Category: Politics, Religion & Money

It Was The Best of Buys, It Was The Worst of Buys

Best Buy
Note: Yes, I edited this image

Best Buy, a store I like visiting (I bought my new Canon Pixma MP600 there), is coming under scrutiny for deceptive pricing and poor customer service.

George Gombossy, of the Hartford Courant, reports that the Connecticut Attorney General is now investigating the existence of an internal Web site used by Best Buy sales people to convince customers that items are no longer posted on bestbuy.com at the “previously” listed sale price. Click here.

A quick search reveals there are other unhappy recent Best Buy customers. They tell some interesting stories; this one in particular, because it involves a soldier stationed in Afghanistan.

Pratt Attack – 9

Parley PrattMitt Romney is no longer governor of Massachusetts. Now he’s running for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.

Being a resident of the state (or, like Virginia, “Commonwealth”), I feel Romney did one thing worthy of note. He forced Billy Boy Bulger, brother and protector of the infamous crook Whitey, out as president of the University of Massachusetts. Other than that, I’m inclined to agree with Mike Dobbs‘ opinion of Mitt Romney.

What does this have to do with my family name? Romney’s great-great grandfather was the infamous Mormon leader and polygamist Parley Pratt. Yes, the very same Parley Pratt who had 11 — no, 12! — wives, and was murdered in 1857 by the former husband of one of them. Whew!

Here’s the story of the Romney-Pratt connection:

Polygamy a prominent feature in Romney’s family tree

By Jennifer Dobner, Associated Press Writers | February 24, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY –While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.

Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Continue reading Pratt Attack – 9

Non-Union Jobs

I don’t own an iPod or a MacIntosh computer, but I admire Steve Jobs. He’s made mistakes, of course.

One mistake was hiring John Sculley; a man of limited ability, and zero vision, who successfully maneuvered to have Jobs removed from Apple a short two years after being recruited from Pepsi.

Apple barely survived the incompetence of Sculley. Jobs returned to run the company in 1996, and take on the seemingly impossible challenge of competing against Microsoft. Jobs’ stunning comeback is one of the all-time great business success stories.

The Jobs stock option scandal doesn’t interest me. What does are comments he made recently at an education forum, concerning public school teachers. He doesn’t like unions. He wishes school principals could fire teachers.

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

Michael Dell, who was present, explained succinctly why unions came into existence.

“The employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good.”

Thank you, Michael Dell.

Colbert at New York Comic Con

Head’s up, fans of Stephen Colbert and comic books. You are one and the same. Colbert will be at the New York Comic Con this weekend! My buddy Dennis will be there too, although mostly to see Stan Lee. I’ll be right here. Starting work on the taxes. 🙁

Stephen Colbert is the Emmy Award-winning host of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. He will be at NYCC on behalf of Oni Press in support of his new 5-issue comic book miniseries, Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen, which will arrive in stores on March ’07. The series is written by John Layman and Tom Peyer with Jim Massey and illustrated by Scott Chantler with others. It is a full color, 32-page comic book that will retail for $3.99. Colbert will be autographing on Friday, February 23 at 4:30pm.