Getting Some Perspective: Bush vs. Rather

Has anyone else noticed the gross in-proportions between the reaction the country and media are having to an honest oversight by Dan Rather (the Alabama documents), versus the deliberate disregard for truth that Bush used as a means to pursue his own agenda. Have 1000+ people died because of Dan Rather's honest mistake?
I learned in philosophy that deontologists believe that what makes an action moral is the the intent that drove the action, and utilitarians believe that it is the outcome that determines the morality of the action (if it was for the greater good it was moral). Lets look at both situations presented with this perspective.
Dan Rather's action was not moral by a utilitarian's standard, but his intent was to inform the american people and deliver news to the best of his ability. A deontologist would consider his actions moral. President Bush would be considered immoral by that standard because he intentionally misled Congress and the American people, and the outcome is more foreign animosity towards the USA, a situation in Iraq that is getting worse by the day, a loss of basic civil liberties,and a dangerous precedent set for preemptive war.
It would be one thing if the media were giving the two situations equal coverage, but they continue to completely saturate their primetime slots with stories of the horrible atrocities at CBS. I'm glad that George W. Bush was able to suceed President Clinton in the White House to restore morality and dignity to the office, but not as glad as I am that the media is doing it's job of making sure that he is seen as doing nothing less.

Career Counselling: Count Your Eggs

Doug the Dynamic Driveler, a fellow blogger and fellow Canadian for that matter and a man of a suprising number of talents, is also a trained and former chef, who wonders when he meets young people interesting in pursuing a career as a professional cook if they might not be two eggs short of an omelette.

Oh I know where so much 0f this comes from of course. After all, I am a certified Food Network junkie. But the Food Network is to cooking like Disney is to animals, it ain’t real. These kids watch Emeril (shudder - the man is a buffoon, has bad hygeine and zero presentation skills), or Iron Chef (great entertainment and tremendous talent), or watch the Bocuse d’ Or or one of the other stars in ascendant and think , ya that’s what I’m going to do. Oh how little they know what they are really letting themselves in for because I gotta tell you gang it ain’t like that in the real world unless you own your own restaurant and even then not usually.

For more career advice on the brutal realities of life in a professional kitchen, read Doug's whole article, Two Over Easy,

Southwest Virginia is More Blue Than I Thought!

Alright, maybe I was a little prejudiced, but being from Fairfax (NOVA) I always looked at Southwestern Va as being very conservative. I'm not sure if it was the southern accents, or the inreasing amount of confederate flags I see as I travel down past Richmond, but I thought for sure I would be one of very few liberals here. I was very, very wrong. I went to the first YD meeting at VT and was amazed at the participation. One Hundred and Twenty students attended the first meeting (as opposed to the 20 members that they had last year). Apparently, those of us from NOVA aren't the only ones pissed off about the direction our country is headed in and determined to make a change. Two weekends ago, I attended "Acres of Democrats" which is an event that has been taking place in Southwestern Va since 1947. The old southern democrats listened to their country music and eat fried chicken with potato salad before the speakers took the mic. This was a shock to me because I always think of democrats being represented by musicians like Dave Mathews and Bruce Springstein. It does take a bit of getting used to the type of democrats that are down here, but they are enthusiastic and energetic. I found myself appreciating these southern liberals as another of our diverse party's groups. There is always a place for people like this in our party as far as I am concerned (an exception being Zell Miller... you should have a reason for being a democrat beyond being born one). The Virginia Tech Young Democrats are currently planning a huge "Rally for Democratic Unity" to take place on the drill field of our campus on October 17th from 1-5pm. The VYDs have agreed to make this a "Campus Invasion" event, but all ages of democrats are invited from all over the state. There will be speakers, a band, and food/merchandise vendors. I hope some if not all of you can come! Tell people you know about it too! Hopefully this gives you some hope that Virginia can go blue, it was definately reassuring to me.