Crematorium Controversy Burns Up City's Credibility

In yet another interesting turn of events for Spring Hill, the Board of Zoning Appeals has done a 180 and given a green light to a crematorium that no one in the town except for the prospective proprietor wants. We live in a "me" society where every individual seems to think the world revolves around him, and if I want to open a crematorium, dog gone it I'm going to do it, and if some kids get sick from inhaling ash, so be it. Not my fault. If the property values of the homes near my crematorium go to pot, so be it. Not my fault. The good of the one outweighs the good of the many. That's democracy right?

States Should Stand Ground on "Stand Your Ground"

The left, through Bill Clinton and other voices, is using the Trayvon Martin tragedy to attack the "Stand Your Ground" rule of States like Florida. What many have failed to point out, though, is the fact that neither account of what happened has anything to do with "Stand Your Ground". According to the family of Mr. Martin, Mr. Zimmerman shot him down in cold blood when there was no imminent threat to Zimmerman's life, and experts who have reviewed the tapes indicate that Mr. Martin may have been on the ground screaming before he was shot. If this is what happened, Mr. Zimmerman is culpable for homicide, and "Stand Your Ground" is no defense. On the other hand, Mr. Zimmerman's story is that he did NOT "stand his ground" but in fact was retreating back to his car when Mr. Martin attacked him, forcing him to use force. This terrible situation should not be used by the left as an opportunity to attack gun rights, and the fact that this young man died changes nothing about the dangers to law abiding citizens posed by criminals in this country daily or citizens' natural rights of self defense. If Mr. Zimmerman did something wrong, he should be punished. If Mr. Martin did something wrong, then unfortunately he paid the ultimate price for it. While we wait for the judicial branch of Florida to work, we don't need anti-gunners like Clinton blaming gun owners other than Zimmerman. And while I believe Mr. Zimmerman is culpable based on the evidence, who knows what the evidence will show or what a grand jury would do? I do know this. If I were Mr. Zimmerman, I would call Jose Baez, because he has already got one Florida client off for murder when the evidence showed she was guilty as sin.

Romney-the Face of the GOP or Independent Party Raiders?

Mitt Romney will soon ride into South Carolina as the Republican frontrunner, having already won two states. A Massachusetts moderate from a non-evangelical Christian background leading at the polls should cause us all a ponderous pause. Liberals love to bash the GOP as a hard right conservative Bible thumping party, but if that is really the case, why is Mitt doing so well? I am still waiting for the liberal media to answer that question. Of course, a great answer might lie in Obama's failure to deliver on the "hope and change" he promised Democrats, independent voters and Republicans disillusioned after 8 years of George W. Bush. The Obama administration has been, with the exception of bagging Osama, an abject economic and foreign policy disaster. Thus, with Obama unopposed in the Democratic primaries, independents may have gone into the GOP looking for an alternative, and have ended up bolstering Romney against the conservative base. Either way, Obama has a problem. If the GOP with its Tea Party and Ron Paul contingents have succeeded in taking the party back to moderate Rockefeller Republicanism (a process I would say started the second Reagan left office), the Democrats' sad, tired old attacks will be as effective as the GOP's bloody shirt tactics were in the 1932 election. If Romney's rise is coming from independents and Democrats coming into the party for reasons other than "raiding" the primaries, then it shows that the Democrats have sunk back to the Carter years among independents, i.e. a party that can't get anything done and makes bad situations in economics and foreign policy even worse when they win the White House. Independents and disillusioned moderate Republicans were a key part of the Obama coalition. If he's lost them, getting an endorsement from the Band Perry won't be enough.