RUTHFULLY YOURS

‘Without a doubt, the unlawfully shed blood of this innocent martyr will have a rapid effect and the divine vengeance will befall Saudi politicians.”

That was how Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, responded to Saudi Arabia’s execution Saturday of a Shiite cleric, Nimr al-Nimr. Since then, Iranian protesters have — with their government’s permission — attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and Saudi Arabia has cut diplomatic relations. Further escalation is likely.

Nimr al-Nimr wasn’t just any Saudi cleric. As I explained last year, he was a transnational representative of Shiite populism against Saudi oppression. But where the cleric was a powerful political activist in life, his execution makes him a martyr: a divine embodiment of Shiite theology and politics. To Shiite observers, Nimr al-Nimr’s execution echoes that of the ultimate Shiite martyr, Husayn ibn-Ali, at the seventh-century Battle of Karbala.

But Iran isn’t alone in threatening retaliation. Former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki — who is engaged in a never-ending power struggle in Baghdad — warned that the execution would bring down the Saudi royal family. This political reaction reflects the deep scale of Shiite populist anger and illuminates the risk of unrestrained escalation. Other actors, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, are reacting with fury as well.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has overruled the decision of an Irish court, preventing the nation from deporting a man alleged to be a prolific recruiter for the Islamic State terror group.

The Dublin court had ruled that an unnamed 52-year-old man was the “foremost organiser and facilitator of travel by extremists prepared to undertake violent action on behalf of Daesh [IS]” and subsequently decided that he should be removed from Ireland.

According to New Europe, the Islamic State-linked man is married and had been living in Ireland for some years. He secured residency as he has a 15-year-old son who is an Irish citizen.

More than two years ago, however, the son left Ireland after he decided to go and live with his mother abroad, and the father’s residency permit has since expired.

Now, the ECHR has issued an order temporarily preventing Ireland from deporting the man. The court claims he could be tortured if he is returned to his native country.

The man has denied any links to Islamic State and the accusation that he has acted as a recruiter for the terror group. However, during his hearing at the Dublin court, his lawyers argued that he cannot be deported even if he poses a threat to Ireland’s national security.

The lawyers used Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which guarantees absolute protection from torture or inhumane or degrading treatment. The man did not show up for court this Wednesday, claiming health reasons.

The favorite cudgel of leftist climate change fear mongers is the appeal to authority, as in that there is “a scientific consensus” that the earth is warming and that changes over the last century are due to human activity. The problem with appeals to authority on extremely broad scientific topics is that they are not subject to easy proof by experimentation, and are quite often wrong. Here’s a list of ten popular theories ultimately proven false, and it omits some major howlers, like therapeutically bleeding people or the geocentric theory of the solar system. Now we can add to that list the “scientific consensus” that diets rich in processed foods and fats lead to heart disease. This idea, which has dominated medical thinking for at least the last half-century, and led to all manner of government policy making, regulation and just plain tsuris over finishing the brisket, is now in doubt.

New studies of pre-modern humans, dating back many millennia, demonstrate that arteriosclerosis (the hardening of the arterial blood vessels that causes blockages and heart attacks) afflicted people who (by necessity and not choice) followed that most rigid of diet and exercise regimens — hunting and gathering. The mummified remains of Neolithic era humans from around the globe demonstrate that arterial disease was about as commonplace in those ancient populations as it is today. Despite the fact that these people had diets low on saturated fats, high in proteins, vegetables and fruits, and engaged in regular and strenuous exercise, they still suffered from heart disease as they aged at about the same rates as modern humans.

At last, we have a peer-reviewed paper that accurately surveys how much support there is for anthropogenic global warming among relevant scientists. And the news isn’t good for Al Gore, nor for Barack Obama, who sees climate change as our number one national security threat.

The widely cited figure of 97% of scientists supporting man made global warming theory has always been a fraud:

…a Canada-based group calling itself Friends of Science has just completed a review of the four main studies used to document the alleged consensus and found that only 1 – 3% of respondents “explicitly stated agreement with the IPCC declarations on global warming,” and that there was “no agreement with a catastrophic view.”

“These ‘consensus’ surveys appear to be used as a ‘social proof,'” says Ken Gregory, research director of Friends of Science. “Just because a science paper includes the words ‘global climate change’ this does not define the cause, impact or possible mitigation. The 97% claim is contrived in all cases.”

The Oreskes (2004) study claimed 75% consensus and a “remarkable lack of disagreement” by the other 25% of the abstracts she reviewed. Peiser (2005) re-ran her survey and found major discrepancies. Only 1.2% or 13 scientists out of 1,117 agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) view that human activity is the main cause of global warming since 1950.

Last week’s mass executions in Saudi Arabia suggest panic at the highest level of the monarchy. The action is without precedent, even by the grim standards of Saudi repression. In 1980 Riyadh killed 63 jihadists who had attacked the Grand Mosque of Mecca, but that was fresh after the event. Most of the 47 prisoners shot and beheaded on Jan. 2 had sat in Saudi jails for a decade. The decision to kill the prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most prominent spokesman for restive Saudi Shia Muslims in Eastern Province, betrays fear of subversion with Iranian sponsorship.

Why kill them all now? It is very hard to evaluate the scale of internal threats to the Saudi monarchy, but the broader context for its concern is clear: Saudi Arabia finds itself isolated, abandoned by its longstanding American ally, at odds with China, and pressured by Russia’s sudden preeminence in the region. The Saudi-backed Army of Conquest in Syria seems to be crumbling under Russian attack. The Saudi intervention in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels has gone poorly. And its Turkish ally-of-convenience is consumed by a low-level civil war. Nothing has gone right for Riyadh.

Worst of all, the collapse of Saudi oil revenues threatens to exhaust the kingdom’s $700 billion in financial reserves within five years, according to an October estimate by the International Monetary Fund (as I discussed here). The House of Saud relies on subsidies to buy the loyalty of the vast majority of its subjects, and its reduced spending power is the biggest threat to its rule. Last week Riyadh cut subsidies for water, electricity and gasoline. The timing of the executions may be more than coincidence: the royal family’s capacity to buy popular support is eroding just as its regional security policy has fallen apart.

WALLSTROM IS ALL THE RAGE NOW WITH EURO FEMINISTS BECAUSE SHE CRITICIZED SAUDI ARABIA….BUT SHE IS A VICIOUS ROTTWEILER WHEN IT COMES TO ISRAEL…RSK

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström linked Palestinian grievances with Israel to the Islamist terror attacks that killed 129 people in Paris.

“Obviously, we have reason to be worried, not just in Sweden but across the world—because there are so many that are being radicalized. Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there is not a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence,” Wallström said in a television interview.

In response to Wallström’s comments, Israel summoned Sweden’s ambassador to the Jewish state for an urgent meeting with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold, calling the Swedish minister’s remarks “brazen,” “shocking,” and “hostile.”

Pithy comment from a Belgian reader “Again this lack of common sense. Why on earth can’t you link terrorism and migration? Isnt it obvious that the more you import the Middle East and Africa having unrestricted flows the more terrorism and less freedom you will have? All terrorists in Europe in 2015 were Muslim immigrants or the children of Muslim immigrants. Showing that the problem is within Islam itself. Europe sticking its head in the sand on the Islamic migration issue is the last thing Europe needs. ”
Troubles crowded in on Europe in 2015. In 2016, they could shake the foundations of European economic and political integration.

The conflict in Syria has blown back devastatingly into Europe, spurring terror attacks and a refugee crisis over which policy makers appear to have little influence.

Border controls, viewed as a thing of the past across much of the continent, have been raised at many national frontiers, and leading politicians have acknowledged that the Schengen passport-free travel zone, one of the great successes of European integration, is under threat.

To the east, the Ukraine conflict remains unresolved and Russia’s foreign-policy posture more aggressive than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Meanwhile, the recovery of the eurozone economy has been faltering and economic vulnerabilities remain in some countries in the form of high debts and weak banks, even with official interest rates close to zero.

Added to that, the U.K. could deliver a blow to the European Union in a referendum, likely to be held in 2016, over whether the country should become the first ever to leave the 28-nation bloc.

So you think carbonphobics fall into only two categories: useful idiots who fret loudly about a non-existent threat and careerists happy to whip up the scare stories that keep their grants coming. Well, there is a third set of snouts in the trough — bankers and ‘green fund’ managers. Hold on to your wallet
An international pension-fund coalition — co-founded by a UN agency last September — showed great enthusiasm for decarbonisation in Paris last month. It wants to shift at least USD600 billion of other people’s money into renewable energy projects. But only if governments establish ‘legal frameworks to protect long-term investors’ and to ensure ‘capital reallocation’ is risk-free – that is, underwritten by taxpayers – in perpetuity. Nice work if you can get it.

Climate-caliphate: 1. Entity led by a climate-caliph, generally an eco-zealot, ex-politician or career bureaucrat turned climate propagandist; elected by a shadowy process. 2. Global climate-caliphate: theocratic one-world government or de facto government; an ideology or aspiration of this kind promoted by a militant fossil-free sect, or radical group intending to behead, disembowel, or otherwise degrade Western economies with the two-edged sword of wealth redistribution and ‘decarbonisation’, while reciting mantras about ‘saving the planet’. Also known as Agenda 21.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was not the only agency excited by the 21st annual Conference of the Parties (COP). Another group ecstatic about the prospect of a ‘low-carbon’ world was the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the 43-year-old brainchild of the late Maurice Strong.

Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the United States a threat to Russia’s national security in a New Year’s Eve official document.

Russia’s expanded role internationally has caused “counteraction from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs,” the document reads, according to Reuters.

The updated assessment, called “About the Strategy of National Security of Russian Federation,” is the latest sign of the tension between Moscow and the West.
The previous version, from 2009, mentions neither the United States nor its NATO allies, according to Reuters.

Relations between Moscow and the West soured after the Russian forces annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014. The West also accuses Russia of backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, which Russia denies.

Saudi Arabia said Saturday it has executed 47 prisoners, including reformist Shiite cleric and activist Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Al-Nimr was a central figure in Shiite protests that erupted in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring, and carrying out his execution may spark new unrest among the OPEC powerhouse’s Shiite minority.

The cleric’s name was among a list of the 47 carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It cited the Interior Ministry for the information. Saudi state television also reported the executions.
Related: Crucifixion Sentence in Saudi Arabia Sparks Outcry
Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in two decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide.

His 17-year-old nephew was sentenced to crucifixion earlier this year but was not among those put to death this time.
Maya Foa, a spokeswoman for rights group Reprieve, said 4 of the 47 executed were political prisoners.
“Last year saw Saudi Arabia execute over 150 people, many of them for non-violent offences,” she said. “This appalling news suggests 2016 could be even worse. Alarmingly, the Saudi Government is continuing to target those who have called for domestic reform in the kingdom.