Democrat denied the right to vote in the Republican primary: something's wrong here. "A three-judge political panel?" I have taken a quick look at the Tennessee statutes in question -- T.C.A. sec. 2-7-115(b) and 2-7-126 -- and sure enough, there is language about bona fide party affiliations. However, what if you are not affiliated with either party? The election commission's position would suggest that an independent would be barred from voting altogether.

I hope this gets challenged.

A fatal car wreck in Anderson County.

Poll: George W. Bush wins (loses?) on question of who is more to blame for our current economic woes"

When asked whether Bush or Obama was responsible for the recession, 53 percent of likely voters said Bush and 26 percent said Obama, according to the poll from Third Way, a think tank with close ties to centrist Democrats. Another 21 percent of respondents said they didn’t know.

Bush had 8 years to take the biggest boom economy of our lifetimes and run it into the ground. Obama's had a year and a half to try to straigten us out. The question remains, however, is the Administration's economic strategy the right one, and is it working?

President to Republicans: help the unemployed.

Anne Applebaum on the hypocrisy of the right. It's awfully curious that the Right is beating up on the Administration for not doing enough to stop the oil flowing in the Gulf of Mexico. Aren't they the same ones who keep saying that government is bad and should be reduced/eliminated?

I guess they don't quite believe that when there is political hay to be made.

Slowly but surely, we move into the modern age. Facebook and Twitter links are now on the web site. Just scroll down to the bottom and you'll see 'em!

Thanks for the positive comments about my dog samaritan story earlier today. Just because I'm a dog lover and I've got a photo on the computer, here's a picture of the late Murray the WonderDog. I paused before taking time I didn't have to help that dog this morning, but then I thought of Murray, and figured, "this is what dog people do."

While I don't often toot my own horn, here is my good deed for the week. I'm writing about it because it might actually help others in the future.

So, I'm at the place where I get my haircut this morning. As I'm walking into the building, I see a dog -- an australian shepherd -- hanging around by the door. She was quite tame and friendly, but also had that look of the lost animal. She had a collar on, which turned out to be an Invisible Fence collar similar to the one pictured above. What I mean is that it has an electrical doodad on it that hits the dog with a shock, uh, correction, if it gets too close to the invisible fence wiring. Unfortunately, aside from the generic-looking collar, there was no other sign of who owned the dog.

Control freak problem solver that I am, I called my wife, who works for Petsafe, which now owns Invisible Fencing. She got the Invisible fencing guy on the phone, and she told me to unscrew the electical leads sticking out from the underside of the collar. Once they were off, I removed the actual collar from the electrical doodad, and there was a serial number on the doodad. I read that out to Jill, who gave it to the IF guy, who was able to track who the owner was! About 10 minutes later, in the middle of my haircut, the guy called and came right over and retrieved his dog. A life saved. Woo-hoo!

The moral of the story is this: if you find a stray with one of these type collars on it and no other owner information, you can track the owner based on the invisible fence's serial number, now that you know where to look. If you ever find a pet that has such a collar, try calling your local dealer, who might be able to track the owner.

This explains why the immigration debate is so heated.

UT,other Tennessee schools, sell student info. Is this an invasion of student privacy, or compliance with some open records law?

Texting while driving is now illegal in Kentucky. Kentucky tracked 57,000 crashes as a result of texting actvity in 2009 alone! Frankly, considering how many lousy -- and dangerous -- drivers there are out there because of constant chattering into a handheld phone, I'm in favor of banning all automotive cell phone activity unless on speakerphone or via headset.

A new trailer for Mel Gibson's "What Women Want." Much more realistic than the original. WARNING: Lots of cussing; not for children or tender ears.

Yipee! Tennessee football is getting national press from ESPN.com! Oh, shucks, I spoke too soon. This kind of publicity I don't need.

Soldier Threatens Knox County Chancellor. Many times have I disagreed with a judge's or chancellor's ruling. Never have I thought to threaten the judge or chancellor. The veneer of civilization runs awfully thin....

Isn't this racist? At 5:44 into the video, Michael Meyers, constant Fox News talking head and Executive Director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, says, "The NAACP is now a politcal arm of the White House. Al Sharpton and the NAACP people are in the White House so often they ought to have rooms designated . . . ."

Considering we have an African-American president, calling the NAACP a politcal arm of his administration strikes me as insensitive, at least. Even assuming that Sharpton and the other guy to whom he unintelligibly refers have visited the White House, does that make the NAACP a tool of the Administration? Not without something other than vague circumstance, it doesn't.

UPDATE: Criticizing Meyers's hygiene? Fair or unfair? You decide. He is a poet. Don't you know it.

It's official. Our own Glen B. Rutherford has designated as a Cityview Top Attorney for 2010 in the area of Social Security Disability. To see the listing, go to the link and then type 104-105 in the page box at the bottom left.

Congratulations go out to Glen for this long-overdue accolade, as well as to our colleagues in the Knoxville Bar who voted for him.

Here we go again. Now, I realize that to be a big time football player, you really need to have a sense of invulnerability. But how can these players not realize that they are in the spotlight no matter where they are? Rogers hasn't played a down yet for Tennessee and he's already in trouble. Myles is now on his second altercation since April. Getting in bar fights is just stupid. And unacceptable. Hey guys, ever heard of just walking away?

Glenn is looking at lawyers and what people think about them. As a lawyer, I usually am disappointed at how badly lawyers are portrayed in contemporary TV/movies. Even a pro-plaintiff picture like Erin Brockovich is about how the non-lawyer paralegal -- Julia Roberts -- forces the lawyers, against their own apparent natures, to do the right thing and strike a blow for the people.

The question we need to be asking is why there is such an anti-lawyer bias being played out in contempo media? What happened to the lawyer heroes -- Perry Mason, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, even the L.A. Law characters? Why is it that the current view of lawyers seems to be out of Boston Legal: the schmuck [James Spader] or the buffoon [William Shatner]?

24 years into law practice, I can guarantee that the jerks portrayed on TV wouldn't last long in the real world. The vast majority of lawyers I have known over the past quarter century have truly been devoted to serving their clients and maing a living doing so.

But I guess that doesn't make a good movie or TV show. Wait -- except for this one.

Finally, I can post. I've been trying since last Thursday, and the stupid Blogger New Post window wouldn't work. I am now using Firefox 3.6.3, and it seems to operate. Google offers no interactive help, either.

Cheesiest Lawyer Advertising?  I am proud to say it's not from Slovis, Rutherford & Weinstein!  I will agree with Hunter's two finalists, although I won't identify them in this post.  I mean, they ain't plugging me; I ain't gonna plug them.  And they're really cheesy, too.

Historically, Hunter is a little inaccurate, referring to Ward "Wheelchair" as the earliest big TV lawyer advertiser.  In fact, it was this firm -- then known as Lockett, Slovis & Weaver -- that was doing the biggest TV buys in town, round about 1991.

And finally, I should give some credit to my attorney competitors  colleagues.  A wise marketing guru once told me to "look at what the other advertisers are doing -- and you do the exact opposite."  That's why we're concentrating on information-based marketing and not insulting the intelligence of the public, like the other guys.