WHO'S HOT & NOT! (iconoclast)

1. THE IGNOBLE PEACE PRIZE

Perhaps they should just change its name to the "Illusion-of-Peace Prize" and be done with it. European self-delusion, avoidance of reality, and leftist ideology are the obvious explanations for the frequent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to unworthy recipients whose actions, inactions, naïveté, cowardice, or incompetence have served only to make the world a vastly more dangerous place.

This year's prize was shared by the ineffectual International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its inept director general, Mohamed ElBaradei (pictured above) "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes" -- according to the laughable citation by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. If this award was meant as a joke, the giggles you hear are coming from Pyongyang and Teheran.

The IAEA -- the United Nations' non-proliferation organization -- has been a tragic failure in carrying out its mission of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes. On its watch in recent decades, Iraq and Libya secretly developed nuclear weapons capability, and North Korea and Iran are well on their way to doing the same. Not only has the IAEA been unable or unwilling to stop the proliferation, but in the usual tradition of UN and European diplomacy, it has actively stood in the way of strong measures to deter it.....

Kudos to Oriana Fallaci -- the gutsy, outspoken Italian journalist, author, and fearless champion of human freedom -- who has been named winner of the Annie Taylor Award by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture for "exceptional courage against great odds and in the face of great danger."
Fallaci, 75, has been fighting the good fight since 1944, when she joined the Italian anti-fascist resistance at age 14, and she has spent most of her life combating and exposing tyrants and murderers from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin, as well as modern-day oppressors. In recent years, she has turned her acerbic pen on the likes of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Life has not been easy for the veteran war correspondent, who has survived serious wounds during her long career, is currently suffering from cancer, and is the target of recurring death threats. Absurdly, in her home country's politicized court system, Fallaci is also facing three years in prison if convicted on "hate speech" charges for her strong criticism of radical Islamist ideology and terrorism.
The political prosecution arose out of Fallaci's 2002 book, The Rage and the Pride, in which she describes Europe's fatal passivity in the face of violence and intimidation. The fact that Fallaci's act of writing is considered a crime -- while the death threats she received after the book was published remain uninvestigated -- is a revealing commentary on the ideological nature of Continental "justice." In her latest book, The Force of Reason, Fallaci takes aim at the perpetrators of those attacks and threats.
Addressing the "hate speech" charges, Fallaci told the audience at the Taylor award ceremony that in fact she was proud to have expressed her loathing for those who would destroy Western civilization. "Yes, I do hate the bin Ladens and the Zarqawis," she said. "I do hate the bastards who burn churches in Europe. I hate the Chomskys and Moores and Farrakhans who sell us to the enemy. I hate them as I used to hate Mussolini and Hitler. For the cause of freedom, this is my sacrosanct right."
The Italian firebrand accused politicians from both the Left and the Right of complicity in the "abuse of democracy, demagogic egalitarianism, denial of merit, tyranny of the majority, and lack of self-discipline" that have debilitated Europe and threaten its survival.
Thus far, Fallaci's warnings against the global jihad threat have gone largely unheeded in Europe and have turned her into a pariah on a continent where appeasement and capitulation appear to be the only acceptable norms. But verbal abuse and threats of violence have neither stilled her voice nor refuted her cogent arguments.

In the twilight of a long and indispensable life, Oriana Fallaci deserves all the honors that are coming her way.

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