Courtney Beard and Cortney Hensley were driving home after picking up their homecoming pictures when they stopped at a red light on Sept. 24, 2005.

Hensley, 17, had been crowned Homecoming Queen at David Crockett High School and she and Beard, her best friend, also 17, were anxious to look at the pictures taken the night before.

But before the light turned green, a red Ford Mustang came racing through the intersection and slammed into Beard’s Honda CRV at a speed estimated at 125 mph.

The crash sent the Honda some 250 feet, causing it to burst into flames. Hensley was killed, and Beard suffered burns over 30 percent of her body. She spent the next month and a half in a hospital bed.

Prosecutors say the Mustang’s driver, Bradley Mullins, was drag racing.

Read it here

I may have missed this (as it occurred in April), but I do not believe it was widely publicized.

Via Jules Crittenden:

Copperas Cove man to give president his Purple Heart

COPPERAS COVE – History will be made today when Copperas Cove resident Bill Thomas and his wife, Georgia, present President George W. Bush with a Purple Heart at the Oval Office.

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office

“We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds,” Thomas said

I can only imagine the reaction of the President when he received such a personal and meaningful gift. When you face all of the criticisms associated with being the occupant of the Oval Office I would think it is moments like these you cherish forever.

A millionaire couple were arrested on federal charges that they kept two Indonesian women as slaves in their swank Long Island home for more than five years, beating and abusing them and paying them almost nothing.

Authorities uncovered the alleged abuse after one of the women was found by police wandering outside a doughnut shop Sunday morning wearing only pants and a towel.

The homeowners, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 35, and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, entered not guilty pleas Tuesday at their arraignment in U.S. District Court in Central Islip and were ordered held pending a Thursday bail hearing.

Prosecutors said the women had scalding water thrown on them and were forced to repeatedly climb up and down stairs and take as many as 30 showers in three hours — all as punishment for perceived misdeeds. In one case, prosecutors said, one woman was forced to eat 25 hot chili peppers at a time.

This is too much

YouTube’s co-founders on Thursday challenged the Pentagon’s assertion that soldiers overseas were sapping too much bandwidth by watching online videos, the military’s principal rationale for blocking popular Web sites from Defense Department computers.

“They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don’t know what the problem is,” Chief Executive Chad Hurley said with a hearty laugh during an interview with The Associated Press.

Hurley, Chief Technology Officer Steve Chen and YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan emphasized that the online video company is trying to work with the Pentagon in hopes the military will reverse course or at least partially repeal the ban.

“We’d like to explore what’s at issue here and talk about what we can do to sort out what’s the issue here,” Supan said.

The Pentagon said this week it was cutting off service members’ access to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other Web sites, some of which are used by soldiers on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan to post videos and journals for friends and family back home.

It’s Here

Should have seen this coming.

The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests.
The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering.

Websites and services such as Skype and Google Maps were blocked, it said.

Such “state-mandated net filtering” was only being carried out in “a couple” of states in 2002, one researcher said.

“In five years we have gone from a couple of states doing state-mandated net filtering to 25,” said John Palfrey, at Harvard Law School.

What’s regrettable about net filtering is that almost always this is happening in the shadows.

John Palfrey, Harvard Law School

Mr Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, added: “There has also been an increase in the scale, scope and sophistication of internet filtering.”

All Here

HT: Evangelical Outpost

It has been another whirlwind day on Republican blogs. Many see the death of the Republican Party due to the upcoming Illegal Immigration legislation. As I wrote in the wee hours of yesterday morning, they are entitled to their thoughts. I for one do not respond well to shrill rhetoric and tend to tune out those who believe they have the superior voice on any topic.

I found myself searching for reasonable attention to this issue and found it in the usual spots. I may not agree 100% with any of these individuals, however I am drawn to the respect they show both their readers and the process.

Captains Quarters where Mr. Morrissey writes:

As I wrote yesterday, this is about as good as we will get in this Congress. In fact, the Democrats probably had enough votes to pass something much more like a wide-open amnesty, given a few Republican votes in support of that and the relaxed attitude of the White House on immigration reform. The GOP did a pretty good job of holding the line and forcing the Democrats to include the border-first triggers, the reduction of the family interest, and the rest of what Kyl managed to retain.

It’s not great, and it’s not even very good. It’s not bad, though, and given our lack of strength in Congress and the White House on this issue, it’s a good deal that will strengthen our national security now rather than wait another two years to address it. To quote the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. This is one of those times. (via Hot Air)

The Captain linked to this at Big Lizards which is a great overview of all the information which has been tossed about in several locations concerning this bill. While I appreciate all his efforts to consolidate what has otherwise been difficult to follow, I thought this paragraph was fantastic.

- I haven’t read anything on the subject by Michelle Malkin, the Center for Security Policy, nor Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO, 92%), and for a very good reason: their prior hysterical opposition to any immigration reform that even hints at anything other than a wall, imprisonment of employers, and mass deportations of 11 million illegals. They have collectively become “the boys who cried ‘amnesty!’” — at everything, without exception, that goes beyond enforcement.

Neither have I read the above individuals as I clearly remember what took place the last time this time bomb was addressed. IMHO these folks contributed heavily to the loss of both Houses of Congress in 2006. Leaving no room for opposing opinions or debate will never prove an answer to me.

Another person I admire for never jumping the shark on Illegal Immigration is Harold Hutchinson.
Here is a brief look at his commentary. Writing at Called As Seen:

We were never going to deport 12-20 million illegal immigrants. We can, however, fine them, make sure they pay their taxes, and find out who has been employing them and if not punish them, we will know who to keep an eye on.

Last but certainly not least the Anchoress who always writes with clarity.

For thirty years the immigration situation has been kicked down the road from one president to another. For most of that time, little was even said about it. Since 9/11 some folks have been demanding action but rejecting anything but the most extreme response. Lost in all of this is the fact that many, many folks here illegally came legally and then for one reason or another remained past their date. Lots of them have worked hard, lived responsibly and built lives and families here. Their humanity and ours demands that we find a way to make them productive citizens without “shipping them back” and disrupting whole societies.

Each of these individuals seems to understand that while we all have our personal feelings and opinions on this topic, there will never be the absolute answer many are demanding. I have no desire to throw the party of which I have been a member for many years under the bus because they chose to compromise with Democrats.

Now it is wait and see..what will the Senate debate produce in the way of a final bill and will the House find it acceptable? Will the President sign an end product into law? There will be ample time at each juncture to debate the fine points of this bill. This legislation could change direction many times between now and completion.

Personal thanks to all those whom I have linked. It was a pleasure to read calm, reasoned words on this explosive topic.

I’ve been thinking lately about the far right wing of the Republican party and of the far left wing of the Democratic party.

To be honest with you I wouldn’t want to belong to either wing.

Let’s start with the far left wing of the Democratic party, which is the one I am least familiar with from personal experience.

These are your ultra-liberals from Hollywood and the various arts groups, the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual and Transgender organizations, the Ladies in Pink, who support just about anything if it’s strange to the mainstream of America, professors at our universities who indoctrinate our college-age children if at all possible and the major news media in this country.

I don’t care about another person’s sexuality, but I don’t want it shoved down my throat and my grandchildren’s throats as an accepted alternate lifestyle. This is an issue that should be handled by the parents at home and not the teachers in the school room.

The Ladies in Pink…well what can I say about them other than they seem to like the spotlight and making fools of themselves in public gatherings. Their purpose in life seems to be to demand what they want as a small child would demand what he wants. Except the small child would get a pop on the bottom after awhile.

Professors should make their students think, but they shouldn’t politically indoctrinate them. Teach the subject and be objective in the grading, even if the student disagrees politically with the professor.

I have no problem with the major newspapers writing opinion pieces as long as they keep them on the opinion pages and not on the front pages posing as news.

They all want to set the agenda and if it isn’t their way it’s the highway. How many times have we read about Moveon.Org stating they won the last election and the Democrats had better do what they want or they won’t support them?

It’s precisely because of these groups that we can’t get a supplemental funding bill for our troops, or any other meaningful legislation passed.

They want us to pull out and never mind the consequences.

Then we have the far right wing of the Republican party that looks for nothing but purity in everything.

They got angry with the president over his nomination of Harriet Miers to SCOTUS (I agree she wasn’t a good candidate), over the Dubai Ports deal (I wasn’t crazy for that either) and illegal immigration.

In the end they got what they wanted except on illegal immigration and there’s the rub.

To them it has to be deportation of all illegals in this country, an electric fence with a moat if possible, and no chance of any immigrants from south of our border to be allowed into this country at all. Of course I joke about the electric fence and the moats but you get my drift.

So what do they do to get their way? They don’t vote and figure that fixes the Republicans, while in the process getting a worse deal from the Democrats, but it’s the “principle” they stand on.

I firmly believe immigration is the reason the Republicans lost both houses of congress last year and it’s been a problem in our country for over 20 years, but somehow it became Bush’s fault.

The right wing will eat their own and are doing it with our president and members of congress.

They will accept no compromise, just as the far left wing of the Democratic party will accept no compromise that has the word bipartisan in it.

When everyone can’t agree on something they usually give a little so they can get something else. That’s how compromise works and it may not be the best solution for everyone’s purposes but it’s the best solution our congress can come up with at the time and we need to accept it.

If you can get 75%-80% of what you are after, can’t you be a little patient and wait for the other 20%-25%, particularly if you are in the minority and in no position to get a better deal?

Being a conservative Republican does not automatically make me a far right-winger anymore than being a Liberal Democrat automatically makes a person a far-left winger.

If most people are like me, they will be conservative on issues they value the most and liberal on other issues they value. No one but the wingers can be straight down-the-line conservative or liberal.

I believe in personal responsibility, which most Republicans believe, but I’ll bet there are many Democrats who believe the same thing.

I happen to believe we have social responsibilities to those less fortunate than we and whether that be with the help of churches, private charities or {gasp!} the government, then I believe those people unable to help themselves should be assured of housing, food, clothing and medical care.

I guess it all depends on what we’ve been exposed to in life. I happened to have been raised on an Indian reservation and saw many people go without necessities due to lack of funds. Somehow we banded together as a community and helped these folks and now their children are self-sufficient.

This does not mean I think we should help every person who is able to work and just doesn’t want to do so, but I think we should provide them with the tools necessary for them to take care of themselves and their families for the rest of their lives. To me, that’s an investment.