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“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. In Niemöller’s first utterance of it, in a January 6, 1946 speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt, it went (in German):

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me. – Wikipedia

Now “they” are coming for the bankers.

Is there Anything more anti-capitalist than executive salary caps and / or regulating the maximum that people can make? Well yes: those bailouts in the first place. But it actually appears that the US will recover almost all the TARP money that was not given out as a freebe to the unions (read the American Auto Industry). That money was thrown into a black hole. Many of the banks were really on sound financial footing, but were forced to take the money so as not to single out the ones that actually needed it.

Now there is all this talk about limiting the salaries of bankers. Over in the Police State of England, “Banks told to comply on bonuses or lose UK banking licences in shock FSA ultimatum“.

The shocker here is that the UK has said in effect that the banks must BREAK their existing contracts with employees in order to comply with regulations:

One pay executive in a major bank told The Daily Telegraph: “The message came back that while the FSA agreed that it does not have jurisdiction over contractual law, it does have jurisdiction over issuing bank licences in London, and that we should go away and unwind the contracts.”

Wow.

But that’s England. They’re accustomed to Big Brother. There are more public video cameras in London than their are American Made Cars (Hell, I think there were 15 public camera’s in that Brothel I visited . .. but I digress).

Here in America, it seems to be some kind of top priority to limit the pay of Banking executives. The line goes “That kind of outlandish blah blah blah is what got us into this recession.”

No.

The pay of executives is not what caused the recession. What caused the recession was people buying a payment, rather than house, getting in over their head, inflating housing prices and now defaulting in droves.

Someone needs to stand up for the bankers. Put aside that this is antisemitism wrapped in the cloak of populism. Jews have their roots in finance going back to when usury (then lending with interest) was considered a Sin by the Church.

The real issue here is that limiting the compensation of private industry will stifle innovation and growth. If we let it happen to the bankers, Internet Marketers can’t be far down that list. We’ll wake up one day and find that the best Gormet Chef is only allowed by law to make $100k per year. Then, before we know it, we’ll have a command economy where the only way to get your pay raised in any industry is through political influence rather than through merit.

Stand up for the Bankers. It’s not the popular thing to do. But it’s the right thing to do.

If you don’t speak out, you’ll have only yourself to blame when they come for you.

Update: Related.

All it takes to make a successful pop song:

1. Good Looking Artist.

2. Autotune just about any lyrics (probably best about love or relationships)

3. Set to a beat with a catchy synth.

Check this video out for a great examples of 2 + 3:

How is that link building going for you? Still a pain in the ass?

Building the lower layer of links can be a royal pain the behind.

Lately I’ve come across this tool that can automate a lot of the painful routines for you or your contractors.

Specifically:

* Create worpdress blogs in WPMU hosts
* Create blogspot blogs
* Create tumblr blogs
* Post comments on Pligg hosts

It does it automatically too. Creates the email accounts, fills the forms, breaks the captchas, pretty much everything.

You can also enter your own {spun | creatively written | machine generated} content on it using the typical content spinner export format.

If you spend some time mastering the tool you can create networks of blogs and manage them using a blog network manager. Haven’t tried this yet but looks pretty decent. This means you can build different layers of link equity without worrying about your own self hosted domains.

Check these videos for some more detail:

Getting links:

Getting Links from LFE on Vimeo.

Managing your blog farm:

Managing Blogs from LFE on Vimeo.

This tool could work wonders for spammers trying to build the bottom layer of their link pyramids. Don’t be a lazy ass, do a good job avoiding footprints and generating good quality content.

I’m told Version 2.0 is being worked on. The big promise is a task manager/scheduler with which you will be able to set up your projects and forget about them for as long as you like.

Check it out: link farm evolution.

Have you seen this?

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Interesting stuff.

This week in the CRAFT Flickr pool we saw: Altered Men's Dress Shirt by heycarrieann99 Felt skull by urone317 and I love chignon by pollaz

The main function of Fox, talk radio, and the rest of the right wing noise machine is to keep conservatives misinformed about the actual views of liberals so they can retain their support for the right and blind hatred against everyone else.

The freeform writing style of social networks like Twitter and Facebook is changing the way people communicate, and causing students to fail English. That’s the claim of a piece out this afternoon from the Canadian Press . According to the article

... critical of the BC government ? What's next-- Google ? [H/t A Creative Revolution ]

... critical of the BC government ? What's next-- Google ? [H/t A Creative Revolution ]

Facebook Facebook seems to be a handy tool for companies who want to get more information on clientele like their full names, friends, age, gender and interests. It’s a simple hack that was first publicised by blogger Max Klein. He talks about a

Justin Timberlake suits up as he films a scene for The Social Network on Saturday (January 30) in Los Angeles. The entertainer, who turns 29 TODAY, shot a scene with co-star Jesse Eisenberg , who wore a much more casual wardrobe - he was dressed in a

22 Love it In Case You Need Another Reason to Love Facebook http://byflutter.com ― If you need another reason to love Facebook - or Flutter - I've got a post for you here. Not convinced yet? What if I told you this post included the word "Shitninja"?

If you'd like to contribute, feel free to join our pool , or email us images directly.

From wired:

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars

Fake Steve Jobs had a great writeup too, a few weeks ago in a similar vein:

I’m like, Dude, do you not remember all that stuff you told me about not making a phone, back when you were still not recusing yourself from iPhone discussions during board meetings? You swore, and I mean you looked me in the eye and swore, that you would never make a phone. He says, We’re not making a phone. HTC is making it.

I was talking to Phil Schiller about this and he pointed out that even Microsoft never was brazen enough to pull something like this. Even Microsoft had some tiny bit of shame. Google is a different beast altogether. They’re like nothing anyone has ever seen in our business. Not only are they not ashamed — they think they’re the good guys!

It boggles the mind. They’re pure sociopaths.

All this stuff about not being evil? And being open, and transparent? All this crap about how they think everyone should just share all the information in the world? Yeah. Except you don’t see them sharing their search algorithms, do you? You don’t see them sharing the stuff they’ve done to Linux in their data center.

They’re pure sociopaths. So well put!

The other day i needed to upgrade my flash plugin (so I could watch porn, obviously). What did I see when I went to install? A fucking PRE CHECKED Google Chrome Spyware kit. Why is Adobe pushing it? Well it probably has something to do with the $2++ spiff they get for each install.

Why the fuck would I want Chrome if I’m updating a flash plugin? That makes 0 sense. Chrome is the ultimate in spyware. It’s fucking evil to the core.

Any other company does half the spying or is half as intrusive as chrome is would get WAY more heat that Google’s taken on it. But Google just gets a pass. Imagine if Microsoft tried to pull that shit. They’re be public fucking hearings about it!

I think this is the year the worm turns. This is the year that both FSJ and the real SJ told the world that: The fact of the mater is, Google is full of shit – and I think the world just might listen.