French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin,
"In endorsing this doctrine (pre-emptive military intervention), we risk introducing the principle of constant instability and uncertainty,"

My response: I believe it was Al Qaeda that first introduced that principle about 18 months ago.

Have you been trying to play those Jars of Clay songs but can never get that nifty "sound" they have on the CD? Try tuning your D string to B and your G to E. Throw a capo on the third fret. Then add some chord formations like 020000 and #0#0#0 up the fretboard. Presto! Love Song For a Savior, Flood, and most of their other songs follow this tuning. Enjoy!

Every once in a while, a photograph comes by that just burns itself into your head. This is one of those. Meet Sharbat Gula. Her parents were killed by soviet bombing in Afghanistan when she was six. She was then forced to flee to Pakistan when the Soviets invaded and started killing everyone. This photgraph was taken in 1984 at a Pakistani refugee camp by Steve McCurry from National Geographic. She was thirteen years old. What a hard life...and what haunting eyes.

At Dang's suggestion, I am going to blog on something mindless, trivial, and most importantly not related to war.

Seriously, I'm sorry Snapple but this could quite possibly be the best stuff on earth...almost as good as Spam cut into thin slices and toasted over a campfire. Oh yeah, this is with the assumption that Spam is not from earth. Join the Spam fan club today! Anyway, I think that we Americans are missing out on the number one selling spread in Europe. You can put it on almost anything. I just polished off another can yesterday.

What is up with today's youth anyway?

Maybe if this and this were done to all cats, they wouldn't be so "stuck up" all the time.

Oh, and by the way, no one is too old to play video games.

"Iraq had earlier suffered the most sustained and devastating aerial and missile bombardment in history, as the White House insisted there would be no pause for diplomacy and the pounding would go on until Saddam Hussein left Kuwait." "The White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, said yesterday: 'We do not think there is any need for a pause for Saddam to change his mind. If at any point he wants to change course here, all he has to do is surrender and comply with all UN resolutions.'"
Does this all sound familiar? I found these excerpts in an article from the archives of an online British magazine written on Friday January 18, 1991 ...during the first Gulf War. Folks, the demands we have been making on Iraq are not new. I simply cannot accept time constraints as an excuse for noncompliance.

Well, 1500 air sorties, 320 cruise missiles, and 19 coalition casualties later, the war is now well under way. There are many who are violently opposed to this conflict. There are also many who support it. What do I think? I think that I am entirely unqualified to make a definitive statement on how necessary or urgent the disarmament of Iraq is. I, along with the vast majority of people in this country, do not have access to much of our country's intelligence on Iraq. Furthermore, very few people spend much time looking up what information is available about Iraq's humanitarian record from the last few decades. Here is a good place to start. Will allowing Saddam to continue acquiring WOMD for yet a few more years create a significant threat to our national security? Recall that this man killed over 5,000 of his own people with chemical weapons. An untold multitude of civilians have been assassinated for political opposition, suspicious activities, or mere indistinct associations to his enemies. What inhibitions will he have, when attacking the "Zionist Americans" is within his capabilities? I hate war. I am more than furious at this man for putting us all in this position.

Watch Baghdad Live.

We are now seven hours into Operation Iraqi Freedom and so far not a lot has happened. About 40 tomahawk cruise missiles were launched into Baghdad in an attempt to take out Saddam. However, he appeared on Iraqi television soon after condemning the attacks, so perhaps we haven't gotten him...yet. The bombing campaign that is promised to be like "nothing anyone has seen before" has apparently yet to start. I did run across this weblog authored by this guy who lives in Baghdad. He chronicles the events as they unfold around him. This is definitely a unique perspective on the war, and is worth reading. WhereIsRaed?

Well, there are now fourteen hours remaining until we may take our military initiative in Iraq. Analysts say there is about a 100% chance that Saddam will attempt to use chemical or biological weapons on our troops. The State Department's top counterterrorism official is saying that multiple attacks on populous or visible areas by Al Qaeda are a near certainty. What am I feeling right now? In all honesty, I find this situation almost exciting. There is an air of uncertainty and anticipation here. There is optimism that the conflict will be relatively swift with minor resistance everywhere but Baghdad itself. I have a friend from high school that is supposedly deployed in Iraq right now. I haven't talked to the guy since graduation so I don't even know what branch he is in! As for the possible terrorist attacks here, there isn't really any practical way to be prepared. Perhaps I should barricade myself in the storage closet with duct tape! I will most likely spend the entirety of tomorow night watching major news network coverage on TV. Yikes! It is almost daybreak. Time for bed!

I've got one more day until spring break! Today I watched the end of a movie about Mozart in Fine Arts class. I went into this class very skeptical, and so far, I remain so. I can see the usefulness of art in anthropology and sociology. I leaned that art is whatever the artist, patron, critic, or whoever says it is. However, I still struggle with the basic purpose of art. Is it all for mere trivial novelty? Must it convey a concept of some sort? Yes the artist is expressing his or herself but I need some incentive to appreciate it. Is what they express useful to me? Is it significant, relevant, or of some importance? Dr. Watson says that he is striving to instill an appreciation of great art in us. My question is, if art is so inherently subjective, how are we to differentiate, recognize, and appreciate certain works of art that are great to everyone. I would have gotten to the bottom of this by now, but I tend to be pretty quiet in class. Maybe I just have not yet been enlightened. Ha!

Did Michael Smalley's talk tonight frustrate anyone else out there? He spent the whole time talking about two things: a.) His uninteresting life b.) That the only way to find a mate that you will not divorce is to make a list of virtuous characteristics and find someone who fits. So...if I happen to inadvertently marry someone who does not possess every characteristic I desire, we have no hope as a couple? What is more, he said nothing of making a list of characteristics for us to work on ourselves. I think the reason for the high divorce rate is not so much the differences between the husband and wife, but their unwillingness to compromise, sacrifice, and work through their differences. I thought marriage and love were about giving!

Well, I'm on the Yellow Project list now. I guess people are actually going to read this stuff. hmm... Maybe I should do more than rant and vent about life. Where should I start? Well, today my alarm didn't go off, so I missed my Circuits II quiz. I listened to some students speculate with Dr. Henk in Thermo class about what physical laws may be present in heaven. I still don't understand where they were going with that one. I talked to Dr. G for a while at lunch. He was excited about the nasty exam he was about to give to his dynamics students. I feel their pain. I walked back to the dorm, helped Seth jumpstart his truck, and...sat down to blog for a bit. For the rest of the day, I fully intend to write an essay or two and play my guitar. Perhaps I would have considered riding my bike out behind campus, however It is raining, cold, and generally crappy outside. ...And who says that nothing interesting ever happens at LeTourneau??

I must display my strong aversion to France. This country's longstanding commitment to pursue its own national interests at the expense of everyone else's has earned my unauthoritative stamp of disapproval. Their opposition to the use of force in critical times throughout the last century should have led to their irrelevancy long ago. Yet to this day, they hold veto power in the UN Security Council! The "Give peace a chance" solution to the Iraqi crisis that France is asserting is just what caused their disasterous defeat in WWII. Here is some supporting evidence for my platform... When German troops moved into the Rhineland in 1936 thereby violating the treaty of Versailles, France with its large military presence in the region, did nothing. In 1938, France had a mutual defense treaty with Czecholsovakia. However, at the Munich conference that year, they agreed that west Czecholsovakia should be turned over to Hitler without a shot being fired. What integrity! For a year after they declared war on Germany, the persistent inaction of France's superior military presence on the western front allowed Germany to invade Poland without hindrance. When finally attacked by Germany, French troops surrendered to the Nazis after only six weeks of fighting. France's then four year occupation by the Nazis was ended only by the D-Day invasion, where thousands of Allied troops died fighting on their behalf. Their opinions clearly have not and will not be changed. So then, Why should anyone consider France's opinions on Iraq events as relevant? I sure don't.