Sweethearts Candy Blog's

I notice that I am getting mega-hits today on the subject of Debbie Schlussel. I have noted in prior posts that Debbie appears to be unhinged.  (See here and here.)  I have not changed my layman's opinion about Schlussel's mental health.  However, her recent column about CBS reporter Lara Logan, though tactless, was largely factual.  Let me explain.

A couple of days ago, Debbie wrote a column on her blog to the effect that Lara Logan is one of the many self-deluding liberal reporters for the mainstream media who, as we used to say in high school, "believes her own bullshit."

Schlussel's point was that self-deluding liberals never learn from their flawed ideology; that though raped by a mob of Muslims in Egypt, Logan is likely to go back to believing that Islam is a "religion of peace" and other nonsensical propaganda.  I agree with Schlussel on several points:  Islam is evil.  Islam is violent.  Muslims hate our guts because of their religion and for no other reason.  To deny this truth is a form of insanity.  Of course, liberalism is a form of insanity.  At the very least, it is a dangerous form of delusion, where reality is replaced with rigid ideology, wishful thinking and dogma.

Schlussel's comments brought a storm of denunciation and a flood of hatred from the left.  She wrote:

I just love it when the people of the profession of “the public’s right to know” suddenly want “privacy.” Tell it to your next interview subject, Lara. Of course CBS has no further comment. Wouldn’t wanna impugn the “peacefulness” of “Religion of Peace” animals, would we? Now, if they were Christians or Jews, well, then there would be comments galore.

So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that’s a hope that’s generally unanswered.

This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.

Now that’s all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”

Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].

I suppose that Schlussel could have been a tad more tactful.  Her comment about Logan's rape being "fitting" was uncalled for and implies that Schlussel takes pleasure in the dreadful crime against Logan.  No one deserves to be raped by a crowd of smelly, hairy Muslims.  Well, maybe Charles Johnson, but I digress.  Most of us on the right were outraged by the attack on Logan, regardless of Logan's political views.

However, the truth of Schlussel's other statements is undeniable.  Islam is the enemy and it is unredeemable,  vacuous speeches by our airhead-in-chief notwithstanding.

I really don't know what liberal women MSM reporters are thinking when they go into a Muslim country.  Lara Logan went into Egypt with a CBS news crew, got separated from her group, and was repeatedly raped by the disgusting followers of the False Prophet.

Muslim countries (and especially the Muslim men therein) are uncivilized barbarians.  They are not our friends and we should do everything we can to separate our civilization from what passes as theirs.

My wife's youngest aunt married the Philippine ambassador to Egypt a couple of years ago, and until recently, lived in Egypt.  Fortunately, her ambassador husband retired a few months ago and auntie got out of that hellhole and is safely back in the Philippines.

Well, not really, but listening to Obama's flowery and phony speech today, one gets the impression that it was Obama's speech in Egypt in July 2009 that inspired the Egyptian uprising.  Obama is convinced that the Egyptian people's popular clamor for Mubarak's ouster is a prelude to democracy, freedom, enlightenment, multiculturalism and religious tolerance.   Obama is a living icon of self-delusion.  Never before in the annals of mankind has such a monstrous ego rested upon a less substantial foundation.  Obama directing the policies of the most powerful nation on earth is the equivalent of Pee Wee Herman leading the allied invasion of Europe in 1944.  All Obama lacks is the red bow tie.

Polls show that most Egyptians hate America, hate Israel, support Sharia and support the Muslim Brotherhood, a group of religious fanatics who want the full weight of their bloody religion to crush Egyptian civilization for centuries to come.  Rather than freedom and democracy, the Egyptian revolution will most probably usher in a new era of repression, intolerance and religious fanaticism, all overseen by a dictatorship of the mullahs.

Of course, harsh and bleak reality is no match for Democrat self-delusion, wishful thinking and wildly optimistic fantasies.

Click for Larger Image

I have been working on this reconstruction for a week.  It is a front view of the face of the Great Sphinx of Egypt, reconstructed with Photoshop, and based on a study of statues of Pharoahs and smaller sphinxs in museums around the world.  The heavy lines around the eyes represent the eye makeup used by Egyptian royalty of the time.

From what I have read, the Great Sphinx was sculpted out of a natural sandstone formation, about 4,500 years ago.  The face of the Sphinx is thought to be that of Khafra, the Pharoah who built it, or that of his father.  No one knows for sure.  I used a statue of Khafra as a reference for my depiction, but did not add a beard.  Archaeologists say the Sphinx did have a beard, but that it was added sometime later and was not part of the original sculpture.  A large fragment of the beard has been found and is in a museum.

Over the centuries, the Sphinx was subject to intense vandalism, probably from Muslim fanatics who hate artistic depictions of human beings (in the belief that it constitutes "idolotary"), as well as from rifle shots from passing armies, namely the Turks, the French and the English.  The old rumor that the nose was shot off by Napoleon's cannons is false.  The present condition of the Sphinx is largely unchanged since it was unburied from centuries of sand storms, and drawings of the Sphinx show that the nose was gone at least 150 years before Napoleon ever saw it.

Is my reconstruction totally realistic?  No, but I think it gives some idea of what the Sphinx may have looked like in its first century of existence.  Working on it was a great way to relax after work and I learned some more Photoshop techniques while doing it.

Here's the before photograph of the Sphinx as it exists today.

In 1898, John Lawson Stoddard described the Sphinx quite nicely:

It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared. John L. Stoddard's Lectures (1898) 2, 111.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the original and the reconstruction:

I love to play with Photoshop.  I wanted to get an idea of what the Great Sphinx might have looked like when it was new.  Here is the Sphinx face in sideview, with my digital reconstruction.

The Sphinx Today

Photoshop Reconstruction of the Great Sphinx

That was fun. Next I will try to reconstruct a front view of the face. That will be more difficult.

Egyptian Unrest

Lots of people are rioting, demonstrating, yelling, screaming, throwing and breaking things in Egypt.  Photos show lots of people in the streets, amidst clouds of tear gas and smoke.  I have searched the internet for information, but I still don't have a clue:  what are the demonstrations all about?  What do the Egyptian protesters want?  Do they even know themselves?

I glean from the jumble of half facts available, that the Egyptians (and Tunisians) became fed up with the dictators for life who rule their countries with the proverbial iron hand.  They want fair and free elections and a government that is accountable.  That sounds great, which is why I don't trust it as accurate analysis.

Maybe the Egyptians, like the Iranians in 1979, simply want a stronger Islamic government, more Sharia law, more intolerance to Christians, Jews and others, more scimitars, turbans, burqas and beards, more screaming fanatics, more chopped-off limbs and heads, more public stonings and hangings, more hate and rage, until the country is awash in adrenaline, B.O., bodies and blood.

I really hope that Egyptians and Tunisians are simply sick of the suffocation of the human spirit by tyrants, whether of the religious or the secular variety.  I'd like to see their societies become more open, more tolerant, less violent and less batshit crazy.  But will they?  I'm not holding my breath.