Make an example of Carbonite (Update: ProFlowers joins Rush boycott)
Liberal groups have seized on a strategy I didn’t think would be effective, but has had some success, to go after advertisers of prominent conservative media personalities.
Media Matters explicitly seeks to bring down Fox News and investigate its executives, and Fox News advertisers have been targeted by groups like Color of Change, which has targeted Glenn Beck, Eric Bolling, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and Andrew Breitbart.
Now Rush Limbaugh advertisers are the target because of an analogy he used. As Jimmie Bise points out, Rush’s comments were overblown if one listens to what he actually said, but nonetheless, the use of “slut” or “prostitute” even in an analogy was inappropriate, as Rush has acknowledged. It also distracted from the attack on religious freedom which is the heart of the controversy.
As has become the pattern, Rush’s advertisers immediately were attacked and threatened, and several gave in quickly, like Quicken Loans and Sleep Number, pulling their advertising.
No advertiser was more associated with Rush than Carbonite, an online computer back up company. Rush often would read Carbonite’s ads himself, and would tout their service.
Carbonite initially took a principled position, asserting that it advertises on both conservative and liberal shows, and that its advertising does not constitute an endorsement of what any particular host says.
Indeed, Carbonite still advertises on the show of Ed Schultz, who makes unhinged attacks on the Tea Party and conservatives daily, and called conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham a slut (for which he later apologized).
In his initial press release, David Friend, the CEO of Carbonite, stated that he would be speaking personally with Rush next week to discuss the issue.
Then Saturday night, the CEO of Carbonite issued a statement withdrawing advertising from Rush’s show notwithstanding that earlier in the day Rush has issued an apology. The text is in my prior post.
The reaction among my readers and others on Twitter has been fast and furious, focusing as much on Carbonite’s hypocrisy as well as the way in which Carbonite so publicly injected itself into the political fight.
Make no mistake, the fight is not over Rush’s words, for which he has apologized.
This is not a question of promoting more speech, or alternative views. This is an attempt find something, anything, to force Rush off the air. Ms. Magazine has launched a campaign to do just that by going after Clear Channel Communications, whose stations carry Rush’s program.
Rush will survive this controversy, but most conservatives would not. It takes just one joke gone bad, one misplaced analogy, and a conservative talk show host could see his or her advertisers under organized assault. As Ed Schultz shows, a completely different standard is applied to liberal talk show hosts.
It is time to take a stand against the left-wing tactic of going after advertisers. Carbonite is the company on which to make that stand.
First, Carbonite is so associated with Rush that it must have a high number of Rush listeners as subscribers. Far more, I suspect, than those who love to hear Ed Schultz call the Tea Party names. So a reaction can be effective.
Second, Carbonite is a small public company, so it has to answer to shareholders. Carbonite’s share price has dropped preciptously in the last several months for reasons having nothing to do with this controversy. Going political and attacking a large segment of one’s subscriber base seems like a losing business strategy, and the CEO does not have the last word on the subject.
Third, Carbonite is in a weak financial position. That may be why it reacted to left-wing pressure as it did. But it also is why it may pay a heavy price for its political actions in taking sides.
In Carbonite’s most recent Quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Carbonite discloses that it loses money hand over fist, and is expected to do so for the foreseeable future [note: I broke the single long paragraph down into multiple paragraphs to make it more readable]:
Risks Related to Our Business
We have experienced losses and negative cash flow since our inception, and we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability or positive cash flow in the future.
We experienced net losses of $17.4 million for 2008, $19.2 million for 2009, $25.8 million for 2010, and $17.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2011, respectively, and have an accumulated deficit of $94.3 million as of September 30, 2011.
We have not generally achieved positive cash flow from our operations or reported net income, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. We expect to continue making significant expenditures to develop and expand our business, including for advertising, customer acquisition, technology infrastructure, storage capacity, product development, and international expansion, in an effort to increase and service our customer base.
In 2011, we have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, increased expenses associated with the relocation of one of our data centers to a new facility, and with relocating our customer service operations from India to the U.S., which will adversely affect our operating results for 2011. We also expect that our quarterly results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors described elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including the timing and amount of our advertising expenditures, which are seasonal, as well as the timing and amount of expenditures related to the development of technologies and solutions and to defend intellectual property infringement and other claims.
In addition, as a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses, including increased costs for director and officer liability insurance that we did not incur as a private company. We may also incur increased losses and negative cash flow in the future for a number of reasons, and we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, and other unknown events.
For these reasons, we expect to continue to record net losses for the next several years and we may not be able to achieve or maintain positive cash flow from operations or profitability.
I am dead set against the tactic of targeted boycotts used as a means of suppressing speech, as I have said many times here. But simply speaking out against the tactic is not working.
People can criticize Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or anyone else. That’s okay. The answer to speech one does not like is more speech, not silencing others. Carbonite has joined the side of those who want to suppress speech.
It’s time to take a stand against those advertisers who succumb to the pressure. We should not expect advertisers to take sides, and I would not want Carbonite to stop advertising on the Ed Schultz show. Carbonite should return to its prior, politically neutral position.
We need to send a message that we will not acquiesce in the new left-wing tactic of trying to force conservatives off the air by targeting advertisers.
Carbonite is the place to start.
Update 2:20 p.m. ProFlowers just announced on Facebook that it is dropping its advertising on Rush. DailyKos and others had been organizing a boycott of ProFlowers, which had held out until now.
Later Updates: Kirsten Powers who has pushed back in the past against the sexualized attacks on Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell and other conservative women from those on the left, gets it right:
Did you know there is a war on women?
Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.
Boycotts are reserved for people on the right like Rush Limbaugh ….
Comments
Gat trumpet you got there, Wm. Excellent use of it.
CHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGEEEEEE!!!!!
That should be “Great trumpet”. Bloody iPads.
Contact all of these companies and tell them you have many contacts in the conservative world and are sending out other emails. And of course do that too.
Two things…
1. MOZY…say it with me…as an alternative to Carbonite; and,
2. I have long held that a boycott…or a BUYcott…is as close to a pure exercise in democracy as you can find, and wholly in keeping with free market principles.
You and I can let Rush and his sponsors know we will stand by him, and you and I can vote with our dollars (which provide us exquisitely finer choices than do our actual ballots).
Somebody needs to be identifying these left-wing pressure groups and making THEIR lives more interesting. If Rush Limbaugh and Carbonite have to pay dearly for exercising their right to free speech, so should these leftists.
I can understand why Carbonite is losing money. They don’t have a good product, in my view. Their customer service is worse than their product. I had it for a while and found problems with it. Their customer service was difficult to contact and of no help once I got their attention. Rush may be better off without Carbonite. As a customer I’m better off without them.
Argh! This is a tough one. On one hand, they did make an ass out of themselves by running from Rush.
On the other hand.
o Carbonite has a long track record of sponsoring the conservative message on Rush’s show. Thank you.
o Carbonite is a business and has enough troubles maintaining its viability in a tough business climate without becoming embroiled in a political debate.
o Carbonite has the right to sponsor anyone they want the same as Rush has the right to espouse any idea he wants (as we have a right to choose companies to do business with). They are flip-sides to the same free-speech coin.
If Carbonite wanted to do this right, from a public-relations perspective, they should’ve also dropped sponsorship from Ed Shultz. That would’ve made it clear that the political realm was too “hot” at this time for any kind of sponsorship, be it on a liberal or a conservative show. Instead, they now have a no-win PR situation.
If they wanted to do it right from a moral and American perspective they would say that free speech is free speech, and inviolable, and that they’ll continue their sponsorship of both Schultz and Rush and that people need to stop getting the vapors over mere words and learn to love and embrace the open debate.
Point 3 has an obvious corallary which is you have the right to choose who you purchase from based on their corperate actions. Typically I (personally) don’t weight that very high in my assement of my purchases, but it does go up and down every now and then when someone does something markedly stupid.
In any case, I’ve been wondering of Carbonite was just looking for cover to pull their ads anyway. Rush ads must be expensive (with the high listener ads) I wonder if the payments to Ed Show are so small they’ve forgotten about them….
Carbonite is a business and has enough troubles maintaining its viability in a tough business climate without becoming embroiled in a political debate.
They are the ones who jumped into the water.
I’m glad Alan Grayson isn’t boycotting conservative sites.
Just dropped my Carbonite account and told them why. I heard about this company on Rush’s show. I support Rush.
Quarterly and annual earnings estimates for Carbonite have all fallen over the last month from negative to even more negative and it had a rather larger negative earnings surprise the quarter before last.
Not good timing for it to inject itself into a controversy. It looks quite vulnerable.
I, too, do not really like the idea of going after advertisers, but Mr. Friend really needs to ponder that Ed Schultz clip.
Oops. A rather “large”
Related?
Kinda…sorta?
Businesses cowering to the leftists?
“ESPN erases Israel from its list of countries served”
Is this something?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2854294/posts#comment
Congratulations, Professor.
You are being Breitbart.
Without free speech, we end up with insulated factions, which leads to civil war.
And who would suppress free speech, as between the Collective and Conservatives? That is done by force.
It is NOT a suppression of free speech to walk away from someone with whom you disagree.
It is NOT a suppression of free speech to vote with your dollars for…or against…the message someone is sponsoring. It is, in fact, a market choice. Think of it as you would any kind of feed-back you send producers in the market.
You and I are under no compulsion to consume anything…yet.
You disapprove? Have the courage to say WHY.
The end result of massive silencing campaigns is the same.
Look at LA. Any one with the wrong opinions is shunned by all “right thinking” people. Sure, they are free to do that, but the end result is a city that is hyper-factionalised, and in which every faction exists in its own perfect echo chamber.
People don’t reveal what faction they are unless they are sure you are of the same faction. Ever day was like the Sienfield abortion episode.
I used to live there, and I never, ever, want to go back.
$94 Million in debt is reason enough to use another online backup service. Do you really want to risk the irreplaceable pictures and movies of your children to a wuss like Mr. Friend?
[...] Carbonite, Quicken Loans, Sleep Train, Legal Zoom, Citrix Systems and Sleep Number will never see a dime of my family’s business. These firms have chosen sides. So be it. [...]
Prp-Flowers jumped on the oxcart, too. I used them at least 6 times a year. No More.
Be sure to send them a letter and tell them WHY you won’t use them. That way they will know that the impact of their pull-out from Rush is having an affect on their bottom line.
I think the other conservative hosts should drop Carbonite as a sponsor. Conservative radio has a much larger audience with more money. See how they like not being able to get their message out…
Kinda puts Mark Levin in a pickle, eh?
You can start yourself Prof. Jacobson by showing a spine next time. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that this was a blatant attempt to go after Rush and you helped. You are still helping by saying in this post that Rush needed to apologize. You should have stood up for him from the beginning. Never, EVER, let the Left set the narrative. EVER. Always fight back and always defend your own side.
But no. Conservatives can’t do it. In this misguided effort to somehow stay above it all, to somehow tell yourselves that you’re better than the Left, you never fail to eat your own. You never fail to be exactly what you are. Decent, reasonable, people. And we’ll never win because you’re not willing to fight.
Rush Limbaugh is the most intelligent, articulate, passionate voice of conservatism we have. He is a true gentleman and polite to a fault. I’d actually rather listen to Mark Levin because Rush is just too damned nice for my tastes. When I’m pissed off? I know Mark will be there ready to give me the validation I need when I need it. I feel better after I listen to both of them.
Andrew Breitbart knew that The Narrative is everything. And Rush was set up years ago to be the perfect whipping boy whenever the Left needed a new Narrative. And you, and Ace and his crew, and other so-called conservative blogs played right into it.
The next time something like this happens think of Andrew and ask yourself “what Narrative do they want me to forward” and then do the opposite. Try. It’ll be easy once you get the hang of it.
Absolutely we all should be eager to follow John Boehner and Mitch McConnell into battle. Mount the horses, into the valley of death, brave men onward.
Sigh.
We to stop following their lead.
Limbaugh is an arrogant blow hard who is full of himself that he actually though it was ok to use this kind of language on world wide talk radio. Why would you allow yourselves to be defined by someone who calls a woman a slut and a prostitute? No wonder conservatives dont’ know if they are coming or going. There seems to be no difference between them and liberals.
I would say the conservatives are rallying around this attempt to shut Rush up. I will be quiet no longer.
We are Spartucus…..WE ARE BREITBART!
Maybe because the women is s slut?
I guess I disagree with some of what was said-
Personally, I don’t need a radio talk show host to “validate” my beliefs.
I’d much rather someone “invalidate” them, using facts, logic, and common sense. I know of no other way to grow and learn. I need to know what I don’t know, not know what I already know.
You said “the narrative is everything”.
I can’t disagree more. The narrative is subjective. Commonly a tool for the pundits and propagandists.
narrative=spin.
I prefer facts. Not how they are spun.
Maybe I’m parsing..if so, I apologize.
Maybe I’m just trying to say that I prefer to be shown why I’m wrong, than told that I am right.
Maybe I need to give it a rest–being under the weather, and not having the clearest of minds at the moment.
This is what I understand Breitbart and Jaynie59 to mean.
This situation is a great example of how The Narrative is everything and how conservatives must not allow leftists to frame it. The Narrative being pushed by the left is that this is an issue of women’s health and denying the “right to contraception.” The real issue is whether the Obama Administration can force religious institutions to support something contrary to their relgious beliefs, which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
There is always a Narrative – controlling it is much if not most of the battle. Conceding premises to the left is political suicide.
I think you have nailed it perfectly.
Exactly. Conservatives seems to understand Alinksy tactics but they not only fall for them every time they help marginalize the targets by not fighting back against those tactics.
Rush Limbaugh has been the target ever since he went on the air. Yet Rush is NOTHING LIKE HIS PRESS. Nothing. I started listening to Mark Levin first because Mark’s show is free. I loved him so much that I decided to pay for a Rush 24/7 membership and signed up for two years. I listened to him for weeks before I finally realized that everything I had ever read or heard about Rush Limbaugh as a flat out lie.
They attacked Rush over his slut comments because they had already set the narrative about Rush and everyone would believe it. And almost every so-called conservative blogger fed the narrative.
Rush did not issue that apology to save his show. He did it to save the country. He knew that if he didn’t take himself out of the argument it would go all the way to the election and Obama would win. Just like when they blamed Rush for Oklahoma City and Clinton rode the wave to a second term on the backs of the Evil Right Wing Christian Conservative Narrative.
Rush Limbaugh is a great man and anyone who doesn’t defend him unconditionally really needs to think about why they’re a conservative in the first place.
Hi Jaynie59 — I love what you say — that once you started to listen to Rush, you realized that everything you had heard about him in the MSM was a lie.
Rush is a great man. Without doubt. On economics and politics, Rush is a daily panorama of insight, brilliance, historical memory, analysis and optimism. And love of America and the American people. “The people who make this country work.” I love Rush as if he’s a friend.
AND, Rush’s attitude toward women has been a potential problem for years. When Rush starts talking about women, for pretty much all the years Rush has been on the air, I always just turn off the radio. Because if I keep listening, I am liable to be so insulted that I can’t listen to him again for days.
Pelosi set out bait. Rush took the bait. Sorry. Rush walked right into this.
And as emotionally satisfying as a boycott might be, boycotting Carbonite or ProFlowers LEAVES NANCY PEOLSI UNTOUCHED. This is WHAT THE LEFT DOES.
Super Tuesday is the day after tomorrow.
GETTING NEWT ELECTED NEUTRALIZES NANCY PELOSI.
We can ACTUALLY GET STARTED REFORMING Washington, D.C.
And OUR SCHOOLS! Parents won’t allow their children to be indoctrinated by Leftists if parents have power.
NEWTRALIZE THE LEFT!
If you support Newt, please! GAIN LEVERAGE WHERE IT COUNTS.
You know what do do. Sign up at newtsnetwork.com. Let them know you’re there, leave a comment at the Public Square and someone will get in touch with you. They’re wonderful people. The best.
Maybe we can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, but we can absolutely get Newt the nomination. And if Newt is the nominee, Newt will win in the fall.
Super Tuesday could be the start of something really big, something that will actually MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Let’s make THAT happen.
I would like to be absolutely clear that it is my opinion that Rush gets to say whatever he wants.
Once Rush said those things, I guess I would have liked it if Rush hadn’t ended up apologizing. That makes it look as if he can’t say whatever he wants and the Left wins.
I like Rush and I respect what Rush does more than I can say. If Rush didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. Rush is almost the indispensable man. Don’t get me wrong, as Rush says. I love Rush I love how Rush stands up for America and the American people. I love his work ethic and how Rush encourages us each to exert ourselves, to dream big, to make the most of what we have in a free country.
I realize I just criticized Rush and it might be taken that I’m agreeing with the Left. Which I am not, not not not not. Not. 1,000 X not.
All I really trying to say is, look at where the real action is right now, and the long-term benefits do not revolve around boycotting these companies.
The long-term benefits of today revolve around decisively removing the LEft from office in the election of 2012. And that means Newt. And it means now.
Superb, Jaynie59.
I exhale Carbonite and I exhale Carbonday..
Easy-Peasy deal, huh?
There are a couple of principles at work here:
1. Free Market darwinianism. Carbonite can’t compete with ordinary folks burning their files to a CD or DVD – their own, very inexpensive backup.
a. GE was in a similar mode. Now the rules coming will require citizens to buy GE technology. It would be less than a trifle to require businesses getting tax breaks to use Carbonite.
b. Carbonite is hemorrhaging cash, so its sponsorship of Rush would have to end at some point, or be reduced among the other radio talking heads. Friend used a convenient, if reprehensible moment to make good on that.
2. If left alone, the sponsors can make up their own minds to take principled stands. Instead, we get what Obama has called Private-Public Partnerships. The Tides Foundation, and other sorosian agencies, in concert with the Federal and state alphabet cops threaten doom and destruction – not of the corporate entity – but of the individuals in that company.
a. The union workers who protested a Bank of America exec (and moderate Democrat) and threatened the man’s teenage son wasn’t an accident. The unions did the same in NY and Connecticut. Personally going after a child to force the adult to act in a certain way is the wave of the Progressive Future.
b. The companies generally fund both the GOP and Democrat Party every election cycle. Through threats of dire personal consequences, donations to the GOP can be halted.
Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, the Taliban – all use these tactics of personal destruction to suppress support of their enemies. That the Progressive Left is doing the same thing is scary as Hell, and doesn’t bode well for this great Nation of ours.
As an aside, Carbonite sells something I don’t need. I do burn CDs and DVDs backing up my own stuff. For folks who’ve computerally evolved to just an iPad, or a crackberry, Carbonite is a good thing.
Good summary really.
http://cafehayek.com/2012/03/if-you-forcibly-take-my-money-you-cant-complain-if-i-protest-vigorously.html
Oh Jim, if EVER I needed a Rolleyes™ emoticon… the girl isn’t HELD to a standard of civility. Rush and every right wing pundit WILL be, and if needed, the goalposts will be moved.
~Fluff’nStuff
I just went to Carbonite’s website, and guess what. They have a 15-day FREE TRIAL. Well, free to us anyway. It still costs them money to provide the service. Of course, I would never suggest that we all sign up for free trials and then cancel them 10 days later…
The ultimate irony is going to be if Bain Capital puts pressure on Clear Channel. Although I am a longtime rush 24/7 subscriber and support him 100%, I almost wish they would, cause I can’t help thinking that the Bain connection was behind Rush’s scorching of Newt on the private equity issue. Rush is too smart not to have understood that Newt’s very specific criticisms were right. Maybe if Bain bites Rush now, Rush will wake up and realize the ramifications of the deal he made to go soft on Mitt for no reason, and to undercut Newt for no reason. Rush is big enough to survive this, cut his ties with our enemies, and FINALLY play a part in opposing these guys for whom he has carried the water for too long.
TJSC –
I agree that Rush is too smart not to have understood that Newt’s criticism of Bain was not in any way a criticism of “capitalism.”
I found that very troubling at the time.
Unfortunately the Right is uncomfortable using the same tactics as the Left. I would hate to see us sink into the same gutter many on Left dwell in however we do need to make it clear that actions have consequences.
I personally have no problem with rush apologizing – IMO he went to far once he got on a roll. I like it that he can see when he has gone too far and opened himself up to being used by the Left.
I agree, in having no problem with Limbaugh’s apology. He goes too far in his rhetoric, and can deliver an effective message with different wording — wording that detours from direct insults.
Here’s the problem with your thinking. You make no allowance for the truth. You make no judgment about what’s right and what’s wrong.
Sandra Fluke went before Congress under false pretenses and lied. Her premise was exactly what Rush described. A slut wanting the government to pay for her poor choices. Is it crude to tell the truth? Or does the fear of offending someone who clearly needs to be offended more important than the truth?
Sandra Fluke is no role model and everything Rush said about her was absolutely true and was based on her own words.
Both sides are not the same. The Left spews hate in an attempt to shut up anyone who disagrees with them and their goals. The Right tells the truth about the Left and is demonized for it to scare and silence anyone who might be swayed by the Right’s argument. THAT is the issue. When the Right agrees with the Left’s premise by caving under the weight of their attacks, they undermine everything they stand for.
And by the way, everything the Right does is in direct response to an offensive attack by the Left. It’s only the media who takes it and twists it to fit the narrative.
Sorry but IMO being crude out of a sense of righteous indignation accomplishes nothing other than giving your enemy an opportunity to gain sympathy. He didn’t have to be crude to tell the truth.
Rein in the pretense that single women having sex makes them sluts or whores. Rush could have easily made his point by sticking to why should the rest of us pay for her personal choices WITHOUT the insult.
Calling someone a slut is only crude because the Left just announced it was. Calling someone a c*nt is crude, as Maher did. Calling someone a d*ck is crude. But “slut”? “Slut” is the non-crude, polite way to say f***ing whore, which Fluke’s speech presented her to be, both physically and ideology. In non-crude, polite society a young lady would not talk about the normalcy of needing contraceptives to support sex eleven times a day, every day of the year for three years. Ms. Fluke was not a lady. She was crude. She presented her needs to support being a slut, and she was out whoring for money to do so. She is paid to get money to be promote the extraction of money from others–a political whore. Calling her a slut is polite; not anywhere close to her crudeness.
Oh, and Ms. Fluke was not embarrassed by publicly discussing such personal behavior…..not a blush or stammer out of her.
But the president called her and said her parents should be proud of her (being a slut?) I know I would be proud in my daughter if she was so sexually active she had to spend #1,000.00 a year to provide for her “Health” care
Yes, I do quibble with the good Prof. on this point. He gave in on the grounds of perceived propriety. Rush possibly gave in because he has a large staff of people he cares about and pays well.
Just the other day I defended Chas. Blow’s right to say what he wants to– crass as it was– and I’m glad I did. It gives me free rein to support Rush in his speech, and even his manner of it. Do we have free speech or just freedom of speech that isn’t banned in Boston?
Also, this website is full of links to a Dem website with a petition against Rush. Did anyone here actually go there and see? This effort is HUGE, well-funded, and coordinated at a national level. There is BIG money behind this attack.
I’m afraid that the Old Guard of Conservatism is doomed to their propriety, much good may it do them all. We were politely asleep in our comforts, hurtling down the tracks of Progressivism, and now that the train is headed for the abyss, we want to wake up and say, “Oh, I say, do be careful not to curse at the switchman!”
Eff that. We’ve been pulled, slowly but surely in small degrees over the midpoint. Somebody give me a shout and say “Hell NO!” Anybody. Bueller?
Have to agree with you Joan.
The old guard conservative are so caught up in their “moral rectitude” that they can’t even fight back in an existential struggle.
Cut loose the cowards they only inhibit us.
I would have preferred Limbaugh didn’t apologize as he does what he always reminds us not to do “Don’t accept the premise”. I support his apology if helps him feel better about the whole situation however he needs to double down on the intellectual dishonesty of this women and all those who have championed this harpy in the assault on our basic God given rights.
@Juba Doobai!, I understand, damned auto correct!
Otherwise I have cancelled my four year Carbonite subscription and as I type this ZipCloud is starting it’s backup of my MacBook Pro.
Mr Friend, again, you want to be principled so be it. You better pray your parachute is not lead because your time at the company is limited.
Excellent post. Thank you Bill. I linked you to this…
Just sent an email to them canceling my subscription and telling them why. I am sick of these liberals trying to silence conservatives. I bet by tomorrow there will be a backlash against carbonite!
Some things never change. Limbaugh blowhard calls a woman a slut and prostitute and all of his supporters rush to defend him and blame liberals. No wonder the GOP is such a mess. Another promising blog down the drain.
Get down off your high horse. The people who are harrassing Rush’s advertisers because they are pretending to be offended that Rush used an analogy suggesting Fluke was acting like a slut thought it was “edgy” and laughed when Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt.
You should boycott Legal Insurrection forever.
Please try not to be such a wiener-head. — Dave Barry
Then, butt-out and don’t come back!
It’s your privilege, after all.
Hi wodiej -
Why down the drain? This blog is the best blog evah.
Your presence here has been a great benefit, I think.
This is the same thing the Left is always trying to do — get other people fighting over cultural issues. THIS IS CHICKEN FEED.
They’re taking away your liberties! Your children are likely to live in poverty! The STATE will tell you whether you can have a life-saving operation and the answer will be”no” if you’re over the age of 60. Obama or his minions will have the power of life and death over you, your grandparents, your children!!
Are you seriously going to turn your back on each other over this Contraceptive Controversy?????
Ms. Fluke and her pretended sexual and financial problems? This is a set up.
Pelosi must watch in awe as the dominoes fall, amazed that it still works, again! Again!
Please let’s realize that whatever our differences, we are the ones trying to fix the badly-damaged structure of our government. For our country, that we love.
And we AGREE about that.
WE AGREE about that.
WTF?!
I thought Rush was an idiot to call her a slut, which if you read the transcript was part of an example of having govt take care of everything, he used this as a bad example.
But he apologized, and I accept it, I don’t really like Rush, but I will defend him, he apologized, where the hell is the apology or even minute outrage from ABC, NBC, or CNN or SeeBS when Hillary was called a “white whore”, Palin a “c(nt”, or Meg whitman, NOW was ok with calling her a whore.
In my opinion no woman should be called these disgusting things, but it appears its ok for women who are in the left’s way to be called everything digusting and the Barry MSM is ok with it, and only selectively gets outraged. And to me as a pro-choice independent IS BULL$HIT!
[...] Rush and his listeners, how much longer before Chapter 7? Try Mozy suggested by Ragspierre. Assholes, Dumbasses, FAIL, Gutless PussiesPermalink ← A Slut, But Not A [...]
Looks like Carbonite has some ethical problems.
“Amazon review controversy
Carbonite reviews on Amazon were a subject of controversy in early 2009. Apparently, employees of the company posted favorable testimonial-style ads on Amazon in 2006, including those by senior members of the management team.[52] Additionally, the New York Times reported that the CEO was made aware of the situation in September 2008 but did nothing to remove the false postings until the NY Times blog appeared in January 2009.” {From Wkipedia]
Spot on Professor. How about a “Twitter bomb” from our side to explain the situation to Carbonite?
They’ve heard from me and I’ve voted with my wallet- I signed up for service with a competitor.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/03/proper-response-to-left.html This is a war and we have to win it.
Herb Alert! Herb Greenberg details how Carbonite is already facing stiff headwinds.
BTW: I second Jaynie59. Every word!
Newt delivers smack down and and stays on issue, it’s a beutiful thing to watch:
http://www.therightscoop.com/newt-owns-david-gregory-on-contraception/
That’s a wonderful clip; like AB, Newt is too smart and well informed to buy into the specious premises that consistently frame the left wing narrative.
I was cheering at my TV when I watched it as it aired this morning. Newt is a stud.
MaggotAtBroadAndWall — love it!
I’m adding this to my collection of sentences I never expected to see.
Love it when newt smacks them down!! Wish he was the nominee right now that was ahead in the polls! Wouldnt a debate between him and obambi be great fun to watch!
Thanks for the link. Beautiful. Newt gets it.
Yes, you need a good defense. But you have to keep going on offense to score points.
Too often conservatives think they just need to perfect their defense … tinkering here and there.
You have to go on offense! Please, conservatives. Learn from Newt and Andrew!
Thanks for the link to Newt’s smack down.
I just love him and wish he was the front runner.
I agree with the Prof. that Rush should have apologized, and also that the apology should have been accepted. It’s more than inconsistent to tolerate Ed Schultz but not Rush.
Rush Limbaugh likes to get hold of the daily news, and make long, often interesting commentary, that he winds up into a zinger. How you get from the story to the zinger is a lot of the attraction of the show. What happens next is that the zinger is the ONLY thing that gets reported. When that happens, it makes him sound like a raving lunatic.
The reporting on Rush Limbaugh looks remarkably like a Mitt Romney attack ad: The Romney camp will take a detailed answer a difficult question, and then edit it to the point of delivering a false impression. Part of this is hostility, and part of it is the media thirst for sound bites. They are pressed for time, and they’ll take a sound bite that gives a false impression faster than a true one, because then they can say it’s “controversial.”
Rush Limbaugh isn’t going to change. But if you find yourself agreeing with him, then you have to post the context for the zinger. Otherwise, you WILL be misunderstood.
I don’t use Carbonite because I don’t like their security model. More importantly, though, I have a slight issue with this: “It is time to take a stand against the left-wing tactic of going after advertisers.”
That’s merely one facet of standard left-wing aggression. Their entire approach is (selective) outrage and intimidation. It’s not just advertisers. They go after anyone and everyone who dares to go against them. Remember Joe the Plumber?
I’m not saying that standing up to them when they go after advertisers is bad. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. The question is, is that the best fight to pick with them?
I don’t actually know. It’s just a thought.
He will indeed survive, and Mizzzzzzzz Magazine is free to screech and wail at Clear Channel until they’re blue in the face. The fact of the matter is that Rush owns his show lock, stock and barrel. He is employed by NOBODY, to the extent that he kicks a piece of his pie to Clear Channel in exchange for distributing his show to their stations.
Clear Channel isn’t the biggest player in radio by a long shot, so they (as well as any “concerned advertiser”) would be very foolish to believe Limbaugh couldn’t jump ship tomorrow and take the largest, loyalest radio audience in broadcasting to a hungry competitor.
Sandra Fluke, tar baby.
That was her role, but there were other players. Pelosi, Obama, and the whole Collective.
Her statements were so outrageously false and wrong, they constituted a giant rhetorical hanging pitch.
All Rush did is knock it out of the park…which is his forte and his nature to do.
We all learned from this…or we all should. This is how they play. Which is to say, “dirty”. That means we have to play HARD, which is NOT dirty.
@Ragspiere you finish with, “That means we have to play HARD, which is NOT dirty.” I add we will also pay for our own contraceptives when we do play as you describe…
Pretend to be ashamed… At least pretend…
My company has four locations and a total of 19 computers, all backed up by Carbonite. That will end tomorrow when I get to my office.
Give ‘em ‘ell, ‘Enry!
Good. I hope you make it clear you are cancelling to protest their withdrawl of advertising support for Rush and NOT because you are offended by what Rush said.
I’ve already written the email, and need to get to my office Monday morning before I send it. I wrote that I honored Carbonite’s right to advertise where they wish, but that I could not believe or support their stated reasons for pulling ads from Limbaugh, ostensibly because of his calling the Fluke woman a slut, when they did not do the same when Ed whatshisname called Laura Ingraham a slut, i.e., that I would not help to finance Carbonite’s choice to practice politics, especially in a hypocritical manner.
Great news.
The only reason Limbaugh should have apologised was in order to save sponsors. The parasite is a prostitute as is any woman who wants another person to pay for her to have sex. The fact she also wants to shred the Constitution in the process makes her a useful idiot as well.
Fluke is a prostitute.
Jim
Carbonite said in the 10Q, “We surpassed 100,000 subscribers in 2008, 500,000 subscribers in 2009, and 1,000,000 subscribers in early 2011. Today we have subscribers in more than 100 countries, with 94% of our subscribers based in the U.S.” Obviously, at least so far, this has been a very high growth company.
The irony is that, from the prospectus associated with the IPO they did in August, they say they rely heavily on advertising to acquire those new subscribers. So they just withdrew advertising support for the guy whose audience is the largest in all of television and radio?
At least in the short term, they probably did more to hurt their business by withdrawing advertising support from Rush than anything we hope to accomplish by cancelling subscriptions.
Considering how unprofitable they are and how their subscriber base has grown rapidly, sounds like one of those “we make it up on volume” stories!
1. Caveat: the number of CARB shares that nominal insiders have bought in the last six months is almost triple the number of shorted shares.
2. Apparently big companies like Amazon and Google are entering the cloud storage business. It’s conceivable that Carbonite could sell out to one of them at a good price without ever making a profit.
3. Some weeks ago I encouraged the Gingrich bandwagon riders among LI commenters to register at Intrade and back up their talk. In that vein, I invite the voluble commenters who deprecate Carbonite’s prospects to short the stock—or, alternatively, to start talking sense, preferably about the economy and national debt.
NB: I have no problem with a Carbonite boycott. I have a problem with wishful thinking during an election campaign that is more important than most.
Proflowers:
wecare@customercare.ProFlowers.com
1-800-580-2913
This is giving me an idea.
There should be at least one Conservative bombshell woman who could perform a Lady Godiva-like stunt to make the point that Conservatives buy products, too – and can withdraw OUR MONEY at any time.
(Please – not Ann Coulter!)
Just let all of these advertisers know that you will not be able to pay for their products because you are going to have to be spending that money to pay for all of these girls’ birth control pills…..
Heh!
For those who are going to cancel their Carbonite services look here for alternatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_services
I signed up for BackBlaze the moment I heard about Carbonite pulling their ads. Once my initial backups are complete, I will pull the plug on Carbonite and let them know why I did. I wonder if they know just how many of their customers — and potential customers — know of their product solely via Rush Limbaugh? Rush will have no problem finding other advertisers, but Carbonite will be lucky to find as loyal a customer base as that which regularly listens to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.
Let’s think here for a moment. Do you (home user) honestly believe that your personal, private data will be safe with an external service from somewhere else to back up your data? (I totally understand that businesses need to back up their data at a different location, but I’m talking to home-based users here.)
You can buy external hard drives for back-up anywhere nowadays – even those in the terabyte range. (I found one 5 TB eternal hard-drive for sale at Amazon). Backing up at your home is easy.
Why the heck do you need Carbonite?
Dump Carbonite – and tell them you’re doing it for Rush!
If you’re looking for alternatives to Carbonite, you’re asking the wrong question. You should ask “what should my backup strategy be?”
There are two basic elements to backup: risk management and time management. Most people, unless they’re doing video editing, generate a trickle of data each day, so I’m not addressing big data users, nor am I addressing people with high security needs. Note, though, that while *some* of your data might need to be secured, it’s unlikely that *all* of it does. If you’re paranoid, it’s probably better to have lots of innocuous crap out there anyway.
The most basic technique in time management is to do nothing. We now have many competing cloud-based services that are already backed up for you, so while I don’t advocate putting *everything* on them, put as much as you possibly can. The marginal consequences of losing data are still generally higher than the marginal consequences of someone snooping on you. This means using your online webmail, your address book, your calendar, etc. Right there, you’ve got 80% of the stuff you need on a daily basis backed up.
If you can push most of your critical documents to a service like DropBox or its competitors, you’re now pushing 95%. And if you’re the typical user, you’re either paying nothing so far, or a fairly modest fee, and your documents are immediately available at all times from any networked computer.
If you can get most of your applications through an app store of some sort, I strongly recommend it. You get all your applications backed up for free. All you lose are your preferences if you have to start from scratch. Sure, I personally build some stuff from scratch, but I’m write software for a living, and only build stuff that I’m actually using. I _love_ the App Store, and I use both Apple’s and the Ubuntu Software Center for Linux. I don’t have to track serial numbers or watch for updates or any of that BS, and all my apps are completely backed up for free.
We’re now at 100% for getting our day to day stuff back up and running if our computer dies, and so far we haven’t spent a dime.
Your archived data might be quite a few gigabytes, especially if you have lots of movies, music, photos, etc. Archived doesn’t mean it’s not important, it may be family photos, it just means it doesn’t change very often, and it’s too big to put online. The risks are hardware failure or catastrophic failure such as fire, theft, etc. Mitigating those risks basically means keeping a copy off-site.
The most practical solution is simply this: get a network attached storage (NAS) device for your home network; you’ll want to spend a bit of time looking up what it is, and reviewing alternatives. Get way more space than you think you need; it’s cheap. This achieves centralization of your archived data.
Then you need an equivalently sized portable-ish USB drive. Every four months or so, you’ll want to wipe the external drive and copy everything from the NAS to the external drive.
What you’ll notice here is that there is *no* monthly fee, just a few hundred bucks for a NAS device, an equivalent sized external drive, and a safe place to put it outside your home. You’ll want to toss the NAS and external drive after six years or so. At this point, your house can burn down, and you can buy new hardware and get everything back in a few days.
HI scooby509 — thank you for setting all that our so clearly.
I really appreciate you taking the time. I hadn’t thought about it that way before.
I learned a lot and it gave me a lot to think about. Thanks.
I’ve bought products from ProFlowers and its affiliates several times a month for years, but I instructed them today to close my accounts because I won’t buy from them again.