow off work in order to read and futz around on the internet":

I read that book recommended by OregonMuse on yesterday's book thread, "Gone at 3:17." It was avery gripping book and I blew off doing useful things today because I wanted to finish it. It was an interesting read because it covered more than just the school explosion, it talked about the East Texas oil fields, the way the news story was covered, and the shocking lack of safety regulations in schools--many of those regulations were put into place after this tragedy.

Reading the book resulted in me spending time on the internet today looking at photos and then reading about other school fires and then watching a weird newsreel film by the Los Angeles Fire Department about "Our Obligation" in terms of keeping kids safe while at school...

Posted by: ParanoidGirlInSeattle

I knew nothing about the book when I posted it last week, other than it looked like it might be interesting. I'm glad it turned out not to be a dud.

Gone at 3:17: The Untold Story of the Worst School Disaster in American History is available on Amazon.
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:52 AM | Comments (115)
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Here's a tweet by CNBC ... a rather neutral news organization. Except for the "NBC" part:

"Families USA" got $1 million to go down on Obamacare.

Families USA has received a $1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which it will use to collect and distribute to the media personal stories of those who have benefited from the new health insurance exchange rolled out by the Obama Administration October 1. The announcement is good news for the President, who has been widely criticized for the horrible launch of the online marketplace healthcare.gov.

Walkin' around money, dontcha know.

I gave CNBC's probably not-monitored Twitter account, like, 5 minutes to retract, but they didn't. So f*ck 'em.

Update: Mere minutes after mentioning it, I picked up this astroturfer on Twitter. He has the full-on Gadsden flag for effect.

Posted by: andy at 11:35 PM | Comments (52)
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There's a clip below to fold from Dana Perino, former Press Secretary to GWB and current host on The Five. You may have already seen it, but if you haven't, it's about Perino's and GWB's reaction to that rat bastard Scott McClellan's tell-all book about the Bush administration.

I may have disagreed with GWB on a lot of policy particulars, but he's a damned good man, unlike ... ahem ... a certain successor who I won't mention by name. Watch the clip and you'll see what I mean. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:02 AM | Comments (294)
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