Ok, this will probably come as a surprise to you all, but I've changed the blog to something new. You can find it by going here:

http://alanzeyes.blogspot.com

New posts from this moment on are going to be at the new blog until further notice.  Please make sure you add it to your RSS reader or bookmarks.

Information on WHY the change has occurred can be found at the new location.

Thank you.

I am so glad that you are a part of my life. It is a privilege - to know you, to share myself with you, and to walk together on the paths that take us in so many beautiful directions.

When I am with you, I know that I am in teh presence of someone who makes my life more complete than I ever dreamed it could be. I turn to you for trust, and you give it openly. I look to you for inspiration, for answers, and for encouragement, and you lift my spirits up and take my thoughts to places where my troubles seem much further away and my joys feel like they're going to stay in my life forever.

I hope you'll stay forever, too. You're my soul mate... My world is reassured by you, my tomorrows need to have you near, so many of my smiles depend on you, and my heart is so thankful that you're here.

- D. Pageh

Thank you Deidre. :-)

Yes, I know it began a long time ago, but since the passing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 a couple days ago, the Bush administration has been very quick to notify the courts that they no longer have jurisdiction to consider hundreds of Guantanamo Bay cases.

The new law already has been challenged as unconstitutional by lawyers representing the petitioners

I guess someone forgot to tell them that the constitution no longer matters.

Whichever side loses in the upcoming court battles, he said, will then appeal to the Supreme Court.

Why bother?  The Supreme Court has already ruled on unlawful actions by the US government, stating that unlawful actions must be approved by Congress.  What use is law and the constitution when Bush can get Congress's approval to ignore laws and the constitution as he sees fit?

People don't seem to be getting it.  The law and justice has lost, and the Bush administration has won.

What we're going to see from this point on is more and more of the law being pushed aside in favour of what the Bush administration wants.  The law will only apply to those who have no power.

Welcome to martial law.

Moments ago President Bush signed the Military Commission Act into law, stating “This bill provides legal protections that ensure our military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists simply for doing their jobs.

[The] legality of the system I established was challenged in the court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress. And so I asked Congress for that authority, and they have provided it.”

If that's not authorising and enabling martial law, I don't know what is.

The Military Commissions Act is not a speculative notion. It is law, already being implemented and now codified.

As an American, your rights have disappeared. You don't even have to be an American either, as there's a lot of the Act that's related to legal and illegal immigrants.

For any reason - or for no reason at all - you can be declared an enemy combatant and you WILL be arrested, taken away, and held indefinitely. No trial, no defence, no hope.

Well done America. You've done a fantastic job of allowing your fears to come true.

Senator Mark Foley, while leading a government group responsible for protecting children, was also engaged in assaulting the rights of the same children he was allegedly protecting.

Hypocrite. In a big way.

"At Sacred Heart, I was taught how to be a better citizen because of their focus on discipline and moral values."
- Mark Foley

I guess we all know what those values are now.

"I have said repeatedly that in this country we track library books better than we do sex offenders."
- Mark Foley

Lucky for him, I guess.

"Pointing fingers, trying to catch each other in scandal does not bring honor to this House."
- Mark Foley

Probably trying to make sure no fingers were being pointed at him.

What I find amusing is that in Washington DC it's legal to have sex with a 16 yr old, but it's illegal to talk about sex with under 18's. So you can screw a 16 yr old, you just can't talk about it - that'll get you thrown in jail. (You can read about it here.)

It was learnt that leading members of the Republican party knew about Foley's habits for some years now, but he was protected by those same members who promote good, wholesome family values and morals.

With the Republicans playing the blame game, avoiding responsibility and pointing fingers at someone else, it was obvious they were in trouble.

So Fox News, the bastion of Republican propoganda, was brought in on the act, and suddenly Mark Foley was a Democrat, not a Republican. (Click here for more on that.)

Of course! The truth finally comes out. It's all actuallly the fault of those steenkin' Democrats, posing one of their own as a Republican, bringing shame to the Grand Old Party (GOP).

And then, naturally, there's the continuing saga of how President Bush is above the law.

President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Who needs lawmakers and Congress any more, when Bush can declare which laws he wants to obey (only those that suit him) and which laws he wants to overrule.

What is the point of having laws if Bush declares that he has authority to disregard them?

The only valid reason for this is that Bush has declared himself dictator. The legal restrictions of a democratic society obviously don't apply to him any more.

Does anyone notice? Do they care? Apparently not.

As Alan Shore said in one of his episodes (probably a few of them actually):

When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

You resign yourselves to a fate of your own making. And we, the rest of the world, can only watch on in sadness.

You could probably say that the 'surprise of a lifetime' would be something that would be the biggest thing to surprise you in your entire life. I think that's what's happened to me.

I discovered during the week that I suffer from passive aggression:

People with this disorder resent responsibility and show it through their behaviors rather than by open expression of their feelings. Procrastination, inefficiency, and forgetfulness are behaviors commonly used to avoid doing what they need to do or have been told by others must be done.

A person with this disorder may appear to comply with another's wishes -- may even demonstrate enthusiasm for them -- but the requested action is either performed too late to be helpful, performed in a way that is useless, or otherwise sabotaged to express anger the person cannot relate verbally.

That's me.

You might be wondering what the big deal is. Well, this is why:

Some of the common signs of passive-aggressive personality disorder include:

• Procrastination
• Intentional inefficiency
• Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
• Complaining
• Blaming others
• Resentment
• Sullenness
• Fear of authority
• Resistance to suggestions from others
• Unexpressed anger or hostility

All of those signs are within me. And they've been within me all my life, ever since I was a child.

The common theme amongst passive aggressives seems to be that during childhood they were not allowed to express their feelings, and any feelings that they did express were ignored, rejected or resulted in being punished for. As a result, they learnt to fight back in subtle ways, agreeing to do what they were told but then never getting around to it.

His anger grows but he cannot express it so it becomes submerged and is expressed in an unconscious ‘You can't tell me what to do.' He is not allowed to get his way by direct confrontation and competition so he learns to displace his anger through resistance. He learns to use charm, stubbornness, resistance and withdrawal to protect himself in power struggles. He rebels by becoming moody, being an underachiever or developing behavior problems. His self protectiveness and duplicity from the squelched anger and hostility becomes a habit that he plays out with other women he meets. He desperately seeks a woman to meet his needs of being accepted for who he is, but puts her off with small, continual acts of rebellion. He replays the distancing drama of his original family in the relationship.

This is what I've been doing all my life, and which I've only just realised now.

It's naturally had an effect on my relationship with Deidre.

The biggest irritant in being with a passive aggressive man is that he doesn't follow through on his agreements and promises. He dodges responsibility while insisting he's pulling his weight. He procrastinates, takes on big projects but doesn't finish them then feels put upon or hostile if someone else tries to finish it. He often ignores reality as to his irresponsibility and withdrawal. He denies evidence, distorts, minimalizes or lies to make his version of reality seem logical.

What does one do when one learns that everything they've been doing in life has been to sabotage themselves, their partners, and anyone around them that means something to them?

One goes into something resembling shock.

Now I don't know what I want any more, because I can see that what I've wanted in the past has often been to sabotage or to rebel against what someone else wants. Or even against what I want.

How the hell can someone sabotage their own desires, simply because they're rebellig against the expectations of others?

It's bizarre, absolutely bizarre.

I can't trust myself any more. Every time I say I want something, I have to analyse myself to work out why the hell I really want it. Am I saying it to appease someone? Am I saying it to avoid conflict? Am I saying it to make myself look good? Am I saying it because it's what I've always been saying, and has no meaning other than the pattern of past habits?

Passive aggressives - I - try to avoid conflict. We do so by agreeing to things we don't want to do, and then finding some excuse as to why we fail to do it. That could be forgetfulness, procrastination, doing something else instead, making someone else responsible for it (or the failure of it being done), or causing an argument that results in not doing it.

It's about control. I feel I have no control when I feel I have to do things for someone else, and so I take back control - one way or another - by not doing it or creating situations that result in avoiding what needs to be done.

I'm the rebellious teenager that never grew up.

I'm just really, really lucky that I have a partner who is understanding, committed and willing to work on my issues with me, because I've been doing the same with her own issues. And because she loves me.

:-D

So I've been in shock for a few days now, feeling like withdrawing, and simply not doing anything at all, because I don't know the real motivations of why I want to do things any more. I know that a great deal of my agreements to Deidre in the past have been because I want to appease her, or to ensure she stays with me, because fear of loneliness and abandonment are prominent.

These haven't been conscious decisions, but in the process of making these arrangements there has been residual and passive anger as a result of not having any control in my life. I've spent a great deal of time and energy passively blaming her without consciously realising it. Her anger at being blamed for things resulted in me being angry at her for misunderstanding me. It was actually me who was misunderstanding myself, and trying to make her responsible.

It's a pattern of behaviour that I've been following ever since childhood. Underachieving at work, procrastination, inefficiency...

I can say that now I know what the problem is, I can work on fixing it. But the real challenge is that now that I want to fix it, I have to work out what I really mean when I say what I want, whatever it might be.

I told Deidre today that I feel like doing nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, and then to start doing things that I want to do, even though I know it might piss her off. Stop 'caring' about how she's going to feel at what I do. Stop 'caring' about pissing her off, and letting her deal with those issues herself.

In order for me to heal the issues that I'm suffering from, I have to feel safe that the expression of my thoughts and feelings are appreciated, respected and desired. I've always told her that I'm angriest when I feel I'm not being listened to. It's because it reminds me of my childhood, where I wasn't listened to, or my feelings or thoughts were considered to be of no importance.

She has a big job ahead of her. We both do.

The surprise of my life has left me in shock. Now I have to move forward and make a new beginning.

I hope I don't procrastinate about this...

I know it's been a long time since I've talked about it, but don't worry - it's still happening! Hehehe.

I haven't updated my wedding blog for 3 months, and only just remembered to do this today. You can see the latest update here: http://weddingplans.wordpress.com/
(Bookmark the site or subscribe to the RSS feed if you haven't done so already.)

Enjoy.

With all the crazy stuff happening in America today, I have a feeling that we're going to see some very interesting, scary and sad times in the near few years.

• It's heading more and more towards a 'police state', where the jackbooted actions of the police stomp all over the rights of the people.
  
  
• The political craziness that's coming to the fore has suggestion of armed conflict between Republicans and Democrats, due to prominent Republican commentators claiming that since Democrats are against the war on terror then they must be for terrorists, and are therefore terrorists themselves. Some are calling for attacks, arrests and even executions of vocal Democrats and anti-war campaigners.
  
  
• The Republican campaign for the Commander-in-Chief being the only man for the job to fight terrorism is leading to Republicans wanting to vote for the removal of elections and have the President as Dictator-in-Chief.
  
  What's wrong with these people that they want to vote for the removal of all their freedoms? They want to vote on putting a dictator into power?
  
  
• The US has become one of the most censored countries in the entire world, where any news that has evidence of Bush doing something wrong is simply not shown in US newspapers or on US television.
  
  A case in point was a year or two ago, where evidence arose of Bush and Blair planning the Iraq war before 2003... this was a major scandal and reported all throughout the world. Except in the US.
  
  
• The latest idiocy to come out of America is their attempt to re-write the Geneva Convention so that they can't be accused of war crimes. Apparently there was a complication to this, as there was a clause in the Constitution that prevented them from changing the Geneva Convention. But there isn't any such clause preventing them from
  changing the War Crimes Act.
  
  There's no brushing over of this idiocy - the Bush Administration wants to change the rules so that they can't be accused of War Crimes, and they want it to be retrospective, so that they can't be accused of War Crimes in the past. What is it that Americans don't seem to understand about this. THEY PLAN ON COMMITTING, OR HAVE KNOWINGLY COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!
  

When you have Republicans calling for the death of Democrats, and the police doing whatever they like with impunity, and idiots wanting to vote for their President to become dictator, and the leadership wanting to change the rules so they can't be accused of war crimes, then you have a situation. A serious situation. And one which can only lead to serious consequences.

The world banded together to act against the totalitarian and fascist actions of Adolf Hitler in the early 1940's.

What will we see in the next few years, I wonder.

I was recent talking to someone who considers themselves to be a pagan and a witch. Very interesting person. They asked me at one point what my talent was. At first I was confused, so I asked them for some clarification. They said their own talent was being able to read auras, and they had a sensitivity to other people's energy. I thought about it for a moment, and then I knew what my talent was.

I see people for who they really are. I see the truth behind the facade that they present to the world.

Everyone has a different 'face' that they put on for different people and situations. Most people's faces are there to hide their true selves from those they're interacting with.

I understand the fears and insecurities that people have, and how they're driven to wear the faces that they think protect them. When I'm talking to someone about something meaningful, that grabs my attention, I'm looking past their face and into their soul. Most of them find it unnerving, and I don't blame them. I don't do this all the time, of course. That'd be too draining. I only do it with those I find highly interesting and intriguing, and who I want to understand more than I currently do.

They don't like someone getting too close to them, knowing who they really are. How would you feel if someone could see past your disguise, and see all those things you'd rather no one knew?

However, everyone has a talent of some kind, even if they're not fully aware of what it might be. Even you have a talent. Maybe you have a talent for reading people, for understanding them. Maybe you have a talent for making people laugh, or you can inspire them to do great things. Maybe you have some psychic ability that you use to help others with.

Whatever your talent is, it often has something to do with helping others.

So what's your talent? I'd be interested in knowing.

It turns out that my application for the Solutions Design Specialist role at work was the ONLY application received, even though it was advertised both internally and externally.

Seems like an interesting sign to me... to be the ONLY applicant for a role that I would love to have, and which would be ideal for me.

I'll continue providing updates as more becomes known.