Stardock vs UPS

You missed the follow-up on Game Politics.

I think that the really big hoopla is that it is a rather slow blogging week for gaming related stuff so know we're blowing stuff way out of proportion.

I responded to this here:

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/365378/Facebook_Boycotts_and_Politics

Basically, I read that UPS was boycotting Fox News (in total). It annoyed me and mentioned it on my Facebook page. One of my friends on Facebook then copied and pasted it and added on which in turn got added on and pretty soon all kinds of quotes were being attributed to me.

This is what I actually said: (from Facebook)

UPS has apparently pulled all their ads from Fox News. Will have to see if this is the case. I don't like to see companies trying to push their ideology on others.

And I told our guys to look at seeing if Fed Ex is cheaper (we rarely look at this sort of thing since it's all basically the same) and it turned out they were slightly cheaper so we use them for fulfilmment (for now anyway).

But since there was so little "story" to this, each retelling of it kept getting crazier and crazier until it turned into some thing about Glenn Beck (a show I don't watch).

For the record, I don't watch much TV which includes Fox News.  I occasionally watch Special Report and Hardball (which is on MSNBC) and House and Simpsons and Family Guy. But beyond that, I just don't have much time for TV.

The issue has been debated endlessly already by people who take politics a lot more seriously than I do. My thing was simply that all things being equal, if I have two shippers to choose from I'll go with the one that doesn't use their ad dollars as a means to protest something.  Just my personal opinion, others may disagree.

People who do want to discuss or debate can do so here:

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/365378/Facebook_Boycotts_and_Politics

So, from your post here Frogboy I'm getting 2 messages. They are:

1) You love Fox News and have it running 24/7. You are staging a boycott of UPS and calling on all Stardock partners to do likewise. Fedex has solicited you directly for their business and are giving you a discount if you start using their services.

2) The release of Galactic Civilizations 3 is confirmed for August 2010.

Correct me if I misread anything from your post.

1)  Er, what?  As Brad said, it was a comment taken out of context and overblown by the web community.  And he doesn't watch much TV anyway

2)  That would be Elemental, not GalCiv3

1) I know

2) I know

This is absurd. The *many* companies that pulled out of advertising on Beck's show aren't doing so for any political reason.  Wal-Mart is certainly not *pro liberal*...they are frequent targets of the left. They did so because controversy is bad for business, and they just want to distance themselves.  Apparently, they are damned if they do, and damned if they dont.

Brad on the other hand, seems to be the only one who actually *has* acted out of a political agenda, to make a statement, and not out of a simple sense of self preservation.

You're on you're own here Brad.  Are you going to stop shopping at Best Buy too?  Stop buying your drugs at CVS?   You going to pull your games from WalMart shelves?  C'mon big man.

And that if you don't buy our games, the terrorists win.

Did you read the follow up???

This is exactly why this story got out of hand.

Indeed.  Bingjack represents the exact reason why something fairly innoculous ended up getting out of hand.

I read it, it sounds like more backpedaling from Brad after it became an issue.  He already stated he didnt like it when companies get "political", and yet he was the only one who took a political stance, and looked into switching companies which is his right to do, but much more "political" than anything those other companies did.  All the companies that pulled their ads from Beck just did it out of not wanting to be associated with something turning ugly.

Of course, Brad thinks that people who have Logos are like Hitler too, so maybe he was just upset with UPS for having a logo.

There very much is an organized boycott against Glenn Beck by the organization Colorsofchange founded by Obama's czar Van Jones who was fired because of his past that Beck put on air. Plus his is a political show, so how can anyone say there isn't a political agenda involved somewhere?

Thus the epic facepalm award.

Can't stand his show, but the political push back against the clown is ridiculous.

As is all the drama being made of someone's private facebook page. It isn't like all of us don't have private opinions and aren't entitled to them. The average person is even known to sometimes make personal consumer choices based on them. There should be a lot less outrage and intolerance at someone making a choice different from your own.

You know Bing, posting on the forums is a privilege. If you want to act like a jerk, please find another forum. 

Hey thanks for the direct response Brad. Clears everything up. 

Also, this is a big reason why I am very critical of anything I read, especially headline based news!

Yes Bing, don't annoy the Frog.  He doesn't like being annoyed.  And to be honest, you are getting annoying.

This whole episode reminds me of when Obama called Kanye West a jackass.  It was meant to be off the record and not meant to be recorded, it was just his personal opinion.  And it gets blown up by people saying that he shouldn't be saying this, that, etc.

Stardock has a logo...and Brad is the CEO of Stardock.....which means he thinks he is Hitler....and the skull that was thought to be Hitler's was recently found out to be a woman's......

I SMELL A CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!!!

Yup, Hitler lived out his days as a Catholic Priest in south america.........(doubtful)

Actually the Russians burned the bodies and buried the two together in a shallow grave. When they dug them up a year later to rebury them. Im pretty sure the idiot conscripts tasked with the reburial werent qualified to tell the difference between hitlers bones and his wifes bones. So they probably just took her skull instead. But Hitlers dead, The guy had too big of a mouth to not open it and make it known he had escaped. (I watched that episode myself, wasnt really compelling they left alot of holes in the story)

Sorry about the Off Topic reponse.

Anyway. DOWN WITH UPS. jk. UPS gives me great deals.

This goes to show you have no reading comprehension.  How did you get "people" from President?  How do you make the leap from President -> people -> business?  You're brilliant.  Yes, any business that has a logo is Hitler.  You figured it out...wow!

You're welcome to try and make the point that Wal-Mart is somehow interested in furthering a "liberal agenda", but I think you'd be hard pressed on that.  No company that had such a bias would have been advertising on Glen Beck in the first place.  They are simply trapped in a no win situation.

I know, right? And hence the irony of... http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?s=310baaa6b227a05bc06cd338b2ac4c6e&t=54508

...saying Obama was like Hitler because he had a logo made.

As far as banning me, do so if you must. I won't pretend like it won't sadden me, I've been a loyal customer and contributor for years. Its not like I called you names, or said you didn't have the right to do what you will with your own company. I didn't even make any judgements on the things that Beck said to get him in this hot water in the first place. But all I think I'm really guilty of here, is daring not to lick gingerly at your backside on this one, as you're so used to on these forums.  If the one time I havent staunchly defended you or your company over the course of 4 or 5 years is worthy of a ban, then so be it.

It has nothing to do with defending me. 

I simply am asking you not to grossly misrepresent (effectively libeling really) the events.

We've all had to deal with the headache of the last 2 days of having my Facebook comment completely twisted from something relatively benign into some sort of support for Glenn Beck and what not.

Similarly, your statements on logos and Obama is similarly pretty libelous.

If you want to behave that way, there's plenty of sites full of hateful people who will embrace that kind of thing but it's not welcome here.

Let's all calm down shall we!  This thread is getting as out of hand as the story itself.  Whatever you do Bing, don't flame JillUser.  That will get you a ben faster than you can say "who's JillUser?"

You are allowed a point of view but you clearly didn't read Brad's post before responding.  He was already annoyed about the whole thing and you did kind of make it worse.

Thread needs closing and lets all relax and have a drink.