It's 2:15pm and the 'deadline' for the beginning of war is about six hours away. Since Saddam has said that he is not going to leave, it may be that things have already begun that we haven't heard about.

We are going to be getting minute-by-minute coverage of events, even when the 'reporters' are hundreds (even thousands) of miles away and are passing along news second & third hand. You might want to check out "How To Tell If We're Winning In Iraq" over on at Slate.com. They won't be handing out a scorecard, but there are things that you might watch out for.

As I've said before, at this point we can only hope that the deaths are minimal and the destruction limited. In my heart of hearts I don't believe that, but it's the only way to keep from crying over this whole situation.