So when can I submit my Fulbright application?

Thankfully, the rumors of professors and teachers being killed in Iraq have been exposed as crazy stories that bear no relation to the truth:

Iraqi society is dissolving because of the breakdown of law and order. Sami Mudhafar, Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister, said recently that he wanted to lay to rest exaggerated accounts of the number of university professors murdered in the last three years. He said the true figure was only 89 professors killed over three years. Mr Mudhafar's other piece of comforting news was that there was no murder campaign directed against the Iraqi intelligentsia and they were simply being killed because they lived in Iraq. In addition to the professors 311 teachers have been killed in the last four months. He added that the government was too weak to defend anybody: "I myself was target of an assassination attempt recently and the government has failed to obtain any lead on the party behind it."

Many students no longer go to universities that are riven by struggles between parties. "The students and their professors are in a very bad psychological situation," Abdulamir Hayder of Baghdad University was quoted as saying. "The only aim is how to flee to a foreign country to escape assassination or threats."

If only the Today Show would broadcast from Tal Afar, we wouldn't have to wait so long for good news like this. I'm so tired of listening to the defeatists.