According to the New York Times, people at Stanford are angry about Rummy's appointment to the Hoover Institution as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

Get out.

Protesting profs, including Eric Roberts, Charlotte Fonrobert, and Phil Zimbardo.

From the Times:

Some 2,100 professors, staff members, students and alumni have signed an online petition protesting Mr. Rumsfeld’s appointment, which will involve advising a task force on ideology and terrorism. Faculty members say he should not have been offered the post because of his role in the Bush administration’s prosecution of the Iraq war.

“We view the appointment as fundamentally incompatible with the ethical values of truthfulness, tolerance, disinterested enquiry, respect for national and international laws and care for the opinions, property and lives of others to which Stanford is inalienably committed,” the petition reads.

The university is taking a "free speech" stance on the issue because, you know, it's not like he's a war criminal or something. Either way, I think it's going to be fun to have Rummy on campus. Imagine the creative protests that will come out of this experience. And maybe if we're nice (you know, if we actually let him walk into his office), he'll want to talk to us.

I have to admit, I'm kind of curious.

This video clip speaks for itself, so I'll just let you watch it. Courtesy of MoveOn.org

I hope that I am preaching to the choir here, but do not be misled by the rosy reports of Iraq that are coming out.

On Wednesday, the U.S. News & World Report website noted: “The news that the U.S. death toll in Iraq for July, at 73, is the lowest in eight months spurred several news organizations to present a somewhat optimistic view of the situation in Iraq. The consensus in the coverage appears to be that things are improving militarily, even as the political side of the equation remains troubling.”

Hadi Mizban / AP
(The daughter of Jalil Shaalan, a security guard at a Baghdad school, reacts after her father is gunned down by unknown shooters)

The low death toll that U.S. News & World Report cites is because of a change in US military strategy, not a change on the ground. The "new strategy" for the military is a repeat of the invasion: a return to air raids, which kill far more innocent civilians than militants.

Iraqis are still suffering the consequences of the first wave of air raids back in 2003- many have lost children, siblings or parents, and many of those who survived have lost arms or legs. Since the invasion began, over 68,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives, and that is a conservative estimate.

I haven't been out in the world for a few weeks due to finals and papers and such. But I just now saw that last week, Newsweek declared the Bush Administration officially dead:

Read Fareed Zakaria's fantastic piece on how we can restore America's place in the world. Really, if you haven't read it, go click on the link and read it. It'll make you sad, but also hopefully it will make you feel like we can do better.

...and then tune in to the next Democratic debate to help determine who will get to clean up Bush's mess. This one's unique because it is co-sponsored by YouTube and CNN, meaning that all of the questions asked will come from YouTube user video submissions. The New York Times has the latest on why this could be huge. I would say it might be entertaining, but I can't picture CNN letting anything truly unpredictable happen. We shall see.

Please watch this remarkable audio/video presentation of New York Times reporter Michael Kamber. He went out with his division before sunrise to try and document their search for missing soldiers, and the results are absolutely devastating.