Virgin Mary 'appears in tree stump'

-We're all saved! The saviour is here! Where you may ask? Why in Ireland of course!

'And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence' - Bertrand Russell.


From the BBC.

Virgin Mary 'appears in tree stump'

Tree stump... or something more?
Some believe the willow stump is in the image of the Virgin Mary

A tree stump which some believe shows an image of the Virgin Mary has attracted thousands of people to a rural churchyard in County Limerick.

Workmen came across the stump at the Holy Mary Parish Church in Rathkeale while cutting down trees on Monday.

"One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree," said Noel White, chairman of the Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee.

"One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock.

"It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby."

As news of the tree stump has spread, people from across Ireland have travelled to the churchyard.


While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition
Fr Paul Finnerty

A petition seeking to make the stump a permanent fixture at the church has got thousands of signatures.

However, local parish priest Father Willie Russell remains unimpressed.

"I have seen the tree ... it's only a tree," he said.

Fr Russell said views were mixed on whether the image looks like that of the Virgin Mary.

The Catholic Church's hierarchy in Ireland also feels dubious about the tree stump, according to Limerick diocese spokesman Fr Paul Finnerty.

"The Church's response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism," he said.

"While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition."

Mike

Uighur Resentment at Beijing's Rule

By Michael Dillon
Historian on Islam in China

The violence in Xinjiang has not occurred completely out of the blue.

Despite economic development, life for some Uighurs is said to be harder
Its root cause is ethnic tension between the Turkic Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese. It can be traced back for decades, and even to the conquest of what is now called Xinjiang by the Manchu Qing dynasty in the 18th Century.
In the 1940s there was an independent Eastern Turkestan Republic in part of Xinjiang, and many Uighurs feel that this is their birthright.
Instead, they became part of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and Xinjiang was declared one of China's autonomous regions, in deference to the fact that the majority of the population at the time was Uighur.
This autonomy is not genuine, and - although Xinjiang today has a Uighur governor - the person who wields real power is the regional secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Lequan, who is a Han Chinese.
Inward migration
Under the rule of the Communist Party, there has been considerable economic development, but life has been made more difficult for the Uighurs over the past 20-30 years by the migration of many young and technically-qualified Han Chinese from the eastern provinces.
These new migrants are far more proficient in the Chinese language than all but a few Uighurs, and tend to be appointed to the best jobs.
Not surprisingly, this has created deep-seated resentment among the Uighurs, who view the migration of Han into Xinjiang as a plot by the government to dilute them, undermine their culture and prevent any serious resistance to Beijing's control.
More recently, young Uighurs have been encouraged to leave Xinjiang to find work in the rest of China, a process that had already been underway informally for some years.

There was particular concern at government pressure to encourage young Uighur women to move to other parts of China in search of employment - stoking fears they might end up working in bars or nightclubs or even in prostitution, without the protection of family or community.
Islam is an integral part of the life and the identity of the Uighurs of Xinjiang, and one of their major grievances against the Chinese government is the level of restriction imposed on their religious practices.
There are far fewer mosques in Xinjiang than there were before 1949, and they are subject to severe restrictions.
Children under the age of 18 are not permitted to worship in the mosques, and neither are Communist Party officials or the government.
Madrasas - religious schools - are also strictly controlled.


Other Islamic institutions that were once a central part of religious life in Xinjiang have been banned, including many of the Sufi brotherhoods, which are based at the tombs of their founders and provided many welfare and other services to their members.
All religions in China are subject to control by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, but the restrictions on Islam among the Uighurs are far harsher than against most other groups, including the Hui who are also Muslims but are Chinese speakers.
This severity is a result of the association between Muslim groups and the independence movement in Xinjiang, a movement that is absolute anathema to Beijing.
There are groups within Xinjiang that support the idea of independence, but they are not allowed to do so openly because "splitting the motherland" is viewed as treason.
During the 1990s - after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Muslim states in Central Asia - there was an upsurge in open support for these "separatist" groups, culminating in huge demonstrations in the city of Ghulja in 1995 and 1997.
Beijing suppressed these demonstrations with considerable force, and activists were either forced out of Xinjiang into Central Asia and as far away as Pakistan or were obliged to go underground.
'Climate of fear'
Severe repression since the launch of a "Strike Hard" campaign in 1996 has included harsher controls on religious activity, restrictions on movement and the denial of passports and the detention of individuals suspected of support for separatists and members of their families.
This has created a climate of fear and a great deal of resentment towards the authorities and the Han Chinese.
It is surprising that this resentment has not erupted into public anger and demonstrations before now, but that is a measure of the tightness of control that Beijing has been able to exercise over Xinjiang.
There are a number of emigre Uighur organisations in Europe and the United States; in most cases they advocate genuine autonomy for the region.
In the past Beijing has also blamed an Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement for causing unrest, although there is no evidence that this ever existed in Xinjiang.
The authorities in Beijing are unable to accept that their own policies in Xinjiang might be the cause of the conflict, and seek to blame outsiders for inciting the violence - as they do in the case of the Dalai Lama and Tibet.
Even if Uighur emigre organisations wished to provoke unrest, it would be difficult for them to do so, and there are, in any case, sufficient local reasons for unrest without the need for external intervention.

G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police?

From George Monbiot's Blog.

At the G20 protests in London only one group appears to be looking for violent confrontation – and it's not the protesters

The trouble-makers are out in force again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It's almost as if they are deliberately raising the temperature, pushing and pushing until a fight kicks off. But this isn't some disorganised rabble: these people were bussed in and are plainly acting in concert. There's another dead giveaway. They are all wearing the same slogan: Police.

The police have been talking up violence at the G20 protests for weeks. They briefed journalists and companies in the City of London about the evil designs of the climate campaigners intending to demonstrate there, but refused to let the campaigners attend the briefings and put their own side of the story. They also rebuffed the campaigners when they sought to explain to the police what they wanted to do.

The way officers tooled themselves up in riot gear and waded into a peaceful crowd this afternoon makes it look almost as if they were trying to ensure that their predictions came true. Their bosses appear to have failed either to read or to heed the report by the parliamentary committee on human rights last week, about the misuse of police powers against protesters. "Whilst we recognise police officers should not be placed at risk of serious injury," the report said, "the deployment of riot police can unnecessarily raise the temperature at protests."

But there has always been a conflict of interest inherent in policing. The police are supposed to prevent crime and keep the streets safe. But if they are too successful, they do themselves out of a job. They have a powerful interest in exaggerating threats and, perhaps, an interest in ensuring that sometimes these threats materialise. This could explain what I've seen at one protest after another, where peaceful demonstrations turn into ugly rucks only when the police attack. The wildly disproportionate and unnecessary violence I've sometimes seen the police deploy could scarcely be better designed to provoke a reaction.

If this is so, they lose nothing. They might get the occasional rap over the knuckles from MPs or the police complaints commission. It doesn't seem to bother them. By planting the idea in the public mind that the streets could erupt into catastrophic violence at any time, were it not for the thick blue line thrown around even the mildest protest, they establish the need for a heavy police presence. While the public lives in fear, no government dares to cut the policing budget.

Monbiot.com

Vote Un-Democratic Judas Party

The DUP have showed where their hat lies in the political ring. For DUP MPs Unionism is nothing at all to do with identification with the people of this entire Kingdom or the freedom they enjoy. The very fact they identify with an ideology that calls itself 'Unionism' is at this point in time nothing short of laughable. They have given a firm, two fingered 'fuck you' to the people of the UK, while hiding behind botched top secret issues of national security, using the troubles as an example of their consistent tough stance of terrorism.

The DUP and Lady Sylvia Hermanthe sole UUP MP, who predictably voted with the Brown administration saved Labour's on edge Scotsman from humiliating defeat in a vote that should have brought this government to its knees This is a government that has failed ot listen to the masses and increased the gap between rich and the poor with breathtaking billigerence. Despite this, the DUP saved this floundering Prime Minister and this government to do a deal, which to use their beloved biblical language, did a Judas.

There has rarely been a more stark example of how a political party has lost sight of the wood for the trees. A party that is intent on selling their country out for a short term economic package that brings Britain one step closer to a consumer concentration camp.

Shame on you. All good church goers as well.
Thou shall not.........................be a sell out bastard.
Yeah right.

Pikey